It's Not Easy [Building a] Green[house].

© Harbor Freight Tools 2003

Last Thursday and Friday, I helped my uncle put up this greenhouse model at his daughter's house in central CT. He got it this past autumn at a store-opening sale when it was ~$200 off that price. I'd been wanting to give him a hand with putting it up so I could see how its ease of assembly is, the durability of the design and how well it functions. I've been thinking about getting one ourselves to put on our woodlot. But I also wanted to help b/c he's a cool uncle to do things with --- great dry sense of humor, he's a great storyteller in the oral tradition, and in between it all, you learn some good construction tips. As Red Green says, "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!"

This model of greenhouse measures 10' x 12' and its peak is about 10'. Started by digging and leveling off the ground, which will eventually be filled with process gravel and/or bricks that will help pack the steel foundation in to secure it against winds, provide good drainage, etc. Once the foundation supports are in, the aluminum support rigging goes up, the clear polycarbonate (this is actually what bulletproof glass is made from) panels are laid in and secured by clips. That makes short shrift of what took about 16 hours total --- eight of which were in cold, off-and-on showers on Thursday. I usually wear rubber-coated garden gloves but in having to use small nuts and bolts, it was impossible. So, our fingers were fairly numb most of the time. But, perseverance is the key to almost anything. On Friday, we came back and finished up wearing T-shirts on a beautiful mid-60-degree day. If the weather was like that on Thursday we probably would have been done that day.

The directions left a lot to be desired. What pictures were included were mostly grainy CAD drawings. They didn't say that you had to slip in some bolts in the side brackets/roofing trusses until after they were all assembled. Nice, that. Often wound up having to undo bolts to add other brackets in. The door construction instructions did not say to slip in the polycarbonate panels in during assembly. We had to cut 1/4" off of some of the panels so they would fit properly at the vents. And there was one very short abstract sentence in the instructions about installing the vent brackets that was about as helpful as a hemorrhoid. Required some spatial reasoning (which is often the trick to problem-solving, I find) but that didn't hold us down for long. I was also surprised to see that this product included quite a few spare parts --- nuts, bolts, the metal clips, rubber gaskets, and plastic whatzits. Usually, you find out too late that you're missing parts and you have to mickey-mouse it.

As the neighbors sauntered over, there were the requisite marijuana jokes.... But no, none of that. I've never done illegal drugs in my life and I'm going to keep it that way. Come to think of it, I'm not too keen on the legal drugs, either.

It'd be nice to have a place to start out some vegetable and flower seeds in early spring, be able to grow some things during the winter, and maybe keep a Venus flytrap to impress the visitors. It seemed to be of good quality, but again, I'll wait a while and see what the final verdict is on this greenhouse's functioning and how it holds up to the weather.