Hmmmm. I need to find one of these magazines! I just may bite the bullet if it is 20% off!

Did you get my e-mail hoover?

I called my local HF and they said that the 20% coupon will apply! 10x15 for 559.99! They have it in stock! Rode trip tomorrow!

Road trip, not rode trip!

wonder what the snow load rating is ?

Probably very low, according to the reviews on their website. They don't mention snow, but a lot of people have problems with panels blowing off in high winds. The assembly manual also suggests that you put it in a place that is protected from the prevailing winds.

I bought one Sat. I haven't assembled it yet, we have a cold snap right now, and I've been getting home late. Mine will be located on the south side of my house, so wind shouldn't be a problem. We also don't get a lot of snow here.

Wertach, I'm coming up on four years with my HFGH 10x12, and I love it. The reports about the risks caused by wind damage are quite accurate, though. When I built mine there was a very active group of folks here, all building the (then new) 10x12. Many of them developed ways to strengthen the frame, and most importantly, attach the panels to the aluminum frame itself by simply adding a few screws per panel. I have documented those ideas in my blog, and maybe some of these idea will be helpful to you.
Building our Harbor Freight 10x12 greenhouse

If we hadn't screwed the panels and reinforced the frame, we don't think ours would still be standing, due to wind damage over the years. (Ours is also on the south side of our house, but we still get very strong winds from the west, in our location.)

DBA1954, nobody really knows what the snow rating is, but Wertach is right, it's not great. There have been a few posts here of damage from heavy snow. If you do a forum search with HFGH and the word snow, I think you can locate threads with pics showing how some folks have reinforced the frame to better withstand snowy weather.

Some folks in snowy climates have found the sliding doors to be a challenge too, as they can freeze shut when too much ice accumulates in the track. We live in a desert climate, so that has only happened to me once, last year, when we had a record freeze lasting for many days. But now I know what folks may find, if they live in a climate where long freezes and winter precipitation is common! Some have even replaced the sliding doors with a hinged door (pretty major rebuild, but apparently it can be done.)

That is a great price with the coupon, that's how we bought ours too, years ago. That, and this forum, gave me the courage to take the leap. Glad we did!

A lot of GH for the money. I just will mention that I used caulk on all the panels after clipping them in. That seemed to take care of the wind problem. It Takes a dozen or more tubes. Hang a weight on the air vent handles when the wind blows or they will suck open. Have help when putting it together. It is easy, BUT, takes a lot of discussion on what goes where..

I still haven't had time to put mine together. I'm more or less going to have to do it alone. My brothers are a lot older than me and have health problems, my friends don't have time, and my wife only goes outside when she has to get in her car!

I'm pretty good at improvising though! We will see!

Wertach ... I didn't get your E-mail.

I did find a coupon today! I hope they are still on sale! If buy the 6x8 will I regret it. What would be the negatives to the smaller one. What would be the pluses to the big one? I have never had one before. My heart is racind at the possibilities this would open up. I really just want it for starting seeds ... but I am sure that would change!

Hover,, I can't guess at what you would be happy with, but you say "just to start seeds". I am happy with my 6 by 8 It is big enough to have a table/bench down each side and a nice walk way down the middle Thats 15 foot of table for starter trays. I use old refrigerator bins for grow boxes (lettuce). there is still room under the benches on the ground. A little electric/fan heater on a thermostat for frozen nights. If you need to heat it,the bigger one might be harder to heat??.

The smaller one will take less to heat in the winter, but it will be harder to keep cool in the summer. (Only a factor if you think you'll be keeping plants in there during the warmer months.) I keep plants in mine year round, so cooling is a challenge in our summer heat. I have the 10x12 so that helps me a bit.

Here's a good heating calculator to play with. You can enter the surface area and volume of both sizes of greenhouses, to determine how much it would take to hold the temperature you want during the winter, based on your average lows. Using this I determined I need two 1500W electric heaters for my 10x12, in our climate. (For this calculator, the HF greenhouse has 4mm twinwall panels.)
Heating calculator.

This website has a cooling calculator too, if you want to figure out what size of fan you might need, if you need cooling for year-round use.

Colokid, that's a great idea to hang a weight on the roof vent handles. I never tried that! Mine blew open constantly too (well, not all the way open, but just a bit, even when I had the handles all the way down.) I eventually wired mine shut, and recently took the vents out entirely when I replaced my roof panels last fall.

