Full Review of The Polytunnel (First Tunnels)
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- Опубликовано: 23 мар 2018
- The tunnel is up and I've spent some time with it. In this video I do a full review of the decisions that I took, what I like, don't like and think could be improved. I also show how I've tweaked the design and added a few extras of my own. Finally I have a few ideas for further improvements.
This is a long video - 30 mins - and may only be of interest to someone who's into polytunnels, or intends to get one. I do a short comparison of this tunnel and a competing tunnel from Northern Polytunnels. I think the quality of the design of Northern's tunnel is superior, but my heart swayed me a bit in the decision.
If you are new to my allotment videos you might find a bit of context useful. We have three allotments in my family, mine (Steve), my wife's (Debbie) and my middle daughter's (Jennie). We also have a small kitchen garden at home. They are all managed in an integrated fashion, so don't expect to see the usual mix of veg on each plot.
On Jennie's plot, for example, we focus on potatoes, squash, alliums, and brassicas. This video provides an overview • The big picture of our... . I do an update of the allotments, roughly one a week, you can find the tours here • Tours .
Our approach to allotment life is to: grow as much as we possibly can, to be self-sufficient in veg all year round and in fruit in summer, to give away our huge surplus to friends and family, and to have as much fun as possible.
My wife and I spend about 4 hours a day, 4 days a week on the plots (on average) and we keep nudging that down as we eliminate non-productive work: like grass cutting, weeding and watering as much as practical. We are both newbie gardeners, only starting the allotments in 2016.
I'm a bit obsessive about the nutrient density of the veg that we grow and making the plots easy to work because it's through this allotment lifestyle and food that I've overcome a debilitating auto-immune disease.
I'm always aware though that it might not last so I make sure that I don't work too hard, eat the most organic fruit and veg I can and design the plots so that I can still work them if I flare up again. 
Развлечения
A little tip I learned in my Bushcraft. If you char the bottoms of your timbers, about 8 inches from bottom, in a small fire before sinking your door and frame timbers into the ground, the charring which is carboned, prevents the wood rotting.
That’s a good tip, thanks
It looks stunning Steve. I love the size and like all of the modifications you've made. I particularly liked your very clear articulation of your thoughts as you talked us through your decision making on your chosen design.
Again well done Steve. You've done a really great job.
Take care
Mike👍👍👍
Just waiting to see the huge greenhouse that you've got waiting in the wings Mike! : All the best - Steve
That is a very smart looking polytunnel! thanks for sharing.
I’m so excited about getting the poly tunnel we have been given up and running! We already have plans for extensions and alterations and your videos are amazing! I’ve been watching them back to front so have only just got to this one!
That's wonderful Bernadette, hopefully you've seen that "what to plant in a polytunnel" videos already : All the best - Steve
Steve's Seaside Allotment Yes! That was how we discovered your channel.
Nice product review Steve. Very useful information for everybody.........Jim👍
Hi Steve, What an outstanding job you have done, I am very impressed.
Thanks Ronald! : All the best - Steve
Really glad i found this as i've been umming and arghing about going to 10x20 rather than 10x12. I'm going for soil anchors, aluminium bar for the plastic, crop bar and other support, sliding wide doors. Great video!
Excellent, you won't regret it!! : All the best - Steve
Thanks for the in depth review Steve, very helpful as I`m considering which company to order from.
It's up! It's up! It's really really up! Yay!
I enjoyed this. I don't even want to think of all the work that went into putting it together. There's a lot to condsider that's for sure. I love the double doors and the wood seems to set the whole picture of your polytunnel. I was not expecting you to stretch it again. That wouldn't have even entered my mind. I love the mesh on your doors and the way you adjusted the door so it doesn't snag. I had to laugh when you said that annoyed you :-) and you have a chair to sit in so you can just sit and relax. Enjoy Steve! I'm thrilled for you and can't wait to see everything growing!👍
Thanks, you’re more enthusiastic than I am - that’s saying something! - I can’t stand to leave thing that will annoy me every day unfixed! : all the best - Steve
Hello Sir the poly tunnel is really looking good. It is a good size and I love the idea of having doors on the both sides. Lovely video. Happy gardening
Diary of Rose.s Garden me too! : all the best - Steve
Well done that was explained very well, and the additions you did are also bang on, especially the doors not opening fully, wouldn't be long before there is damage to the wood there. I just bought a 20 x 10 foot that recommends you bury the plastic, which I did and it lifted out of the ground the first high winds I got here, your extra work and expense with adding timber rails is by far a better structure, and well worth it, as I now need to recover mine and I never had a shovel full of soil in the poly.Thanks for going through all the trouble to video your polytunnel and share you work, excellent.Cheers Jimmy.
