What Is The Best Light Dep Greenhouse On The Market?

[Blaze]

Yeah the issue with the wall was more complicated than we thought it would be, never imagined something simple like that could cause so many headaches. When we first had the concrete guys look at it, they thought we could get it all with 8" blocks, , at 4-6' high, no big deal. Then we got the specs back from the engineer....

They wanted to see a wall with 8' wide footings, 8' tall, 80' long, with 3/4" rebar lattice work all throughout, and a drain system behind it. Basically increased the amount of cement we would have to pour by about 1,000%, and would cost almost as much as the greenhouse itself.

The problem is that with the Conelys we would have needed to have the a lot of space between the north wall of the building and the bank it was against. About a 6' space between the wall and the structure for airflow is needed and so we could get back their to build and maintain it, then we would have needed to cut about another 12' back into the bank to get the 8' wide wall and space behind it to work and to instal the drain. We only have 35' of flat space to work with until the north slope turns into an extremely steep, solid rock hill - no way we could get the almost 20' extra width needed.

With the Gro-Tech it looks like we should be able to mount it on a 3' perimeter foundation, which gets us 6' farther away from that north bank since we won't need that extra space between the bank and the building, and the foundation itself will act as the retaining wall. At that point, the wall/foundation only needs to be about 2' high to hold the dirt back which shouldn't even require engineering anymore and gets us back to a reasonable amount of concrete work. Hopefully it will work out, the whole process has been extremely frustrating, I can see why so many people just build them without permits.

 

[Bulldog11]

Jeez. Same kind of thing I have been dealing with on a different project. When I drive down the highways, I see huge hills from cutting in the highways, with no retaining walls........ hmmmm........

Thanks for sharing, people should always keep in mind the city/county rules before buying any greenhouse. Gold advice right there guys.

 

[fishwhistle]

As a former concrete guy i can tell you that retaining wall engineering in cali is F'in rediculous,building inspectors/departments just look for ways to make themselves relevant.
I could tell you stories,like the guy who contracted with me to fix the patio and retaining wall he built as it flooded his home every time it rained because it was sloped towards his house,He was the head engineer for caltrans in charge of building every bridge and overpass in the southern section of the state!
The exact same overpass that takes 2-3 years and 100 million to build in california can be built in most other states in 3-6 months for 15-18 million,Oh well at least the weathers nice!

 

[Bulldog11]

I knew a San Jose inspector that when he built his house, he didn't take into consideration drainage. His house was perpendicular to a street that was uphill from him. The first big rain, all the water from the perpendicular street slammed into his curb, hopped over and slammed against his glass sliding doors, about 6 feet up. Flooded his house.

Same guy that would fail your inspection for the lamest crap.

 

[fishwhistle]

Thats because the only things they know about construction they learned out of a book,they have no actual experience ever building anything,probably never had a shovel in their hands before.

 

[Seamaiden]

There is a good flip side to this. Our county building inspector inadvertently, but fortunately for US, signed off on a bunch of work my husband did in the basement, including the installation of a subpanel pushing a good bit of juice. :D In doing so, he actually signed off on the whole basement construction. D'oh! Mr County Bldg Inspector!

 

[SHIRDABZALOT]

Inspector - (inn.speck.tor) an American title for a dip shit that cant hold a real job. they wouldn't let him be a cop, so he flaunts his false sense of power by costing you thousands of extra dollars for no apparent reason on your projects, other than self gratification. Another form of bureaucratic revenue hunter without a gun.

 

[Seamaiden]

You think county inspectors are bad? Try working with a utility.

 

[Cali clouds]

Don't buy a grow tech. My partner who is a retired general contractor (built concrete tilt ups for 25 years) purchased a 24 X 24. First problem is that they sell a 24 X 24 except they don't have a plan for a 24' building. They also didn't bother to tell us that until after they took the $15k deposit... thanks grow tech. Then after they sent us the wrong plan it only took about 10 phone calls to get the foundation figured out. 24' and 30' are not the same. This is about the point we should have got our money back and went to conleys. This greenhouse is sitting on a concrete pad with floor drains, so to say that getting the right foundation plan is critical is a understatement.
If this was some stoner building this I could understand but we are all contractors with a lot of experience on big commercial construction projects. I am a grading contractor, the owner is a general. We had two carpenters and a electrical contractor. This should have been a very easy job.

