Blog from a greenhouse builder

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30/11/2012

Click here to see earlier base-building entry.

You can do a lot in a small space of the garden.

This greenhouse is very tall with ample growing space on shelves, lots of light and warmed air - once this frost goes!

Here you see all the materials distributed around the base before I start building.

The customer has chosen double doors which are more in proportion with the narrow width.

We also have a large brick-sided cold frame along one side with 3 opening windows.

The greenhouse has 2 automatic opening windows in the roof and a manual opening window at the rear above the potting station.

Unfortunately it started getting dark from 3pm so I didn’t get any pictures of the finished greenhouse. I still needed to fill some joints and screw heads around the structure and do general tidying-up but it was too dark by then for photographs. I’ll pass by in a couple of weeks to see Mike again on my way to Rugby and I’ll get some more snaps then.

Total cost £4,500 from foundations to finials and including everything you see

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Lean-to in Calne

23/11/2012

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Mark wanted a bespoke greenhouse to fit around the chimney on the gable-end of his house. Having a lean-to against the house is going to keep the greenhouse, and the house itself, a little warmer. We also have plenty of shelving space against the rear wall.

Mark’s own builders constructed the dwarf wall to the dimensions we agreed so I could just make one visit with all the timber and glass.

This was a week of extreme weather - the UK has been battered by storms, floods and 100 mph winds. So we really got the chance to test the rigidity and weather proofing of the greenhouse - and it passed beautifully - as parts of trees flew past, and on it, and the wind tore through and rain hammered it.

As I was fitting the side windows my box of screws was picked up by the wind and taken around the corner - it was like something from Mary Poppins - and plonked down again on the side patio. Strong forces at play!

Detail of side windows showing inside and outside views. Please note all the windows and doors are hand-made (by Robin) and traditionally jointed.

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In the workshop.

16/11/2012

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The van conked out twice in 2 weeks! Once on the M5, and then a week later once it was returned from the garage supposedly fixed it conked out on the M6.

This has delayed the job I was trying to get to but there should be no changes to all the other visits before Christmas. Over the next few weeks I’ll be off to Calne, Stoke-on-Trent, Wrexham, Rugby and Halifax....!

Phew.

So it was back to the workshop to crack on with building some more....

I hand-lathed all the finials I’m going to need over the next few weeks..

One complete greenhouse painted and drying off before being transferred to the outside drying rack to harden off.

Building the gable end of one greenhouse by setting it out on the floor. This one will have an opening window in the middle.

This particular section will be erected in Rugby on Tuesday 11th December.

Let the count-down to Christmas begin!

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Back to a corner of Newport Pagnall

2/11/2012

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Well I think we made the most of the corner plot of this garden. I couldn’t have built any closer to the boundary and still get around the side!

This one is 14ft long (4.3m) - we didn’t have enough space to get the 5m long greenhouse but it’s still a very generous space.

Click here to see earlier base-building entry

Rain for most of the visit again - but still managed to raise a smile eh!

I put the cold frames along the side of the greenhouse rather than either side of the porch.

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Green Bug Ltd

Nationwide

Back to Church Lawton

Lean-to in Calne

In the workshop.

Back to a corner of Newport Pagnall

Click on eachheading to see the full story.....

Archives

Green Bug Ltd

Click on each
heading to see the full story.....