help cooling a greenhouse

Dr. Treez84

Dr. Treez84

Well-Known Member
Some of the clones and older ones I got going. Sorry for the mess, been a lot of building going on. Going to start a journal once I transplant the little guys and get everything set up. Show the greenhouse being built on through this season.

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Greenthumbskunk

Greenthumbskunk

Well-Known Member
I have put up a greenhouse this year and its no where as big as yours. It is 16x 48. I had problems with some over heating as well with a 24" fan on one end a 6'x7' door on the other end. I have a 3 ft storm door on the fan side. I built mine on 4x4 posts and I put up 60% shade cloth on the sides first before I put on the plastic. I finally got my roll up sides done a week ago. I rolled them bad boys up and my temps went down 20 degrees.
First thing I would do is pull up that black felt you have on the ground. That stuff heats up big time. You need minimum 2 36" fans on one end of your house and I'd have some big shutters on the other end. I'd build a box around the outside part of the shutters and staple screen mesh on it to keep out bugs from flying in. You don't want moths coming in and laying their dastardly eggs and then have them eating on your buds. I'd have the fans and shutters at the peak of your greenhouse since heat rises.
After my temps went down my plants exploded in growth the last week. I was very disapointed with their height and I knew that temps were killing their growth. They will also suck down the water trying to hydrate themselves from the heat. It would be no problem before I got the roll up sides for temps to be 110 at 9 in the morning when outside temp was 84. My plants outside which were only a month old were 4x as big. I have around 200 plants in my greenhouse right now and most are between hip and chest tall. I have some auto's in 5 gal buckets that are 7 ft tall. KC 45's. My Sweet Seeds auto's are between 2ft-3 1/2 foot tall all in buckets.
I'm liking growing plants just in 5 gal buckets with no drain. much less work.
 
Dr. Treez84

Dr. Treez84

Well-Known Member
How did u make ur roll up sides? I've been un screwing, rolling up, using with bungies, then end of the night putting them back down and re screwing. Pretty annoying process

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Dr. Treez84

Dr. Treez84

Well-Known Member
Wind is too bad to leave all four open or I would. Roll the sides up and leave the doors open when the weathers ok

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Greenthumbskunk

Greenthumbskunk

Well-Known Member
Dr. Treez84 said:
How did u make ur roll up sides? I've been un screwing, rolling up, using with bungies, then end of the night putting them back down and re screwing. Pretty annoying process

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Click to expand...
First of all I'm a southern redneck...let's get that out of the way ;). Lol
It was easy and took me about 1.5 hr of time all by myself. I went to lowes and bought 100 ft of 1" pvc pipe (grey it's uv resistant, don't use white) then I bought a stick of 1.25. Need some small screws as well about 1/2" long.

I did buy some more stuff to make a square fitting on the end to use a wrench to wound it up but I don't need it as it's pretty easy by hand. Oh get a rod of some sort that is like 3/8 inch thick. I used one of those small electric line fence posts but any ole rod will do as long it is long enough for your height.

Get some pvc glue and cleaner of course. I'm sure you got plenty of that lying around from your hoop project.

I took 5 sections and glued them together to make 50 ft. Did it for each side. I took my my 1.25 section of pipe and cut it down the middle with my skill saw to make 2 pieces. I then cut those 2 pieces at once to make 6-7" sections 2 at a time.

All right grab those screws and your ratchet gun and a fresh battery Line the plastic up with the bottom of your plastic on the sides. Take the plastic and make sure everything is squared up because when you roll it up one side may be rolled up higher than the other. But you can adjust it later.
Take those cut pieces and use those as clamps and drill a screw through each one through the plastic into your long pvc. That will hold your plastic in place when you roll it up. Put one about every 5 ft and be sure to use a smooth head for your screws so it won't tear your plastic while rolling it up. Also you could drill a tiny pilot hole in those homemade clamps to make it easier to drill through. One the front end of my pvc tube I drilled something like a 1/2 hole at the end to stick that rod through.
After you secure one side of your pipe and plastic together roll it up by hand to see if it rolls up together. I got in the middle of mine and did it. I had to make just one adjustment on one of the ends by unscrewing and moving it out by about 4" so it rolls up the same distance off the ground. After rolling it up and it looked to my satisfaction, I held the roll and made my way where my rod was and I put the rod through that hole and into the ground. Waalaa. It stays just fine and you will have next to nothing invested in it. I say mine is about 5 ft off the ground all the way to my U channel and wiggle wire. The shade cloth on my sides keeps the bigs out and let's the breeze through.

I thought of that roll up pvc side in about 10 min so you might have a better idea instead. But I hope my way I did it helps you out with your grow. It's not hard to do and it works and that's all I can ask for for myself. I do everything by myself with no help so I think of ways to make things happen.

Peace brother. :))
 
Bugeye

Bugeye

Well-Known Member
I was running 115F last year with 90F outdoor temps and all my fans on. Originally purchased a fan rated to exchange my air 1X per minute but I'm not sure it ever performed at that level. Anyway, took a cue from doublejj's design and reconfigured one wall to open up this year. That took 15 degrees off my high temps. Added a mist fan configuration that knocks another 10 degrees off and I can maintain outdoor temps. I've found that with windows open the rh doesn't move up at all with mist fan running - but I am in low humidity area to begin with. May not be able to use it much longer because the plants are growing into it's flow. Will tie them out of the way for a little while.

My structure lets about 70% of light in and I can still get decent solid buds. When I ran it with a 30% shade screen on top of that my first season, I really didn't get the bud density I wanted.

All that said, I have not seen improvements in vegetative growth rates from cooler temps so I think just getting large pots and keeping water levels up is most important. Still hoping to see improvements in buds from cooler temps but definitely won't run a mist fan too far into flower if at all due to my space constraints.

week 11e.jpg
pic is from a few weeks back.
 
Dr. Treez84

Dr. Treez84

Well-Known Member
@Bugeye Love the set up. Plants look good too.

After adding the fans and rolling up part of the sides its evening out now. Only about 5 degrees warmer on the inside than it is outside. Most the plants are really starting to take off. I'm going to switch to the shade cloth next year though, sounds like the best way to go.
 
BrownGuy420

BrownGuy420

Active Member
@Dr. Treez84 Glad you are getting your heat under control, your plants are going to love the enviroment and also you now can finish out the season and not have to worry about rains making you harvest earlier. I just wanted to throw down this link for some shade cloth that's called alluminet which is a alluminum like netting for greenhouse's that reflects the sun to keep your GH cooler during the summer and warmer during the winters....here's the link.

http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/product/30-percent-aluminet-shade-curtain/shade-cloth
 
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