Thanks for the feedback Jimmy, the rails have worked well, although I've not had to re-tighten my tunnel yet, it's nice to know that I can : All the best - Steve
Great info mate, has helped me make my mind up on a few things I have been mulling over on what I'd like for my Polly tunnel after I've saved up enough for it.
Excellent Ant, looking forward to you getting your tunnel too! : All the best - Steve
Hi Steve, just ordered a 12x35ft from First Tunnels. Great video and information from someone who’s already built one of theirs. Great idea with the water collection. Many thanks again.👍🏻
What an amazing tunnel, I'm jealous, you might also find this video useful, these are the changes I made to the design ruclips.net/video/EvJgOLGo6jA/видео.html
Love the chair, everyone needs a chair in the Polly tunnel /greenhouse :) The wood dose look nice
Nice review, I just built 2 of these in a 25 x 14ft format. No problems with the self drilling screws at all, no pilot holes, although we did put them in before assembly (hoops etc), that's how we interpreted the instructions. The only ones we fitted after were the bases of the hoops.
Yeah, before assembly would have been much easier! : All the best - Steve
Brilliant review Steve some good tips too😁.
Thanks Kevin
Hi Steve, love your tunnel design. I'm currently putting up my own 60ft polytunnel which I've had for a number of years now. I bought it second hand, and it was originally designed for the trenching method. At my previous address my landlord allowed me to put it up in a corner of his builders yard. A rubble subfloor meant trenching wasnt an option due to the boulders the site was built on. I had no option but to adopt a baserail kit for it something similar to the one you have. None of the bars lined up correctly, again due to the boulders onsite, some were up to 6" off true. That said the hoops were very strong 2.5mm thick galanised steel, so strong I was even able to hang a hammock across them. I cemented the hoops in place, and it was very rigid despite being out of line.
The standard baserail kits you can buy were pretty expensive for my budget, so I made my own. Using 4"x1" standard 16ft lengths of treated timber attached with galvoband to the rails of the tunnel. I cut a series of 2" batons to roll the polythene, before stretching and screwing into the baserail. Galvoband is adequately strong to hold baserail in place, and before moving house, it withstood several storms in a very exposed, elevated site where some of my neighbors tunnels were destroyed in high winds.
In case you are not aware, you can/should use decking screws instead of nails when attaching baserail batons. This allows for very quick removal of all batons should you need to either tighten the plastic after it expands in the summer sun. It is very important to keep the plastic as torqued as possible. Flapping of the plastic reduces its lifespan significantly. The trenching method does not allow you to stretch the plastic once its on. It also takes a very long time to dig up when time comes for replacing. I was able to remove the plastic from my tunnel in under an hour. My tunnel is twice as long as yours, so imagine the time it'd take to dig that trench.
Another advantage of the baserail is that once installed, you can lay your mypex groundsheet and staple it directly onto the inside of the baserail. This turns the tunnel into an actual real tunnel with a 360 barrier against weeds such as bindweed (a problem at my previous site) and slugs (another major problem I previously had). After initially clearing the slugs from the tunnel with beer traps, I layed several packets of salt at both doorways. Slugs apparently cant cross salt, and were unable to climb in under the baserail. this proved the best solution which worked for me.
I watched your water harvesting video. thanks for sharing. I think I will adopt a similar design for my tunnel. I've also bought a 50ft tunnel frame second hand recently, so will be running both tunnels parallel to one another. As this is my own home, I will also be digging a trench between the tunnels approx 5ft wide and 3-4ft deep. It will be lined with pond liner and be used to catch the water from both tunnels over the winter and be used as a reservoir for my irrigation. I intend using a series of solar powered fountains to pump water to an elevated IBC tank during the day, and have this gravity feed the tunnels during the night.
