Dozens of free design guides and plans for dozens of sunspaces and greenhouses you can build.
Attached sunspaces can be a good way to solar heat your house, provide some additional living space, plant growing space, a place to read the newspaper and look at the views, and a place to hang the laundry for solar drying. Very versatile and they look nice to boot.
Sunspace designs vary widely depending on whether you want to 1) provide heat for the attached house, 2) provide more living space, or 3) grow plants, or some combination of the three. Be sure to review the guides below so that your design does what you want it to.
Directory for this page:
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Sunspace and Solar Greenhouse Design and Construction | |
Sunspace Notes: Attached sunspaces can be
a good way to add solar heating, and provide some additional
living space, or plant growing space. Sunspace designs vary
widely depending on whether you want to 1) provide heat for the
attached house, 2) provide more living space, or 3) grow plants,
or some combination of the three. |
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The Homeowner's Complete
Handbook For Add- On Solar Greenhouses and Sunspaces
Andrew Shapiro |
![]() It would be hard to overemphasize what a really fine reference this is. |
Solar
Rooms -- excerpts from the book Passive Solar Energy, Bruce
Anderson and Malcolm Wells
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![]() + Types of solar rooms. + Design guidelines for solar rooms. + Construction details for solar rooms. + Pictures of example solar rooms. |
Sunwings - The Harrowsmith
Guide to Solar Addition Architecture
Merilyn Mohr |
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Solar Greenhouses
Barbara Bellows https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/viewhtml.php?id=59
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The Solar Greenhouse Book
James McCullagh (editor)
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Sunspace design guidelines
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Construction and Greenhouse
Tip Sheets, Charlie's Greenhouse
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Design and Installation Guide
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Installing Large Glass Sunspace Windows... |
The article goes over some problems that have developed with the glazing units in a 1980's sunspace, and then details the full repair and a better way to mount the glazing units.
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Low
Thermal Mass Sunspaces for Home Space Heating (and
many other things) Low thermal mass sunspaces provide an exceptional combination of advantages: very efficient space heating for the home they are attached to, added living space that can be used for a wide variety of purposes, a wide range of cost effective designs, and they can also look great (a plus for HOAs and spouses). This section provides a design guide to explain what its all about, test data that documents their heating efficiency, and quite a few example low thermal mass sunspaces. |
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Our Home Power
article covering Low Thermal Mass Sunspaces (LTMS) - Design Information
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You can download the pdf version of the article after subscribing to the digital edition. The digital edition of HP is $10, and a 3 year digital subscription at $24 gives full access to all 25 years of back issues -- a great resource. There is also a free html version of the article on the HP website here... |
Design
Guide for Low Thermal Mass Sunspaces, Gary |
This design guide covers low thermal mass sunspaces -- including:
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Low Thermal Mass Sunspaces for Space
heating Transparent, Walk-In Enclosure Installed Along South Side of Existing House and Used to Heat the house, William Shurcliff Nick Pine usenet post on low thermal mass sunspaces...
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![]() In a nutshell, if your main goal for the sunspace is house space heating, you don't want to waste solar heat heating up mass out in the sunspace. |
Testing
the Heating Performance and Efficiency of a Low Thermal Mass
Sunspace |
![]() ![]() In addition, it provides temperature surveys of the space, thermal images, and some thoughts on designing for a combination of good space heating ![]() The sunspace performs very well as a space heater -- on par with high quality active collectors -- and you can read your paper and catch a few rays. All the details... |
Example
Low Mass Sunspaces Some examples of low thermal mass sunspaces that shows some of the huge range of possibilities. |
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Mike's
Low Thermal Mass, Multi Purpose Sunspace in the Colorado Mountains |
![]() An exceptional job of blending the added sunspace with the existing house. The variety of purposes that sunspaces can be put is what makes them exceptional -- drying clothes alone saves about 1200 KWH and 2000 lbs of CO2 a year. Mike provides all the details on the design, build, and performance... |
Innovative, energy efficient, cost effective Montana solar home A really nicely integrated Low Thermal Mass Sunspace on a new home -- plus lots of other innovation energy, cost, and material saving ideas. |
A treasure trove of applied innovative ideas. |
Low Thermal Mass
Sunspace in Minnesota,
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![]() The air distribution and control system is very simple, and designed to be maintained by the home owner with only simple tools. Certainly a beautiful and cost effective addition to the home. All the details on this modern, elegant sunspace... |
Norman Saunders Cliff House Cliff house by Norman Saunders (pdf)
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![]() The sunspace is coupled with heat storage systems in the attic and crawl space that allow the home to achieve 100% solar heating. |
Instant Sunspaces --
How cheap can a sunspace be?
