Last year I constructed a greenhouse using an old swing frame and plastic bottles threaded with twine. It worked really well, with temperatures very noticeably higher inside. I thought the only disadvantage was the triangular shape which meant having to duck (I'm not particularly tall either), but unfortunately, strong winds dismantled it for me over the winter.
Cue Greenhouse Mark II!
This time I am making it much for solid, nothing is going to huff and puff, and blow this baby down. Why? Because I'm using pallets!
I decided for two reasons that I would use only materials I already have, or that I can find/obtain from Freegle etc. Reason one is that I want to re-purpose things for eco reasons. The second is that I have no money to buy materials. The £1.70 I spent on nails nearly made me cry, lol.
The greenhouse sits on preexisting decking, and I have strategically removed some of the wood slats from the pallets to allow the light in. Into the handy gaps I am slotting lots of plastic bottles which I have been saving up for approximately 500 years.
The bottles have their bottoms cut off to fit them together, apart from the lowest bottle which has it's base intact. The top bottles all have the bottle top screwed on. By sealing them as much as possible, the bottles will hopefully last longer, and not become an insect graveyard or let water in.
I found the last remnants of some green wood stain at the back of the shed, so the exterior got a coating to help protect it from weather.
I ran out of pallets, so inside I have filled any gaps with other materials I have to hand, one of these just happened to be a metal single bed frame.
Since I'm pretty much making it up as I go along, I haven't decided how I will do the roof. Initially I was going to use bottles, cut in half lengthways, then stapled together to create DIY corrugated roof sheets - i began doing just two rows and got totally fed up with the fiddly-ness of it, so I'm contemplating plan B - I have a roll of thick plastic sheeting which I may attach to a frame, or not. I'll keep you posted on the progress here, if you're interested.
Pallets and plastic bottle greenhouse
- EcoTreedweller
- margo - newbie
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Pallets and plastic bottle greenhouse
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- doofaloofa
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Re: Pallets and plastic bottle greenhouse
I approve of this message
ina wrote: die dümmsten Bauern haben die dicksten Kartoffeln
- EcoTreedweller
- margo - newbie
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Fri May 03, 2013 9:53 pm
- latitude: 52.6500
- longitude: 1.2800
- Location: Norfolk
Re: Pallets and plastic bottle greenhouse
This pleases me.
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- doofaloofa
- A selfsufficientish Regular
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Re: Pallets and plastic bottle greenhouse
For the roof how about your split bottle idea, but like spanish roof tiles, ie, one layer cuped up the second layer cupped down over lapping the lower coarse
Fixing them down is the tricky bit. You could fix the tops where the nxt 'tile'up over laps, but because they are so light weight a second fixing at bottom may be required, but this would leak if not sealed
Plastic sheet would be a lot quicker and easier alright
Keep up the good work
Fixing them down is the tricky bit. You could fix the tops where the nxt 'tile'up over laps, but because they are so light weight a second fixing at bottom may be required, but this would leak if not sealed
Plastic sheet would be a lot quicker and easier alright
Keep up the good work
ina wrote: die dümmsten Bauern haben die dicksten Kartoffeln