I intend floating salad crops in the pond using some sort of hydrophonic set up which I've seen in other videos, and later add fish such as perch to it, turning it into an aquaponics setup. Perch are hardy fish that have a very expensive export price to the french market (something like 50 euro a KG last time i checked). Not sure how effective it will be, but I hope to create some sort of raft to also put my food waste in, have it float over the pond. It will have a mesh screen at the bottom, and as worms and maggots drop through the screen, they will hopefully supplement the fish diet. They will also help control midge larvae. The fish feces will in turn fertilize the plants. Thats the long term plan, I'm sure it'll need a lot of tweaking.
Just thought I'd give you my experience of the baserail design, and restore your confidence in it. Any feedback or helpful advice appreciated
Regards Jason
Definitely sounds like you have it sorted. A lot of my issues came from following the instructions from the supplier, which made assembly easy, but subsequent replacement of the poly and retensioning much more difficult. The hydroponics sounds very promising! : all the best - Steve
Thanks for all the tips Steve! I am just assembling my First Tunnels polytunnel so some of this is particularly handy. I'm not too worried about the battens rotting - as you say it you keep the wood off the ground it should be OK. I really like the idea of the gutter to collect water and the bilge pump. Let us know how you get on. I am thinking of a gutter piped into a fishpond inside the tunnel. It might be hard to seal against the slugs, but it would be nice to have carp to throw the slugs to.
sounds like a fun addition, but it might get pretty hot in summer? You might like these updated videos ruclips.net/video/jjEXhIR0e_E/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/EvJgOLGo6jA/видео.html. Some people have suggested simpler gutteriung solutions to the one we used, so it's worth shopping around, but we like the second one we did best. Maybe you could use salt to seal against the slugs coming in and spend £20 on three batches of nematodes to kill any that are already in the soil? : All the best - Steve
Steve this was an amazing in-depth review. I pleased you did as its inspired me. I was always going to get a tunnel and this one is very simular to the one I was looking at. The space looks great. Thank you for your thoughts and insight.
That’s so great to hear! Next week I should have a video up on the interior design : all the best - Steve
i got polytunnel envy.......lol ! thanks for sharing your review
I hope your repair went ok
You have a fine poly tunnel there. You will enjoy many years of use out of it.
That's definitely the plan! : All the best - Steve
Great detailed video
Glad you liked it Bev : All the best - Steve
I went for the 30ft by 14ft, from first tunnels. Managed to put it in our garden, we’ve had our first season with it now, and we’ve been really rewarded with produce. Had some great chocolate habaneros, hhhhot. Great video
Nice, that’s about the size of the greenhouse we have planned for our garden :-)
Hi Steve, I bought a First Tunnel 14x20ft tunnel. I got aluminium base rails and they look a lot better and changing polythene is simple.
I also got siderails so that I could have green mesh along the north facing wall. They now do mesh door panels too.
Agree self-tappers are a nightmare.
I also looked at your video about guttering and wondered if you had an update on how it survived the winter?
The guttering is still holding up well, some of the double sided tape has lost adhesion, but the polytunnel repair tape is still good. I don't think they did the aluminium side rails when I got mine, the wiggle wire solution looks a lot better than all those wooden battens. 20 x 14ft sounds wonderful, it will change your gardening life! : All the best - Steve
Hi Steve you have really inspired us to purchase a polly tunnel. We have just ordered ours the same size. Now planning the layout. Could you tell us how tall the raised bed frames are I was thinking of using scaffold boards which are 9" but not sure if high enough. Also how wide are your raised beds and the clips you got off e bay that go round the staging legs could you tell me the size of them if you can remember. We want to get everything we need while waiting for delivery. thanks John
Thanks for the feedback John! The raised beds are bottomless so the height doesn't matter so much, I chose 6" because I thought that was enough compost/horse manure to raise the fertility of what had previously been very poor soil. The clips were the same size as the staging legs, my ebay purchase history doesn't go back that far unfortunately. I'm sure you will love your tunnel : All the best - Steve
@@SteveRichards thanks steve
What are those clips you used to strengthen the staging called? Struggling to search for them on eBay.
