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#81
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Keep fighting the good fight! Looking forward to hearing how it turns out
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#82
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Thanks fintuckyfarms, I took some new pictures of the reservoirs today. Their all fixed, cleaned out and filled with fresh water again. I didn't have $100-$150 for more bricks to raise the height of the retaining wall behind them. So I cleared out all the rocks and debris, and used the rocks to build up the corners. Then packed in dirt behind them. That should keep the water coming off the hill from flowing over the wall and into my reservoirs again.
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#83
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Ok, more pictures to post. These pictures are mainly of the Sub "T" system. There are two inline fans in each system. The larger one has both a 10 inch, and 6 inch fans. The smaller sub "T" system has a 8 inch, and 6 inch fans. The fans are located in the horizontal metal ducting, right where the power cord comes out from. In one if the pictures you can see where I drew arrows on them to remind me which direction the air flows/goes before installing them.
I put screening on the opening of the lid of the sub "T" system where the cool air comes out, that is to keep bugs, mice, lizards etc. form climbing in and then dying inside it. It would be quite stinky if they did. The 6 inch down tube inside the sub "T" system that the ducting is connected to is 6 inch thin wall PVC tubing. It's in two pieces to make it easier to do maintenance. The bottom piece has a lip attached, that seats flush. In the picture you can see I also attached a venting air diffuser to it. That was to push the air to the sides (into the systems tubing) rather than straight down. However I will be doing some changes to the system later and taking the air diffuser out. On the taller section of the 6 inch PVC tubing, I attached a collar that easily slides right down onto the shorter piece, and is air tight. I forgot to take pictures of that part. Well I only needed to make one collar because the other section of the 6 inch PVC that I bought was an end piece, and had a flared end for connecting sections of tubing together. So it had a ready made collar already. The blue stuff around the tubing is rolled foam insulation that I wrapped around it. As a pre-cooling system I added a couple of misters in the tube as well. I just drilled a couple holes large enough for the mister heads to fit through, stuck them through as I warped and duct taped the water line around the 6 inch PVC. I can switch from one mister to two misters simply by turning the inline valve. Or not use any misters at all by simply turning the water off. I also took pictures of the water spickets inside the greenhouse. I have two of them. I also have two water line splitters with large easy quick on/off valves. I can connect up to 5 hoses, but don't expect to need more than 3 inside the greenhouse at most (1 for the sub "T", one for the swamp cooler, and one for a short hose to use for whatever). I also took pictures of the 6 inch flexible ducting. It goes all the way up to the top of the greenhouse, because that's where the hottest air is. I just tied it to the framing using wire. At the top opening of the ducting, I attached some window screening to keep most bugs out. I made screen covers for the damper vents as well. I made two for each, so both sides will have a screen inside as well as outside. I ran weather stripping around the edges of the damper screens too. That makes the seem bug proof. For now I have box fans blowing the hot air out the vents. But when the swamp cooler is up and running (next spring), the cool air coming in through the swamp cooler will blow the hot air out of the top vents. That is once I finish the weather stripping around the door frame (in a few weeks). I have been working on getting the electrical done. I'm about half way done digging the 30 foot long, 18 inch deep trench to run the line form the beaker box to the inside of the greenhouse. I should have the electrical installed Monday or Tuesday. Last edited by GpsFrontier; 08-17-2012 at 04:18 AM. |
#84
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I've gotten the electrical installed last week. I took some pics, but need to take some of the outlet boxes before I post them so I can do it all at once. But it's nice to not need to run extension cords for everything, as well a worrying about if it's going to rain getting them wet.
Last edited by GpsFrontier; 08-28-2012 at 06:30 AM. |
#85
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It's looking really good, can't wait to see all the plants in there.