Then the problems really started the day we received the parts and pieces to the "pre cut pre drilled" building... fucking liars. We received mostly raw uncut 20' sticks of galvanized tube framework. I could have went to the metal store and bought that shit a whole lot cheaper.
Then the fun began. We started assembling what we had and it was just problem after problem. After a week of this nonsense we hired a couple guys from another company that builds nothing but greenhouses. They were referred by grow tech. These guys were in the dark just about as much as we were. The only good thing was that they had built grow tech light dep greenhouses before.i don't want to bore everyone with every last problem we had, but let me tell you the list was extensive.

The icing on the cake had to be when we got to the actual light dep system. Grow tech sent us a fucking instruction book that was printed on a printer that was running out of ink and bull shit pics in black and white... A couple problems with that. For 35k can u print a fucking picture in color let alone refill the black ink cartridge. I have done all the grading on 4 different lowes and over 2 million sf of tilt ups and never got a picture book. I got a plan drawn by a engineer. I didn't need a picture book for a 8 year old that we can't read anyway. Oh and then just great, grow tech redesigned part of the light dep track system since the last time they printed their piece of shit book that is for a 30' wide building in the first place.

At this time we were ready to light the pile of shit on fire. Fortunately we finally got it together after 300 phone calls to grow tech only to find out the black out tarps don't even come close to blacking out. We basically have to build walls over the existing end walls to seal this thing up.

So after we were all done and said this thing took a extra few weeks to build and figure out the problems. The greenhouse guys say this is a standard with grow tech so for the next one WE WILL BE GOING TO CONLEYS as I hear it is a far superior product.

And as for the guy that wanted the greenhouse permitted you better get a hold of the plans from those rip offs first so you can tell the county why you are building a 24' building but the manufacturer only has 30' plans. I would guarantee after going through plan check on numerous other projects that just about any county would tear these plans apart, and since grow tech does not have the capacity to produce a plan even for the right building good luck getting a revision done. You better just hire your own engineer. I might just post a pic of the plan so you guys can see the chicken scratch for yourself.

Anyhow I hope this helps anyone with their decision on a greenhouse. If you want to feel like you got raped by a donkey and left stranded then go to grow tech. Oh and buy a chop saw and a couple boxes of drill bits. And if anyone needs any extra siding grow tech sent us a extra 8 sheets of metal siding but not enough self sealing screws to put the siding together that actually needed to be put on. Good luck 1 he'll of a company

 

[Blaze]

Huh, we got our plans for a 30 x 60 from them the same day we requested them. It was a digital copy that we printed off our self - pretty simple. It meets all wind, snow and seismic loads for the county. Our contractor looked them over and saw no issue with the design. Except for the light dep system they are fairly simple buildings. I guess we will see what the county says when we submit the wet stapmped plans with them here soon though.

 

[Ned Kelly]

Cheers for all the info boys @Medusa good read .

 

[Cali clouds]

I really hope you have better luck then we did maybe building a 30' gh. We asked countless times for a revised set of plans and they told us they don't have plans for a 24' building. The greenhouse guys got the light dep together not to bad but we really got a book that you can't hardly read. The good part about it is that it does seem to be quality materials that it is constructed out of. I'm really not trying to talk to much crap, just share our experience. We even asked if we could pay them to come put their gh together and that is when they referred the other contractor.

At least we now have a brand new greenhouse. It should be getting filled up in a week. I hope you have better luck but plan on doing more work then they say.
I don't want to hijack the thread but do you have much experience with light dep? I'm a indoor guy my buddy is a outdoor guy. I talked him into the gh and we have next to no gh experience and have never done any light dep. I figure maintain a climate and do the same thing I do indoor just a Lil bigger. We are in so Cal so if it gets hot I figure we can get a 5 ton a/c. Why does everyone use evap cooling? It seems like it would create excessive humidity? Maybe I'm stupid. How much light are you planning on running in there? We got 9 gavitas on 6' centers. I've heard of people opening the black out tarp in the middle of the night to reduce humidity. Is that common, or is it just running everything to much? A lot of people still use potting mixes. We plan on using a coco perlite 50/50 mix and drain to waste in 25 gallon pots.... what's your plans?