Hi Simon, are these the ones you mean? www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=pipe+clips+35mm&crid=2ILUO2Z6U5655&sprefix=pipe+clips+35mm%2Caps%2C99&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
I went for the aluminium base rails, rot problems
I'd forgotten about this video, which I watched whilst researching polytunnels.
Ended up buying a 20x10 from First Tunnels despite looking at 15x8 to start with.
Went for anchor plates, as there's no way I could get a screw anchor into the quarry waste under what passes for soil on the site.
Went with wood everything & the staging supports but doors are a standard hinged rear & wide hinged front as I don't trust sliding doors...
Despite using anchor tubes, I'm going to bury some of the excess as extra security & pest exclusion.
Treated timber not in touch with soil should last at least 20 years, so no concern there as it'll outlast me...
I'm so pleased to here that, you won't regret that extra size, expect when you are watering in mid summer! I do love my sliding doors, but I'm sure hinges are fine too! I laughed a bit at your comment about screws, we had some scary moments when the screws hit immovable objects deep down and I had to use a sledge hammer to smash through them, but the result was very well secured screws, albeit a few inches out of true!
Steve, Just ordered one of these following watching this review. What width are your beds and why?
Thanks
This video provides more details ruclips.net/video/EvJgOLGo6jA/видео.htmlsi=H_2kcTQQYMVJWxdb I think the beds are 2’ and 3.5’ which leaves space for a row of big containers and a path
Thanks Steve.@@SteveRichards
Did you find the nail plates were in the way of the base rail clamps on the intermediate hoop and if so how did you fit the clamp ?
I don't remember having a problem I'm afraid : All the best - Steve
@@SteveRichards …no worries, sorted now, just me having the timber too far forward, cheers.
So the sliding doors are just easier to work with? I'm looking at buying Northern Pollytunnels, wasnt sure about the door thing.
Sliding doors take less space and are much better in high winds, they can be adjusted to any opening size to suit ventilation needs, double doors open wider for summer ventilation, doors at each end mean one can always be open, even in high winds, which we get a lot of here. That’s why all farms have them : all the best - Steve
Very smart tunnel.
Why did you want double sliding doors? Wide not a wide single hinged door or hinged double door?
Sliding doors take less space and are much better in high winds, they can be adjusted to any opening size to suit ventilation needs, double doors open wider for summer ventilation, doors at each end mean one can always be open, even in high winds, which we get a lot of here. That’s why all farms have them : all the best - Steve
@@SteveRichards got it, thanks 😊
When you go to replace the battons, another upgrade might be in order. Painted wood or plastic battons, screws instead of nails, etc. There are quite a few options. Fotrunately, there is also a lot of time to consider the alternatives before action will be required. I'm looking forward to seeing how the mylar that you intend to install performs. It sounds like a good idea.
If you’d asked me last year I’d have used stainless steel screws, but I recently disassembled a 4 year old raised bed and half the screws snapped of were so well stuck that the head stripped off. In ten years I dread to think what hundreds of screws would be like to remove! My guess is that in a few years wiggle wire will become the norm. : all the best - Steve
What kind of screws were they? That does make a difference. We have a front porch screwed together, and after 7 or so years, the screws designed for decking have allowed servicing of our gas meter and dryer vent without incident. I assembled a play structure for my son and ran short of them. So I substituted drywall (gypsum board) screws that I had on hand to finish the project. Never again. Phillips (cross) slotted heads also can be a problem. Our front porch screws are square drive, but local construction trades don't use them anymore in favor of torx (star) drive fasteners nowadays.
Ah I’ve used Philips standard stainless steel wood screws, maybe I should consider switching - thanks for the tip.
Yw. I hope it helps. Maybe you can run a small experiment by building a small raised bed, park bench, or potting bench for outdoor use and disassemble that in a few years. Should you decide to fill the air gaps around the doors, weatherstripping for garage doors (like a squeegee) works pretty well. There's also bristle (brush) style gap filler that will allow some airflow if that's more to your liking.
Hi Steve, would screed not be suitable fixings instead of nails? I’m just doing my research before I purchase one. Love the channel.
The problem I’ve had with screws is that after a few years at least 20% of them break when being removed. Then they are very hard to get out. Some people have suggested posidrive I think it was, these are meant to be better. I just went with nails as that’s what the manufacturer recommended. I think stainless steel screws dipped in soap (for easy removal) might have been better.