So the misters are in the ground in the sub T system? I am assuming they help cool the air sort of like the swamp cooler. So how do you plan to heat the greenhouse? Has anybody used the greenhouses that Costco carries? I have been looking at the 4K one made by Sun something. Has anybody gone "off grid" with their greenhouse? If so what methods do you heat/cool? My birthday is in January, guess what I want?!?! Well besides a pink handgun |
#86
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Hi fintuckyfarms,
Quote:
Example: take two glasses of cool water and stick one outside on a real hot day, and leave one inside at room temp. The one outside will have a lot more condensation form on the outside of the glass than the one inside. That's because the temperature difference between the air temp and water temp outside is grater than that inside (temperature differential). The goal of the sub "T" system is to have the hot humid air/moisture condense in the tubes. Now with that in mind, say the normal moist ground temp at that depth is 65 degrees, and to function well you need at least 10 degrees of temperature differential. The coolest the air coming out can reach is 75 degrees. pump extreme hot air through it, and that could cause the ground temp to rise depending on how your system is designed (tubing spacing etc). If the ground temp rises from 65 to 70, the coolest air temp it could reach would be 80 degrees. For maximum efficiency a temperature differential of 20-30 degrees is best. In other words, with a ground temp of 65, that suggests it should work most efficient when the air going into it is around 85-95. Because this type of system has never been tested in the desert heat, and under our extreme conditions. Not to mention ever been tested with cooling misters installed. It leaves me with more than a few theory's. One is that the misters may backfire cooling the air to much, reducing the temperature differential so much before it reaches the underground cooling tubes that it wont' condense. On the other hand, running the misters off and on may be able to keep the ground temps from rising, thus maximizing the temperature differential. Another theory I have, and think is most likely is that the drastic temperature change from the hot air coming in and when the air hits the cool mist will likely cause instant cooling and the slower air speeds through all the smaller tubes will absorb the excess moisture. But trial and error will tell. I can't say for sure the misters will help once the greenhouse is running and full of humidity. But they sure helped cool the exhaust air to 78-79 degrees this last summer when I got them running. I can shut the misters off or run them one at a time. From there I will be able to test air temps to see if it's helping. Excess moisture goes directly in the ground, and the mister heads use 1 gal per hour ea. You can see that running 2-4 mister heads 24/7 would not be economical or water efficient. One mister head in each system (2 total) would use about 1,500 gallons a month. However I expect to only use them during the hottest parts of the day, and or only on the hottest days, maybe even only in one system at a time. But the key is testing to see how it works, and how to improve it if possible etc.. It was a cheep modification, and I don't even need to turn them on if they aren't giving any benefits. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
P.S. Hope you have a happy birthday. Last edited by GpsFrontier; 09-18-2012 at 02:42 AM. |
#87
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With all the work I have been doing around the house these past few weeks I wasn't able to do any work on the greenhouse. But I just finished getting the backyard back to normal yesterday after I dug the trench for the electrical. So I took some more pictures of the finished electrical instillation today. It's nice to finally be able to run electricity from inside the greenhouse itself, rather than need to run extension cords from the house and garage. And worrying about if it is going to rain on my extension cord connections.
I have some small flower pot samples coming, and once I have them all I'll, order the ones that work for me the best. Once I know exactly which pots I will be using, I'll be able to start drawing out the holes I will be making in the blue Styrofoam plant support grow bed covers. Once I have them all cut out I will finally know exactly how many plants I'll be able to grow in each level. It will be less than I originally planed because I cant find a distributor that sells the exact pot size I based my figures on. So instead of using 2 1/2 inch wide pots, I'll need to use either a 3 inch or 3 1/2 inch wide pot. But I will still need the same 3 inch spacing between pots in the system, so the larger pots will reduce the amount of plants I can grow at any given time. But at the same time I can use the larger 3 or 3.5 inch pots to my benefit, promoting that as a even better value for the customer. In the meantime while I wait for the flower pot samples, I'm working on a small temporary swamp cooler. That way I can cool it down inside the greenhouse, making it more comfortable for me to work in there. Once I get the temporary swamp cooler to cool it down inside the greenhouse enough, I'll begin using the pool liner tape to waterproof all the seams in the grow beds. I figure that job will take me about a week to finish. Then I'll start making the holes for the plant pots. |
#88
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Well I'm a bit behind on my October first target date, but what else is new. Not by too much though, and it's still a bit too hot these days anyway. I think we have had our last 100+ degree day this year today, it should be in the mid 80's in a week or two. Anyhow I have decided on the pots I will be using, and planted some test pots. The sprouts in the picture are 5 days old from the time I planted them. That's good news, looks like my expected timing from seed to sprouts in 7 days is a little ahead of schedule. I'll be using a few less seeds on the next test batch though. The light green sprouts are common basil, and the darker sprouts are dark opal (purple) basil. Their growing in pure coco fiber (coir), and I just added a very dilute nutrient to the water today.
I have been real busy on the greenhouse the last week or so. It dosen't look like much progress, but it's a lot of work to clean out the grow beds properly, as well as apply the waterproof pool liner tape. If I didn't clean them out well, the pool liner tape wouldn't stick properly. I'm a little more than half way done applying the pool liner tape to all the grow beds. By the time I'm done with that I will have about 60+ hours of labor invested in just cleaning them out, applying the tape, and re-attaching the corner blocks on all the grow beds. I'm basically getting between 4 and 6 hours of work done a day. I added a few pictures of how it looks with the tape applied. The tape is 4 inches wide, and I had to build my own tape dispenser that you can see in the pictures. Last edited by GpsFrontier; 10-05-2012 at 03:04 AM. |
#89
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My basil sprouts are doing nicely, their exactly two weeks old today. At the rate their growing, I don't doubt they will get 10 inches tall by the end of the sixth week. If so, that would be exactly what I planed, going from seed to sale in 6 weeks. My pots should be arriving early next week, when they do I plan to do some more test plants. I'll do some of each of the herb seeds I have, and use less of the basil seeds next time. I really only want about 5-10 plants growing in each pot, otherwise they will be to crowded before their ready to sell.