Laren Corie
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html
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![]() A good article by Laren Corie on how to build and experiment with inexpensive sunspaces. The example used in the article cost a grand total of $22, and went together in a couple hours! A free download. |
Air based solar-thermal “Hot-Box” collector
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![]() Very nicely built -- as Mitch says, its "wife approved". Some performance estimates provided. Note the use of the reflector to improve collection -- reflectors are particularly effective in that they increase collection area without increasing heat loss. I would pass on the idea of adding rocks for heat storage for the reasons discussed above -- unless you have a way of insulating the glazing at night. |
Solar
Sunspace Plans
This list of sunspace plans could be longer -- how about contributing some more!! Gary |
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Sample Sunspace Pictures
Sample sunspace pictures: www.sundancesupply.com/index2.html http://homeaddon.com/pg5-wood-sunrooms.cfm http://cedarbuilt.homestead.com/LeanToGreenhouses.html http://www.sturdi-built.com/greenhouse-styles-sizes.php
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![]() Prices vary over a huge range depending on materials and construction, but sunspaces of all prices can perform well thermally. Also, many of the greenhouses shown in the next section can be adapted as attached sunspaces -- some of these can be built for pennies a square foot. |
Artic Glass Sun Room Plan
Plan Sheet 1 (800K) Plan Sheet 2 (800K)
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![]() Artic glass was providing these plans at the MREA Energy Fair, and appeared to be offering very good prices on the tempered glass to construct such a sunspace. website: www.KissOurGlass.com (honest) (this link appears to not be working for now 6/7/07) |
Construction
Details for Solar Rooms
From the book: Passive Solar Energy" |
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Embedded
Sunspace...
Sustainable Housing Design Guide for Scotland
Full Description (111K pdf) |
![]() This site has a lot of generally good information. |
The Bathhouse
Joe Schwartz and Ben Root |
![]() Very Good article on passive solar bath house using solar heated water. Built with emphasis on low impact and using local materials. Strawbale construction with native stone floors, and "dirt bag" foundation. Composting toilet. Planning, design, and construction details. 2nd part gives quite a bit of construction detail. |
Earth-sheltered Greenhouse Mike Oehler, Mother Earth News
Another build using Mike's design: How To Build an Earth Sheltered Greenhouse,
Susanna Raeven, Mother Earth News |
Mother Earth News Article, Issue 202 Good article on a unique design for a greenhouse that combines solar gain and earth sheltering. Good construction detail. The 2nd article by Susanna provides some good build photos and description. Some nice details. |
The Construction of Mother's Bioshelter
Greenhouse,
Finding Mother Earth News articles...
