Winter Greenhouse Heating - What Works & What Doesn't - Greenhouse Insulation & Light Efficiency
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- Опубликовано: 14 янв 2022
- Taking some time to answer your winter greenhouse questions. We've been experimenting with growing food over the winter in a greenhouse for a number of years now. We started with a small greenhouse when we lived in Manitoba. There, we fiddled with heating with large containers filled with water as a heat sink. We also tried out the hot bed method for heating/warmth in the winter in our greenhouse. Now, here we are 4 years later in northern Ontario with an insulated, wood heated winter greenhouse growing food all winter long. I added some reflective mylar insulation (Reflectix) to the north, east and west walls of our greenhouse for added heat retention and light reflection.
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I have scraps of that stuff but decided to use multiple dollar store emergency blankets then staple with card board piece to avoid rips. I'll cover it with poly for strength. Nice examples here and answers for Canada climate.
I use that type of reflexes to keep myself cool in the summer time in my van
I love the stuff. It reminds me of my closet in my teenage years when I was first learning how to grow ‘stuff’ 😂
I love it. Absolutely love it. You guys are doing an awesome job, coming from the land of 204! 😇
Thank you very much. It makes me dream a little bit. I'll go watch more of your greenhouse video to learn what you grow in there and I'm sure a lot more informations! I always love your video!
It’s fabulous what you have been able to do. Very smart adding the reflective insulation! I think you’re right about putting it on the ceiling, too.
It is coming along!
What a cool Greenhouse, love it! 🌱
Thanks Lisa, We love it too!
I live in old house I use the Relflex on my bedroom windows. Love it. Warmer or cooler at the right seasons
Brilliant really! Y’all are doing good work there!
Thanks so much!
It sure seems colder this winter compared to last winter! Great points, every situation is different, it totally makes sense as to why your greenhouse is located where it is.
Definitely a difference from last year. Last year was a warm one, though. Cheers!
Never thought of using the reflective in the greenhouse, good idea
It’s made a huge difference already
Great idea! Love your greenhouse. Maybe add a arctic entry to act as a buffer between the outside temps and the greenhouse… just a thought. Your channel has the right kind of content for us Northern Canadian growers. I used to live 4 hrs north of Thunder Bay, I know the challenges
Look forward to seeing your results !
Coming soon!
Thanks for the tips! Greeting from south Korea!
As always great work
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Thanks 🤟
The bubble foil job went up very well I thought there eh! Looks good If u have ever watched boss of the swap he loves the stuff and uses it in all his builds for good reason... thanks for sharing
Only problem now is how easily I get distracted by shiny objects 😂
Looks great! You've got a great greeenhouse!!
Thanks!
Great video!! Man that is one lucky dog to have that much forest to play in!
Oh yeah. She loves it!
I think it's amazing what you have going on, I wish I could move up north. I tired of the grind, not tire of the work. I work for myself in embroidery, screen printing, Direct to garment printing and more, but with covid on it's been a challenge.
I definitely understand what you are saying.
Reflectix. Lol, Boss of the Swamp highly recommends it👍👍👍
I set up a Jean pain style compost heater outside of my greenhouse and have a pipe running through with a fan for warm air.
Looking awesome! Kinda funny how a lot of the good ideas that work in moderate temps just are not realistic up here. Hope you folks have a wonderful year:))
You know it! Same to you and the crew, Ryan!
That Reflextix is awesome!!! I use it in a different way (keep the sun out of an east facing picture window during the summer months. Lowers the temp and my electric bill.) It always cracks me up when people offer suggestions that aren't asked for...then you have to explain why their ideas for YOUR Homestead would NEVER work. You live there, plotted everything out.
It’s made a big difference in heat retention in there. Next video I’ll definitely mention what I’ve noticed after putting it up. Cheers, Pam!
Please b nice
Oooooo...shiney!
It’s very distracting! 😂
Yes love your idea of putting the mylar on the roof as heat rises. Would love to see you get temps before and after insulating the roof!!!
Probably get to it next week! This morning was super cold. -29C. Stoked the fire a wee bit and sitting at +25C in there now
@@Wilderstead Nice! Amazing you can grow this year round in such cold❄️!
I'm trying to start a farm here in Arkansas US. Little concerned of how I'll pay the mortgage. How do you keep the lights on? What are some good things to sell?
Amanda still works full time as an aquatic biologist. I’m full time on the wilderstead. We also sell maple syrup, maple sugar, eggs, wild foods (mushrooms, jams, etc), vegetable seeds and seedlings. Every little bit of income helps.
