Friday 29 March 2013

Allotment Week - Greenhouse - Part 2

Now I have sides in pieces all over the allotment. Time to turn it into a skeleton ready to accept the glazing.
 This was kind of difficult, mainly because it was just me again. (I can't tempt the wife out on a freezing cold day).
But I managed to get it upright (after raiding the equipment store for stepladders again). Once I got all the roof bracing in place I was thinking of the long term position of the greenhouse on the plot.

The original idea was to have the entrance facing next door's shed (as shown in the photo above) with the greenhouse positioned north/south. Now this would give me equal sun during the day on both sides. But when the plants and staging get put in then things may need a little tweaking. I took a wander around the site to see how other people had positioned theirs. It was about 50/50 between north/south and east/west. Since I have bought a single 8ft staging section I decided that it would be best situated on the sunny side. And for ease of access I think having the opening facing the shed would make things better. So I turned the whole thing through 90 degrees. This was done by the simple expedient of placing two long boards which will be used for the beds (one board is shown above) underneath the edges and lifting the whole thing up on my shoulders and turning it around.

Once it was placed in the new position I dug out holes and a trench for the base. The say the corners should be concreted in place, but I don't think that is necessary. It's not  that windy on the site being surrounded on all four sides by houses. So now we have the greenhouse in it's final resting place. All the loose nuts and bolts have been tightened up. Many are only finger tight, but the more important ones (corners, roof and base) and solidly done up with the supplied spanner.
The instructions also say that it should be absolutely level as well. It's not. There is a slight downward slope from the door entrance to the back. The back is where I will place the rain water butts and I'll put the piping in so that the gutters run into these. Better to have it captured there than just pooling everywhere. Tomorrow will be the final stage where I put the glazing in, and fix the door.



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