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![]() An interesting greenhouse design that combines a number of functions in one design. Uses both active and passive solar as well as photovoltaics. |
One Man’s Personal Straw Bale Odyssey David Booth www.homepower.comSearch HP archives for issue 46 |
![]() Good article on building a variety of small load bearing strawbale buildings, including a very nice greenhouse. Lots of background on strawbale construction, and some how-to detail. |
Solar Closets and Sunspaces
Nick Pine and Paul Bashus |
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Convertible
Solar Porch
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![]() Panels roll up for quick conversion between open and enclosed. |
Sunspace with Attached Solar
Air Collector http://home.ntelos.net/~sslee/solspah.htm More of his solar projects here... |
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Sunroom, Greenhouse and
Skylight Plans
http://www.jshow.com/y2k/listings/35.html
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Greenhouse Plans and Descriptions | |
Greenhouse Notes:
There are some conflicts between using an attached greenhouse for space heating, and using it for plant growing. For maximum space heating of the attached house, the greenhouse space should have little thermal mass in order to provide a maximum of heat to the house during the sunny period. A low thermal mass greenhouse of this type will not be suitable for growing plants year round in cold climates, as the night time temperatures will go below freezing -- however, it may still be useful for extending the plant growing season. On the other hand, greenhouses intended for growing plants year round need more thermal mass to keep their heat overnight, and will have less heat to transfer to an attached house. The Andrew Shapiro book listed above, provides very good detail on these tradeoffs for various climates -- highly recommended. The plans cover sizes from small cold frames up to greenhouses you could play football in. |
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An
Energy-Efficient Solar-Heated Greenhouse Produces Cool-Season Vegetables all Winter Long, Thomas, Becker, and Crawford, University of Missouri-Columbia https://southwest.missouri.edu/passive-solar-greenhouse/ |
![]() ![]() Full design and construction and winter performance information is provided. This GH has an 18 year track record. |
Unique greenhouse uses a water to air heat exchanger to store excess daytime solar heat in a heat storage water tank... |
The water heated by the heat exchanger is stored in a 275 gallon tank. On cold nights or cloudy days, the heated water is used to heat the greenhouse. The same heat exchanger is used for both heating and cooling. |
Our New Solar Greenhouse in
Montana www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/GreenHouse1/Greenhouse1.htm |
The design is based on the U of M greenhouse just above, but scaled down a bit. I plan to do some sunspace and tiny home testing before going to full greenhouse mode. This is an experiment in progress -- any advice or comments would be appreciated... |
Developing
a Solar Greenhouse in Manitoba Manitoba GH article 1... Manitoba GH article 2... Manitoba GH Paper on performance... |
![]() One of the tests involved dividing a long greenouse into 4 side by side sections -- each section was glazed or insulated differently to allow direct comparison. One of the sections used Argon filled poly glazing -- it did quite well. |
A
Small Solar Greenhouse http://mowrystrings.com/greenhouse.html |
![]() Andrew used mostly materials from the local Habitat Restore, so it was not too expensive. Temperature and humidity logs show the summer and fall performance. Pretty good detail on the construction. |
Passive Solar Greenhouse
http://www.passivesolargreenhouse.com/
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Converting a Conventional
Greenhouse to Passive Solar, By Example
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![]() (thanks to Mel at By Example for suggesting this) |
Passive Solar Greenhouse
www.irisherbal.com/psg/content/process.html
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Geodesic Dome Greenhouse New -- the geodome greenhouse is now "off-grid" and powered by PV... |
![]() Good construction detail on the whole project. |
Doug's Solar Greenhouse ...
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![]() Some good information on planning and constructing a solar greenhouse. |
Kiva's Straw Bale Greenhouse
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Flagstaff
Solar Greenhouse
http://www.chibardun.net/~javclan/page1.htm
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![]() Includes some detail on the GH design and construction. Also includes a little info on the water harvesting system and solar powered ventilation system. |
Cristian Adds a Greenhouse to
His Earth Sheltered Home All the details on Cristians greenhouse... |
![]() The greenhouse is an addition to his amazing earth sheltered home... |
Geothermally heated greenhouse
Gary
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Hoop
House Construction for New Mexico: 12 ft X 40 ft Hoop House, Cooperative Extension Service -- Circular 606 College of Agriculture and Home Economics, New Mexico State University Full plans and instructions ... (pdf) The NM State University Extension Website: |
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High Tunnel or Hoop Houses ...