I could get away with removing the roof vents because I remove all the south panels in the summer months and replace them with screen panels, for cooling. (This is why I didn't want to caulk my panels in, because I like to be able to remove some of them.) Glad the caulk worked for you. I think the panels just need to be secured in some manner, screws or caulk, or they will blow out (which can also wreck the frame, depending on how bad the storm is.)

mudhouse, interesting that you use screen panels during the summer for your HFG.
Do you have any photos and what kind of screen do you use, also do you make a frame for each panel? How do you keep the screens in?

Would like to use our HFG for a hybridizing house during the summer, for our hosta seedlings.

Trudy, here's a pic of the south side of my HFGH, with the four center poly wall panels replaced with four screen panels I made using Aluminet shade cloth. I just bought the window screen frame supplies at Home Depot (you could also buy window screen and use that instead of the Aluminet shadecloth I used.) I use the same HFGH clips to hold the screens in that I use to hold the poly panels in, they work just fine.

{{gwi:286730}}

I have more detailed instructions, and more photos of how I built the screens, in this part of my blog (scroll about 1/4 of the way down the page to get to the screen part.)
Greenhouse Enhancements, including screens

I've been really happy with them. Sometimes in the spring we get bad winds from the west, right on my greenhouse doors, so I have to keep the doors clamped shut. The screens allow me to keep the doors shut on those bad days, and still have full ventilation from the south.

I can unscrew and unclip a poly panel, and replace it with a screen, in about a minute. In early spring and late fall I sometimes have the screens in during the day, but pop the panels back on for the cool nights, if the night temps are still falling below 45F. I store the poly panels on our patio behind furniture when not in use.

I have two screws in each poly panel, but when I unscrew them, I just back out the screw far enough so it's free from the greenhouse frame, but stays stuck in the poly panel. So when I reposition the poly panel to put it back on at night, I just make sure the screws are lined up with the screw hole in the greenhouse frame, and I use a screwdriver to tighten down the screws. Then I reapply the clips. It's a lot faster than I thought it would be. (Oh, and be sure to number each poly panel when you take it out, so it goes back into the same spot in the frame, or the screw holes won't line up!) :-)

This photo is old and still shows the roof vents, which I finally removed last fall. With the screens in place, and my exhaust fan running, I found I could do without the roof vents. (Although, if I had tried Colokids's idea about hanging heavy weights on the vent handles, to keep them from blowing open, maybe I could have kept them...)

I will add that I have a standard window swamp cooler siting on the ground blowing into the back of mine. Dry Colorado. A fan just don't hack it when it is over a 100 degrees outside air temp. Thermostat controlled and it can bring the temp down about 20 degrees with no problem. A nice place to sit on hot days.

Thanks Sheri for explaining your process for the screening. Always enjoy checking out your page on instructions that you have set up.
You have helped so many folks in the past with all the extras you have done to the HFG! You have been a blessing to many! Saving lots of us many hrs of avoided headaches!

Hopefully we can get some screens on this summer and use our HFG many more months out of the year.
Thanks again!

Trudy, you're so welcome, and thank you for your kind words.

Colokid, I'm about ready to take the plunge and figure out a way to use a swamp cooler here, too. This last summer was a killer with many more days over 100 than usual. Awfully hard on me, and my plants in there. I can't get that your sentence about "bring the temp down 20 degrees" out of my mind!

Am I visualizing your set up right, you have the swamp cooler sitting on the ground outside of your greenhouse, with a hole cut into the lower part of one panel, to blow the cooled air inside?

Mudhouse, yep. I cut the bottom part of the center panel in the back end off Its a regular window swamp cooler that I bought off of Craig. they are way over price new. a couple boards on the ground for it to set on.I assume swamp coolers work in NM like here in dry Colorado. Many times i just run the fan part with no water. If you are on a wet lawn with sprinkles, that could hurt their cooling tho. Biggest problem is the garden hose running to it in the hot sun blows up---

Thank you colokid. Yup, we have two monster swamp coolers sitting up on our house roof. They work great here most of the time, except during our humid monsoon season. No worries about a wet lawn with sprinkles...nothing behind the greenhouse but hot deep sand. Come to think of it...what's a "lawn"?

I may have to break down and give it a try. Thank you for the info!