@@Wilderstead Thank you! Aquatic biologist? Very interesting!
Would be cool to have a thermal image app to see where the heat is being lost. Insulation under the floor and the roof will be huge to get through the cold nights , and maybe burn less wood.
😂the recall part is a big main reason to grow your own!
I just asked on an older video how the solar worked out and if you were using it for lights, heat or both. I didn’t notice it in this video. Did it work?
We used reclaimed lumber to build our garden shed and attached a lean to greenhouse made from reclaimed polycarbonate panels. I see many plant directly in ground in their greenhouses. Right now I use ours to start seeds with electric heater when weather warms up. I would like to heat with solar and wind if needed.
At the moment I want to replace polycarbonate panels with new, add a couple feet and install a heat sink in floor. I suppose I could still have a heat sink and add a bed area for growing. I keep the size small for ease of heating and considering a box on back wall to gather heat and pump to floor. I think I seen a video of yours with aluminum cans. We made a box a long time ago and they do work, but sunny days are key.
It is beneficial to have that back north wall attached to our shed.
I’m Z5a, let me know how that solar/battery thing worked. Thank you!😊
Should have bought some perspex/plexiglass/lexan for those two back windows. That would get you your double pane windows! You lost so much of that nice natural light!
Love the channel, love the content. Greenhouse for me one day maybe!
Thanks!!!!! Again!
It wont make a difference once the lights are installed. I have 2 more double pane patio doors to install in those spots in the summer when it warms up outside. Cheers!
Dave, nice work, have you ever used one of those laser pointer thermometer? Been using one in the shop to pin point losses
I have actually! But only when out fishing to take water temps. Awesome idea!, Joe. Definitely gonna put that thing to use. Almost maple time. Cheers! 🍁
Well said , i think you using wood stove is the best way to heat the green house being so cold. And to one of your points i think compost would never keep up ,you have to turn every couple days to keep it hot, and think be hard to have enough green and dry stuff to use to make it. where i live been -34 in mornings for last couple weeks and it would never work for me.
Yeah, the hot bed method is a tricky one. We’ve thought about a Jean Pain compost heating setup but haven’t made it that far yet. Maybe next year. Stay warm!
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And of course it has to be cheap to build lol I think you may gain some heat by insulating the ceiling but may not be worth it as you have lots of wood which is the best source for heat the short days are the worst so your lighting is next. Thanks for sharing with us. Down here in Muskoka we are limited to 105 sq ft without a permit. Oh I ordered some seed so I am a little behind you.
Yeah, it’d mainly be an aesthetic reason for adding it. Although I could immediately see the difference in brightness once I had the walls done. Might still add it in. Did you order seeds from us? I don’t recall seeing an order going out to Muskoka area, but we’ve sent quite a few out the last month. Cheers!
@@Wilderstead To be honest I did not know you sold seeds. I will have a look as I need more thanks.
Yeah, on our website. Some have sold out already, but there are still a decent amount available.
Thank you! Is that some kind of a special long lasting stove I've been reading about that last over 24 hours with 1 log?
Not really a special type of stove. It’s large though. Rated for about 1500 sq ft. A full load will last about 12 hours with everything damped down. That’s what I do overnight.
@@Wilderstead I may invest a little more money in the long lasting stoves to save fuel, unless I can find a design, then I'll make one.
@@l0I0I0I0 if anything, make sure you invest in a stove much bigger than you think you’ll need. Some videos from last winter have a different stove in there. It worked, but had to be loaded up a lot more often than this one.
@@Wilderstead Good point! It will have to be bigger as GH are not as insulated as a regular house. I actual have some designs I'm going to try out for heating and cooling. Not 100% set on which ones I will do but it will probably a combination of 2 or 3 systems with thermal energy storage for a larger greenhouse. Geothermal heating and cooling for sure and perhaps a heat pump.
@@WildersteadI’ve seen what I think they call rocket stoves that are built with heat sink materials. My go to for indoors would be a soapstone stove. Grew up in house with old giant dinosaur wood burner with coal auger. A lot of work. I wish I would have insulated the attic for folks Way sooner than I did-Total night and day difference-Totally!
I shake my head that my dad was talked into fiberbacked aluminum siding years ago. The walls were double and triple lathed so no way to insulate back then. Oh, well we didn’t have to paint anymore, but I didn’t like it as a kid because it was wide siding and took away the look of 4” cedar siding-sigh. Money better spent would have been to insulate the huge walk up attic. It would have saved so much more wood and coal. Ugh!