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#90
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So what's going on? Any updates?
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#91
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Hello fintuckyfarms,
Well yes and no. There has been some progress, but nothing to really take pictures of. My mom had open hart surgery just before Thanksgiving, so I didn't get anything done in the greenhouse until recently because I spent my time visiting her in the hospital and in the rehab center. She was finally able to come home Dec 11. She is recovering well and able to do almost everything for herself now except drive. Anyhow, now that she is home, and able to do things for herself now, I have time to work on the greenhouse again. I was going to run water in the bottom level to test for leaks yesterday, but we are having a cold snap right now. The nights are dipping to below freezing, and should I have some leaks again, I don't want freezing water to cause damage to the grow beds. So I'm waiting until the cold snap passes. Witch should be in a few more days. In the meantime, I'm working on getting the garage cleaned out and adding some storage in it. That way I can keep things more organized. I hate spending hours looking for the tools and materials I need to work with. |
#92
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Everything looks awesome! I can't wait to see more progress!
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#93
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How is that greenhouse doing?
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#94
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Hey GPS how about an update.
Thanks |
#95
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Sorry for the late reply guys, I just forgot. I have been so busy these days. Besides building the greenhouse I'm also working on a contract to build a hydroponic system that's planed to be sold throughout Asia next year. were on a short timeline to have the prototype built (by early April).
But to answer the question about any updates on the greenhouse. I don't have pictures right now, but yes I'm still making progress. Money issues have been holding me back for a long time now, but I finally have the money I need to finish everything now. I should have the bottom two levels running leak free in about a week or so. Then I will use the same process on the top level, and that will probably take another week or so to complete. Depending on how much time I need to devote to the prototype we are building of coarse. I don't really have a timeline on when I will have everything running. But now that I have the rest of the money I need, it will be much sooner than it would have been. When I'm sure I have the bottom two levels running leak free, I'll post an update with pics. And when I have all three levels running, I'll try and make a video. P.S. Sorry I can't post pics of the prototype were building. The company has patents that will be incorporated into the system they want to protect. |
#96
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Thanks for the update, I also have been really busy. I am half-way thru the Master Gardener program. Besides a 3 hour class once a week and on-line classes, I am required to volunteer 50 hours in the program with some in specific areas like the clinic and the demo garden. I also have been doing lots of education in the library system with both kids and adults. Just finished today a presentation on composting with worms for 3 to 12 year olds on spring break. I have also seeded over 100 plants both vegis and flowers for the annual plant sale on April 27th.
I just found out that the fair board wants me back for another hydro display and the library has requested a 45 minute presentation on hydroponics at several of their branches. I have planted four fruit trees that are semi-dwarf and each tree had 4 varieties and are self-pollinating. I have 10 new chicks and 6 new turkey chicks in my bedroom so I'm not getting much sleep. Just had a huge thunder storm system move thru and had to bring in all the plants and the chicks for the night. I finally settled on a greenhouse that I want and am expecting a "bonus" check from work soon that will be ear marked greenhouse. I also will need to build the chick and turk coop and pen. I really would rather free range them, but they get ate! This new run will be 40' x 40' and covered with a net so the eagles don't get them. I plan to feed fodder sprouts in the winter so the coop will have to have an area for that. All this while in hives from working out in the sun! Got a shot in the butt and things have settled down. Will have to order a big long sleeve shirt that has uv block in the material. They are kind of spendy but I think worth it in the end. My youngest is wanting to start some aquaponics but not until the greenhouse is up and running. We have four seasons here so I have to think cooling as well as heating. Waiting to hear how your system is working with the cooling.... I think I am going to experiment with a sawdust barrel heater I saw on youtube. Pictures are of the chickens, the seedlings for the plant sale,the new fruit trees (way out there) and the area where I want to put the greenhouse just infront of the trees. |
#97
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Hello?
GPS Frontier are you still with us? I sent you a message....
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#98
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Hello fintuckyfarms,
Yes I just don't visit the forum as much as I used to because I have a lot of things going on. I just sent you a PM, do you still have my e-mail address? |
#99
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I have it and will e-mail soon. Glad you are still with us
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#100
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Wow!!!!!
Holy good God almighty! You guys are hard core! |
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