If anyone needs Harbor Freight coupons I will be happy to send them to you. 20% off. I find them all the time and keep them with me. I am also interested in a green house but living in TX I wonder if it would be a good investment? In winter I could house my plants from the cold?

Gretchen, you're in the same zone as I am, so we probably have similar low temps. You'd have to use some kind of heat in your greenhouse to protect your plants from winter cold (I use electric heaters in mine.)

Whether or not it would be a good investment depends on what you'd like to use it for, and how much pleasure it would bring to you, for the effort and cost of building it. I know that can be hard to figure out when you are new to having a greenhouse (this is my first too.)

Many people use greenhouses to grow edible plants, or to start seeds early for outdoor planting. I use mine to house my collection of cacti and succulents, so my investment return is pleasure, and not food for our table. Some of my plants live in the greenhouse year round, and others live on my patios during warm weather, and they all get crowded into the greenhouse during the cold winter.

Reading in this forum is a great way to learn how people use their greenhouses in different ways. Folks here are usually able to answer questions, and help you sort things out!

For those toying with the idea of a GH, I would talk about what I learned, And it is a constant learning thing.
As far as keeping it warmer inside, I was disappointed, at least with the little ones I have. It gets all most as cold in it at night as the outside temperature. A little fan/heater set at 750 watt does nicely. 750 watts time 8 hours is about 80 cents a day or 2.50 a month. Timer or thermostat.
As for getting warm in the sun shine it gets HOT_HOT. You can't believe how it can warm up in there. Some where they give the size of fan needed to cool GHs. In my hot Colorado sun, it needs even more . Opening a "vent" on the roof does not even come close, at least not here. My used swamp cooler running on fan alone is a great solution. Now your location and weather could be a lot different.
I hope my running on kind of answers some questions. Do I enjoy it, You better believe it. If I did not have it I would buy another in a minute.
KennyP

Woops... 80 cents a day is 24 dollars a month. Not 2.40 haven't had my coffee yet.

Went to get the 10 x 14 at HF. Line was horrible! I decided to go get it on Saturday. I am getting cold feet! I mainly want it for seed starting, for a potting table, maybe some propagating and well, just because. At $560 plus tax that is still a lot of money. I suppose I could get a shelf system, grow lights and trays for indoors that would be a lot cheaper. Can someone tell me what to do?!!!! I know, you can't. Maybe a 6 x 8 would be better. I am always apprehensive about under-buying too. I do grow a huge portion of my food so seed starting is very important to me!

I can't tell you what to do, Hoover67, but I can tell you my experience with a HF 10x12. We first put it up in 2007. Since then we've had a thunderstorm blow out panels that were secured right well and hail put holes in some panels that time and sunlight made brittle in the Deep Sunny South.

We replaced all panels after 4 years. We started out with extra bracing and reinforcement. This winter another storm caved in the door header and blew out 4 panels again. We've repaired all that and added a fan in the opposite end, just in time for another series of thunderstorms today. We are under a tornado watch.

We anticipate problems and keep coming up with solutions. The initial cost of the GH is not the only expense. You'll need something for a base, at least a pathway of pavers on the floor, electricity and water source, heat for the winter.

In the years before the GH, I put an old kitchen cart in the tool shed and trundled flats of seedlings in and out on sunny days. I grew cuttings in an east-facing laundry room with two windows. Grow lights might be your best solution unless you just enjoy an on-going project as we do.

Here is a link that might be useful: NJ's Greenhouse blog, Dotty Plants

Hoover67, I agree with foxesearth, having any greenhouse is definitely an ongoing project, and as colokid said, it's a constant learning process. I thought of the greenhouse purchase more like launching myself on a journey, and I agree that the cost of the kit is not the only expense you'll have to make it serve your needs.

I am not knowledgeable about starting seeds, but before I had the greenhouse, I got my plants through cold dark winters by building this shelf unit with fluorescent lights. I used a spare room without much good light. The tall rolling shelf unit was from Sam's, and the light fixtures and bulbs were cheapies from Walmart (two fixtures per shelf.) I added an inexpensive timer to turn the lights on and off for me. The whole set up was about $200, and you may not need something this large. Watering was somewhat of a hassle since I crammed so many shelves in (and so many plants on each shelf) but otherwise it worked great. I only put lights on the bottom shelves since the top shelves got some light from a small south facing window (I snapped this pic at night.)

{{gwi:289240}}