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50 Dollar Greenhouse
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![]() The author built it for $50 with some contributions from his scrap bin, but its about $140 with all new materials. |
Growers Supply
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Hotbed and Propagating Frame
University of Tennessee Extension UTEPlan5971 (668K pdf)
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![]() From the University of Tennessee Extension service: http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu |
Arched Roof Hotbed
University of Tennessee Extension UTE Plan 6080 (500K pdf)
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![]() From the University of Tennessee Extension service: http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu |
Solar Shed...
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Free plans for an attached
greenhouse
Sun Country Greenhouse Company www.hobby-greenhouse.com/FreeSolar.html
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![]() They also sell plans for a freestanding 8X16 greenhouse, and they sell greenhouse kits. |
Small Greenhouse and Garden
Storage
LSU Ag Center GH and Storage Plan (pdf)
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![]() From: The LSU Ag Center |
9' X 12' Hobby Greenhouse
LSU Ag Center Hobby Greenhouse Plans (pdf) |
![]() From: The LSU Ag Center |
Tri-Penta Greenhouse
LSU Ag Center Tri-Penta GH Plans (pdf)
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![]() Wood framed with poly covering. I am guessing the plans could be adapted to any size. From: The LSU Ag Center
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Plans for small Greenhouse | ![]() |
BuildEazy.com -- Greenhouse
Plan
www.buildeazy.com/greenhouse.html
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Low-Cost Versatile Hoop Houses George DeVault Mother Earth News |
![]() Good article on building and using “hoop house” greenhouses, which provide a very low cost per sqft greenhouse. Some construction detail. This technique could also be used for inexpensive sunspace for generating solar heat for your house. |
How to Build a PVC Hoophouse
for your Garden
www.westsidegardener.com/howto/hoophouse.html
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Small Backyard Greenhouse
for the Home Gardner, North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service www.bae.ncsu.edu ... (pdf)
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![]() If you are in a cold climate, I'd think about changing it into a two layer poly covering with the space between the layers inflated with a small blower (see 6720 GH just below). |
Canada Plan Service
Plan 6720 for Double Wall Greenhouse (pdf)
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Plans for PVC greenhouses
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![]() Links to suppliers of PVC fittings for building PVC pipe frames. "Submitted Pictures" showing some of the shows some of the interesting things people have built with PVC pipe. |
Simple PVC Frame Poly Greenhouse | How to build description of a simple PVC pipe framed poly greenhouse that was posted on the Homesteading Today website forum. |
Gambrel Home Greenhouse
University of Tennessee Extension UTE Plan 6181 (850K pdf)
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![]() Might also work well with Polycarbonate twinwall glazing. From the University of Tennessee Extension service: http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu |
Portable Plastic Greenhouse
-- plan 5946
University of Tennessee Extension UTE Plan 5946 ( 540K pdf)
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From the University of Tennessee Extension service: http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu |
Plastic Pipe Frame Hoop
Greenhouse
University of Tennessee Extension UTE Plan 795-3 (1.2 MB pdf)
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![]() The design might be adapted to two poly walls with inflated space
between for less heat loss. |
FloridaGardner -- Plans for
a 32' X 10' Greenhouse
www.floridagardener.com/greenhouse
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Large - Wood framed
Greenhouse
University of Tennessee Extension UTE Plan 6029 (1MB pdf) |
![]() From the University of Tennessee Extension service: http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu |
Large Gothic Arch Double
Wall Poly Covered Greenhouse
University of Tennessee Extension UTE Plan 6298 (420K pdf)
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![]() This might be scaled down to an interesting design for a home size greenhouse. From the University of Tennessee Extension service: http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu |
Large Conduit Frame Poly
Greenhouse
University of Tennessee Extension UTE Plan 6217 (770K pdf)
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![]() From the University of Tennessee Extension service: http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu |
Very Large Double Wall Poly
Greenhouse
University of Tennessee Extension UTE Plan 6185 (1.3MB pdf)
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![]() From the University of Tennessee Extension service: http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu |
A Build-It-Yourself Pine Pole Greenhouse Christine and Wilson Goddard Finding Mother Earth News articles...