Would the Reflextic work to warm a chicken coop?
It would add a bit of insulation to a coop. I'd be worried the chickens would eat it though.
The wife and I watched this video on the weekend, we were surprised when you said you started in Manitoba. Where in Manitoba did you live? We just assumed you always lived on Ontario. Cheers.
Yup, if you go back in time in our videos, the first bunch are from Manitoba. We were on the east side of MB. Not far from Whiteshell. We had 60 acres of beautiful bush. The lack of trout was the biggest problem hahaha. No shortage here, where we are now, though. Both of us are originally from southern Ontario.
I think there might be a few fishing videos on the other channel from MB too.
@@Wilderstead awesome I'll check some of them oldies out. I really love Manitoba's biodiversity. So many different species of fish and habitats. They have deep cold lake trout lakes up north, shallow fertile lakes in the south and west and the Red River offers species not found anywhere else in Central Canada. But Superior is very special as well!
Yeah, we went north to fish in MB. Usually up towards grand rapids/thompson area. The fishing in the south of the province wasn't our thing. You can only catch so many walleye and giant cats before it gets really, really boring hahaha. The Red River and Lake Winnipeg were pretty gross, to be honest.
Are you going to use this structure in the summer and if so what do you do about it getting too hot?
We have hoop houses that we use in the summer. But when this one is used spring and early fall, all of the windows are opened up and the fans help move the air around. It works as a giant dehydrator for various things as well.
@@Wilderstead We just ended 3 weeks of minus 30 in central Saskatchewan. What type of extremes will your greenhouse face?
Same here, if not colder at times.
@@Wildersteadwe use shade cloth on our lean to and works great for curing onions, potatoes (covered with cardboard or burlap). Another reason I like to keep GH small so it’s easy to flip the cloth on.
A year later how well has this worked for you?
It’s been close to 2 years now. Greenhouse is still working great for us. We just harvested a bunch of loofahs, peppers and tomatoes.
Vegetables grown yourself taste far better than shop bought any day of the week….
reco... block off the "attic"... smaller space to heat the better and it's not a functional space for you... more work in summer/fall... insulate around the building a few inches down (exterior/below grade foam board)... 2-4 ft out... will really change frost line and cold coming up the floor
Thanks for the recommendations
Why don't you insulate your ceiling? Hot air rises.
The back half of the ceiling is thoroughly insulated. The front half of the ceiling is glass….
Permits in the forest... even they exist, I don't want to know or care. God bless!
In our area, it's mainly an electrical permit (if you plan to connect to the grid) and septic permits.
Don't mislead people. Bins with water do work. They must be BLACK and 2-4 times in gallons to the square feet of floor. Instead of water, sand will work even better as a thermal storage. There are dozens of videos here showing how to do it with measurable results. You did it wrong.
Do you have experience growing in a greenhouse heated solely with big black barrels full of water? There's nothing misleading about explaining what we've tried, and the HUGE amount of space required to store the volume of water needed to keep a greenhouse 'warm' - which would be barely above freezing - in our climate. I'm sure you've seen numerous videos on large scale greenhouses using thermal mass as a warming source. And sure, it works in southern climates to an extent. But I can assure you in a climate like ours, there are other heat inputs being used in those large greenhouses along side thermal mass storage. We would need thermal mass storage the size of the greenhouse just to make a single degree difference in the temperature inside the greenhouse at night. We've been at this for several years and sharing real world experience with growing food year round on a small scale in a greenhouse in a climate that reaches -30C for prolonged periods of time.
@@WildersteadI agree. I don’t have that space either and I don’t want frozen barrels. True they need to be black and hitting sun-On that note you then have to look at how many sunny days your area gets-That’s A Big One!!
I talked a little bit about rebuilding my lean to GH and going to use reclaimed refrigeration building panels around the edges and bottom. If I don’t grow in ground I can always container grow as the most I would want to succeed at is leafy greens.
😂that recall segment was a hoot! I know, it’s almost everyday isn’t it?😂
Oh, better yet, later on my folks went to an outdoor wood burning stove and boiler system. The best and no more cleaning a 3 story house chimney.👏🏼👏🏼. I thought it was bad painting on a ladder, but my poor ole pop was still popping out on the roof through the attic to clean the chimney.😮
Where I’m going with this is it would be easy to add a line of heat to GH with outdoor wood burner.