I’ve had some experience with the gold class screws externally and they are generally quiet good, there a little bit more expensive but worth the money. All I’m thinking is it might save a lot of time and effort over screws.
Nails lol
Hi Steve, I'm looking to get one of these polytunnels and I'm keen to know how yours is holding up as it's been 2 years now since you erected it? Thanks
It's in great condition Wesley, no problems at all : All the best - Steve
@@SteveRichards Brilliant, thanks for the update Steve 👍
With all of the recent high winds I have decided to take down our playhouse and replace it with a tunnel. I’m going for 20’ x 8’, trenched sides. I’m getting the chap that put up our tunnels at work to erect it, it will take me over a week and he’ll do it in one day. It will be from first tunnels, we used them for all four of our 120’x 46’, another reason, I will get a discount as an ex customer.
I just need permission off of the allotment officer which shouldn’t be a problem. Take care.
That sounds exciting Mark, I think high winds are definitely our future! I don't think our playhouse will last much longer either, but sadly I need the storage space, so it will probably be replaced with a shed. The back half will be for storage and the front half will - finally - be a potting shed for me! If I'm lucky I might even move the grow lights from my workshop into there, which would be amazing! I so want a good potting shed! : All the best - Steve
That polytunnel dwarfs my small effort but the principles are basically the same. There was was no option on my tunnel to put in a timber base but I worked it out independently that was the way to go. I did not nail my batten I used screws, which should come out easier than nails. As long as the timber is not submerged in water it should not rot. My experience has been on river structures and I found timber rots on the water line so with the gap you have left I think is more than adequate. My supplier gave me plenty of tape I have a roll left over. I have an interest in condensation, my disitation for my MBA was on condensation in social housing plus `i have noted condensation in my tunnel last season. This seems to be a problem with polytunnels. The number air changes per hour are important and that is a large polytunnel. A 9 x 12 x 8 ft room requires 6 to 7 changes an hour and a humidity of 50% with 3 humans giving off 3 pints of water each, so a hygrometer is going to be for me a bit of useful kit. I don't know how much water plants give off or take in the atmosphere or the difference at night which is why I have gone for opening lights so I have some control for testing. We shall see. Take care Mike B
I’m hoping I have enough ventilation options too Mike, my humidity has been running around 40-50 over the last few days. Condensation is inevitable, I get it in the greenhouse too. I’ve got some spray that encourages the condensate to run down the sides of the tunnel, rather than drip
Hi, Steve, not suggesting you have a problem with condensation, I am genuinely interested in how you are managing it,.particularly in the warmer months. That is a large area, you are going to screen sections and as yet no plants, again this is no criticism but a genuine interest in the subject. take care Mike B
As you know Mike I'm a newbie and I like learning as I go rather than planning too far ahead. It's ironic that after many years in IT and business strategy, I learned that the most important part of a strategy was to be resilient to uncertainty, flexible and opportunistic. That's my excuse for not planning too much in retired life anyway.
My main strategy is ventilation though, two big doors, left open as much as possible and two big vents at each end left open when the doors are closed. I'm also going to spray the inside of the poly with a chemical that reduces drips and encourages run off down the sides and into the ground. I've got a lovely little humidity tracker, which is currently showing very good air quality, once the doors are opened.
Keep for eye out for a tour - maybe next week. All the best - Steve
Hi Mike, I'm intrigued about humidity too, it's one of the things we have good strategies for in our house. I thought you might be interested in an update on a sample day: during the day it drops as low as 40%, at night it increased to 100% - even with the doors open . It starts to drop as soon as the sun hits the poly, falling from 100% to 40% within 2 hours, correlated exactly with temperature. There's always drops of water condensate on the poly first thing in the morning, but I've sprayed with Sun Clear, which is hydrophobic and reportedly will stop drop formation, minimising drips (on my cold frames the drips lead to algae growth on the soil).
Instead it will encourage water to run down the sides of the tunnel where it can drain away, rather than evaporate or drip. By contrast the greenhouse (which has less ventilation) only increased to 86% at night and reduced to 30% within three hours, also correlated exactly with the temperature rise.