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![]() Good hands-on article on building a green house using locally available pine poles and poly sheeting. Some details on design and construction |
A Solar Heated Greenhouse Richard Lane and Chuck Marken How to get articles from Home Power ... |
![]() Covers design, construction and performance of a solar |
Winter Food Production in
Pennsylvania -- without Fossil Fuels. Steve and Carol Moore |
![]() An interesting article on the design of a large greenhouse for |
Garage/Workshop Sunspace
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Turn your south facing garage/workshop into a sunspace. |
One Man’s Personal Straw Bale Odyssey David Booth |
![]() Good article on building a variety of small load bearing strawbale buildings, including a very nice greenhouse. Lots of background on strawbale construction, and some how-to detail. |
Maine
Solar Primer Modular Greenhouse
Maine Solar Energy Association |
Some ideas on simple frames for
free-standing or attached greenhouses.
Courtesy of the Maine Solar Energy Association |
Stimson Marine -- Bow Roof
Greenhouse
www.h2othouse.com/html/greenhousebooklet3.htm
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Small greenhouse made from recycled windows | ![]() The greenhouse is used for hydropnic growing, and plans for this system are also included. Thanks to Alex for sending this link in! |
Old
Swimming Pool Converted to a Greenhouse to Grow Produce and Fish http://gardenpool.org/ |
![]() Pretty ingenious. Their motivation for doing this is to be self sufficient in case of a major disaster, but it could certainly work for people not expecting a major disaster. The family was featured in a National Geographic special on major disaster preparation --the video shows more details on the system they set up... |
Heating, Cooling and Ventilation Schemes | |
Curtain Wall Ventilation
Canada Plan Service Plan 9351 Curtain Wall Vent (pdf)
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![]() From the most excellent Canada Plan Services website: www.cps.gov.on.ca
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Moveable Wall Panel
Ventilation System
Canada Plan Service Plan 9355 Wall Panel Ventilation (pdf)
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![]() From the Canada Plan Service:
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Fan and Pad Greenhouse
Evaporative Cooling System R.A. Bucklin, J.D. Leary, D.B. McConnell, E.G. Wilkerson University of Florida Extension The Paper (pdf) |
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Using Evaporative Cooling,
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Plans
for an Evaporative Cooling Pad Cabinet, North Dakota State University Extension
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Rollup shade plans
From Charlie's Green House The Plans (pdf)
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Bubble
Wrap Window Insulation
Gary New Installation Instruction Sheet (8/15/06) |
![]() Can be put up and taken down seasonally. Added some small updates to instructions 11/13/05. |
Efficient
Blower for Double Skin Greenhouses
www.sunnyjohn.com/photos/devices_tools/...
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![]() Most of blowers are set up to run 24/7, but this article shows a way to cut down the run time dramactially using a small pressure switch and a very simple check valve. With the check valve, the blower runs only when enough air leaks out to the point of needing reinflation. |
Heating
Greenhouse Soil With Solar Air Heaters... |
![]() The results for such a simple system are pretty impressive. Details... |
The Rutgers Solar Heating
System for Greenhouses Mears, Roberts, Simpkins, and Kendall Rutgers University The Rutgers Solar Heating System for Greenhouse - 1977 (0.8 MB pdf) Greenhouse Solar Heating-1981 (2.5MB pdf)
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Papers ![]() A number of other interesting commercial greenhouse related papers at the Rutgers Horticultural Engineering Website: http://aesop.rutgers.edu/~horteng/ |
Movable Thermal Insulation
For Greenhouses
Roberts, Mears, Simpkins, and Cipolletti Movable Curtain Insulation (1.2MB pdf)
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![]() A number of other interesting commercial greenhouse related papers at the Rutgers Horticultural Engineering Website: http://aesop.rutgers.edu/~horteng/ |
Grey water for greenhouse
heating and plant watering
For more on using greywater, see the water section ...
