Blog from a greenhouse builder

Storm damaged greenhouse replacement

24/3/2017

Only half of James' greenhouse remained following the recent storms. Time to replace it with something much more robust for this exposed site.

James opted to have his greenhouse in accoya which carries a 50-year guarantee (and a life expectancy in excess of 60 years). James won't need to worry about painting it so often (the wood doesn't move so the paint coating will remain in place a lot longer) or painting it all - accoya is guaranteed for 25-years submersed in water!

After the first day I could start digging trenches for the new foundations and build up the new brick walls from there.

A lot of rubble still remained inside but I got there in the end.

After I demolished the old greenhouse, the challenge was finding the solid, level ground from which to build up the foundations.

Luckily I'd ordered a large skip! It turned out that the previous builder had laid hollow concrete blocks on the ground, then filled the void with tonnes of pea gravel, rubble, bricks, sandstone boulders - anything to get the level up to the height of the retaining block.

There is a short video of this week's base build below showing the job in more detail.

I'll be back here in a few weeks with the completed accoya greenhouse to erect it on these new walls.