Oh and with respect to your comment "no criticism but a genuine interest in the subject" I didn't take it as criticism, but even if I had I'm very open to a bit of constructive critique, it was a standard - daily - practice in my 30 years at work.
: All the best - Steve
First,
I have been looking at those bench supports.
I put net between the roof bars for shading.
I guess you have screwed the base rail baton that traps the plastic, but If I was you in the near future I would replace the screws with bolts.
Oh you used nails, replace nails with bolts.
The one major change I would make with yours is to also have side rails, that way you can collect water, and you need a lot of water in the tunnel. It also stops the plot next to you getting water loged.
I like the door latch idea, very good.
If you wanted to stretch the tunnel now, get a portable gas heater and put it in tunnel until warm enough for you to take clothes off :-)
I guess you knew I was typing this as a watched the video.
That's a good idea. I like the supports now that they are all well supported! : All the best - Steve
Side rails sound like a good upgrade, I’d be more confident changing the design now that I have something in front of me. I’m one of those people who have no inner eye, ie when I close my eyes I can’t summon images from memory etc, everything is always black. So it’s hard to plan without a real structure to look at. : all the best - Steve
@@SteveRichards A fellow aphant, in other words :)
I’m not sure, I am able to get a vague visualisation of photos but not objects in the real world
@@SteveRichards It is difficult to be sure of one's own ability to visualise. If you haven't already, there's a VVIQ test you can take online.
buying one of these tomorrow from the same company, did you put yours up yourself or they do it for you?
We put it up, took a few days, spread over a week
best investment I ever made, I paid it back from profits from the allotment in 3 months
Our council only allow a 12 by 8 tunnel so you are lucky or did you just ignore the rules?
I stuck to the rules, but I wrote a long proposal, addressing every point of challenge before it was raised : all the best - Steve
What are the dimensions in meters please? I am sure you mentioned it😂
CEO Amaru it’s 20 feet by 10 feet, roughly 6 by 3 metres : all the best - Steve
Built to the almost extreme I like it. There is a lot of love going into building the polytunnel. I wonder if people live in greenhouse; I guess you can if you homeless. I think it better than sleeping on the street with a cardboard.
Thanks Kevin, even better we installed it in March and the allotment harvests paid it off in full by June! : all the best - Steve
Wish I’d watched this before I put my 10’x20’ First Tunnel’s up. It was a mission.
Yeah! they do give the impression that you will have it all sorted in an afternoon, but the whole process from start to finished beds, ready for planting took us close to a week! : All the best - Steve
ive put up dozens of tunnels, from small ones to commercial 100 ft by 30 ft and multispans, the base rails are far superior to trenching, less work to reclad, no tearing from stones at ground level, the battens are cheap to buy and if treated last 10-15 years, the base rails themselves last 20 years of they arent damaged.and yes much much easier to get the skin tight with base rails. have fun growing in your new space.
Thanks for the comments Kevin, how do you remove the battens when you do a reskin, are they re-usable? : All the best - Steve
@@SteveRichards i always ignore the nails that come with a tunnel for battens and use screws, sure they rust, but a box of 1000 70mm drywall screws is a tenner, and you can reposition the batten if you make a mistake, with nails you pretty much have to break the batten to get it off if you arent really careful with a small prybar. here in ireland a skin usually lasts a year or two longer than england because we dont get such hot summers, around 7 years max, after that the light transmission drops too much, even though the cover seems good still, the UV transmission levels go down. we generally reuse the old covers for cold frame lids etc. the only thing i cant see on your tunnel is diagonal braces at the ridge to the door frame crossbar, but maybe the extra horizontals are designed to do that job.prices have gone up a lot in recent years, but you wont regret getting a tunnel though, it extends the growing season so much. ive just put a 60 by 30 up in our village community garden, and went the extra mile for double sliding doors as well.
Thanks Kevin, I've had a few people recommend screws and I'm surprised that the supplier didn't mention that as an option. I tend to always use stainless steel screws now and they don't rust, at least 5 year old ones don't : All the best - Steve
How much all in
About £1,000 Michael for everything, bought in March, paid for in full from allotment harvest by June of the same year : All the best - Steve
@@SteveRichards thank