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Using grey water for
greenhouse plant watering and as a source of heat for the greenhouse
seems like a potentially good way to go. I've included the (meager) information I have been able to find on this below. If you have other information, pictures, ... please let me know -- Gary.
www.greywater.com/treatment.htm
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Solar Bubble Build
www.solarbubblebuild.com/build_images13.php
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Plant Bed Heating -- Plant
beds may be used to store excess greenhouse heat, John Canivan From John Canivan's JC-SolarHomes website.
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Subterranean Heating and
Cooling System
www.sunnyjohn.com/indexpages/shcs.htm
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Performance of Greenhouse
Coupled to Earth-Tube-Heat-Exchanger in Closed-Loop Mode, G. Sharan, H. Prakash, R. Jadhav Download Report (220K pdf)
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![]() While this is a larger installation than most of us would need, it provides useful design material and results. The 2nd paper reports on an experiment done with a smaller earth tube -- detailed results are provided. |
Heating with Compost | |
The Composting Greenhouse At
New Alchemy Institute - A Report On Two Years of Operation and
Monitoring, Bruce Fulford
Heating a greenhouse with compost The Report (pdf)
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Warning: This document has many math errors. This appears to be mostly in the conversions between English and Metric units when they give both, but there may be other problems as well. |
Composting Greenhouse with
Straw Bale Foundation, From Experiments in Sustainable Urban Living
This uses surplus heat from a large compost pile under the greenhouse floor to heat water for the house. You get water heating and greenhouse space with the same structure! |
![]() The thing that intrigues me is that you can apparently have working greenhouse space above the heat generating compost pile? I'd like to hear from anyone with composting experience on how workable this all seems? Gary |
Heat
free (nearly) with a compost furnace
http://energymd.wordpress.com/...
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![]() Marc has worked out a design that provides for aerating the pile, keeping it moist, collecting the heat, and insulating the pile for greater efficiency. |
Heating from Large Wood Chip
Compost Piles Jean Pain The Methods of Jean Pain: Or another kind of garden, Ida Pain,
1980. Mother Earth News has several articles by/about Jean Pain Journey To Forever on Jean Pain: |
![]() The book covers Jean Pain's research in using compost for both
agricultural and energy production. There is some good, practical
information on building large compost piles for the production of
heat for water or space heating. |
Biomeiler -- heat extraction from large compost pile... |
The heat is extracted via coils of plastic pipe embedded in the pile as its constructed. Said to provide heat for 12 to 24 months -- up to 160F. A detailed pdf construction manual is provided. All in German, so Google translator is your friend. |
Storing Greenhouse Heat | |
Low-Cost Active Heat
Storage, Nathan Hurst and Paul Harrison, ReNew Issue 100 |
![]() In most cases, when a greenhouse or sunspace heat is used to heat
an attached house, hot air from the GH is blown into the house for
immediate use. This paper shows a simple way to store GH heat for
use later. |
Unique greenhouse uses a water to air heat exchanger to store excess daytime solar heat in a heat storage water tank... |
The water heated by the heat exchanger is stored in a 275 gallon tank. On cold nights or cloudy days, the heated water is used to heat the greenhouse. The same heat exchanger is used for both heating and cooling. |
Root Cellar | |
Low-cost Multipurpose Minibuilding Made with
Earthbags, Owen Geiger, Mother Earth News August 2009 |
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An Old Time Dug Out Root Cellar...
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Root Cellar for Vegetable
Storage
Canada Plan Service Root Cellar Plan 6321 (pdf)
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Speaking of Gardening Some other areas on the site that might interest gardeners |
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Solar powered garden tractors and lawn mowers... |
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Solar Garden Helper Machine Details on the solar garden helper machine...
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Its made from 1 inch steel tubing bent and welded by Randy, and uses a geared down drive from an electric wheelchair. Its electrically powered with 4 golfcart batteries that are charged with two 80 watt onboard PV panels. |
Solar Cooking... | ![]() |