 There used to be a greenhouse here but it gradually rotted away and the owners had it removed when it became unsafe. I'm replacing it with an accoya greenhouse, which should never rot and had a guarantee for 50 years and a life expectancy in excess of 60 years. The glass is toughened so it's also safe and very secure - and allows me to glaze the roof in one sheet rather than overlapping smaller sections as you would with normal glass.
The tricky bit was building the greenhouse to line up exactly with the line left against the wall so I made a first visit to check the roof angle measurements and to undertake the leadwork. I had the first sheets of glass cut to got around the chimney breast - thankfully they were a perfect fit.   The greenhouse has lots of ventilation - 4 auto-opening roof windows and 4 manual windows along the sides. We re-used the aluminium ridge cresting which had been salvaged from the old greenhouse.
I also added steel bars under the roof to support hanging baskets and built 2 long potting benches along both sides.
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Over these past weekends I've been working on an extension to our new home. It's all been approved by the local council , building control and other interested parties. The house is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty so it has to look right - much the same as the rest of the house which have parts dating back to 1858. The first job was to demolish the old flat roof car port - using my sds drill and sledge hammers and calling on the kids and Jo's help an much as I could.
  The river burst it's banks during the works and was an inch away from flooding the house. We worked on diverting it for 2 days and kept a 24 hours watch on the levels (I finished my shift at 4:30am and Jo took over). Nothing got in the house and we're laying wider pipes to take more stream water away and prevent it happening again.
 Delighted to read my customers blog of a greenhouse I built over a year ago - still like brand new and enjoying it more than ever. Please click the button below to read Phao's blog of 2 gardens.   A 2.5m by 2.5m greenhouse which needs to be no higher than 2.5m. I'll make the sides a little higher than normal but have a shallower roof pitch of 30 degrees rather then 25 degrees which will increase the amount of useful space inside. There will be 4 opening roof windows and a manual opening window in the rear elevation. Inside I'm laying concrete setts and a brick sided raised bed for growing tomatoes.
The rain had turned the roads to rivers on the journey down here and it didn't let up for most of the first day. I'd packed my gazeebo which kept my stuff dry and I worked on the foundations until the weather improved and I could get on with brick laying. Unfortunately the suppliers let me down on the setts I want to lay for the inside floor - they didn't arrive until a week later - so I'll be laying those when I return with the greenhouse - laying them in 4:1 sharp sand:cement mix and brushing in kiln dried sand. 
I had a beautiful week of weather here in Warrington - with only one wet day. I've been lucky with my work schedule lately by managing to be in the workshop during the weeks of heavy rain and then outside for the weeks when the weather is good. Pure luck.  This an Yvonne greenhouse built entirely from accoya. I built one exactly the same for the sister of this week's customer, around a year ago. This time I've painted in Green Smoke colour from the Farrow & Ball colour range.  It measures 3.7m long by 3.5m long. You can find more details, plans, prices and a video tour by clicking on these works which link to the prices page of this website.
  It's so nice to see one of my greenhouses a few months on absolutely filled with plants and seedlings. I completed this one in Southampton at the beginning of this year. 
This week I am building the base for a "Tim" greenhouse - which is 4m long by 3.5m wide with a porch. My customers have already had a wall built by another builder which I need to build up against and tie into. I used brick starter screwed into the wall to make sure the two structures are fully bonded and aimed to get my courses of brickwork to match the existing - copying the mortar pointing and depth as much as possible.
I am delighted at the end result of the base building work. Whilst I am away finishing the greenhouse my customers want to get on with lots of groundworks around the greenhouse base - laying pathways and raised beds. There are going to be some great "before and after" photos of this beautiful spot.
I had a great week in Warrington, building the base for an "Yvonne" greenhouse built entirely from accoya. The biggest job was digging into the slope to remove many tonnes of soil to get to the level point for the greenhouse base. I love the way the greenhouse nestles into the bank at the end. There is a lot of concrete poured into the foundations and the brickwork sits on top of engineering bricks in the ground. Engineering bricks don't absorb water as other bricks do and are especially tough - built for the job of being in the ground, locking the walls to the foundation and protecting the bricks above from potential rising water in wet conditions or frost.
  This week my customers are doing all the writing. They have kept an online blog of their garden since 2009 and first came across Green Bug in 2012. The long awaited greenhouse It has seemed like such a long time coming, but that's because it has been a long time. Greenhouse envy was recorded here seven years ago in 2012, and after much saving, Robin McGregor has arrived to begin its construction. I have never seen anyone work so hard and so meticulously. He arrived mid afternoon to discover the builders' merchant had delivered the wrong bricks, spent much of the afternoon sorting that out, and then worked until late into the evening barrowing bricks up the garden the designated spot and digging the foundations. He has spent three days camped out on our drive, working from dawn until dark to get the base ready. He is now back in Wales constructing the frame and will be back soon to finish the job. We are very pleased with the results so far, and excited that our greenhouse dream will soon be a reality. 
It was great to get back up to Perthshire but the weather was a bit wild and the rain stayed for most of the week - almost right up until the moment I left in fact, and then the sun came out for the photos.
  This is the "Richard" greenhouse - one of the smallest greenhouses I build, measuring 2.5m long by 1.8m wide. There is still a huge amount of detail to it though with 3 gable ends, an overhanging roof, tight valleys and 4 opening windows.    From: Russell Willis Taylor Sent: 06 April 2019 12:56 To: Robin McGregor <robin@green-bug.co.uk Subject: Re: Invoice 1084 from Green Bug Ltd Dear Robin, So glad you made it home safely -- and we very much enjoyed spending time with you. The greenhouse is a delight-- so beautifully made and exactly what we wanted-- and many thanks to you for working in the dark and rain when needed! Hope to see you again in our part of the world, and will heartily recommend you to anyone who needs a greenhouse of the absolute best quality. All best, Russell  |
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