 

[Blaze]

I've done dep for 5 seasons now, though it was all in very simple frames made of PVC and lumber that I would manually cover and uncover every day. Real pain in the ass, after a few years I am burned out. Though for how simple and cheap they were to put up, the return is hard to beat.

I would say GH is sort of half way between outdoor and indoor. You do get better climate control than outdoor of course, but not to the extent you do with indoor, your climate in the greenhouse is still very influenced by the weather.

Evap cooling is usually used because it draws less power and is more efficient than running A/Cs. I am not sure if you would even be able to cool a greenhouse effectively with an A/C unit, it would have to be a massive unit. The other option is using ridge vents and roll up side for passive cooling. Though you cannot cool the structure any more than the temperature outside - so if it's 90 outside, it will be 90 in the greenhouse.

The extra humidity from the evap coolers usually isn't an issue because they run when it is hot and dry out. So if it is say only 20 or 30% humidity outside, running the evap cooler to raise the humidity up some is actually beneficial. Again, the weather will influence how well your evap cooler works - they don't do so well if the air is already humid, or if temps are cooler.

If you are running it year round you will definitely need a dehumidifier at some point too. Being able to keep your humidity down when it is raining or foggy is critical. I am still not sure what size unit we will install yet, we need to get the damn thing built first, and we won't need it till late in the year once it starts getting cold and rainy.

I am still not sure how how many lights we would run. The 30x60 building will be designed to support up to 30 1kw lights. I doubt I would put than many in there though. One of the big advantages of a greenhouse is that they are more efficient than indoor, it always seemed to me that if you are running 1kw lights on 6' centers on something like this, you might as well have just built an indoor room. Plus all those lights hanging block out a lot of light - it might not seem like much but when you add it all up it can be a significant reduction. For much of the year you probably won't even be using them either. If you are just trying to extend the light cycle and keep your plants in veg, it doesn't take a lot of light. Even just a 80w T12 fixture on 10' spacing is more than enough. The lighting will probably be something we will figure out next spring, once we need it - for a summer and fall crop it is not needed, the days are long enough.

Removing the blackout tarp in the night to let out humidity is a common practice. Or I should say during the summer when the nights are warm and dry it is common. All depends on your climate and the weather. Just opening up the greenhouse to let it breathe is definitely more efficient than running dehumidifiers and fans all night long.

For growing media I used 25 gallon smart pots filled with Black Gold potting soil for the base. I would like to eventually have long raised beds that are 5'-6' wide and run the length of the greenhouse. I will probably just end up reusing my 25 gal pots this year thought to save time and money. I personally prefer soil but coco would probably work OK too so long as you make sure it doesn't dry out too much in the hot SoCal summers. Mostly I like soil because it uses less water and fertilizer than coco and it lends itself more to an organic grow style using compost teas and top dressing.

 

[MendoGiantZ]

lots of really good info blaze. I am really glad I went with the simple pvc hoop houses. We can build a 100 foot by 10 foot greenhouse in about 5 hours and it costs around 4 or 5 hundred bucks. My neighbors went with the fully automated ones and they have been building it for months now. After you add in all the construction and grading and heating costs it's gotta be close to 50 k when it's all said and done. My buddies in mendo have been having really good results with raised beds. I'm gonna stick to using 15 - 30 gallon pots depending on the size of the plants for this year. I am also really glad I am paying someone to pull my tarps. I worked out a good deal with the old guy that lives on the property. I asked him if I set him up with his own 30 foot light dep set up and got him the plants as well if he would pull my tarps everyday when he pulls his.

 

[Cali clouds]

Right on I appreciate all the info. Grow tech suggested to put 9 lights in there. It kind of seemed over kill to me. I think the place has more watts/square foot then my veg room does. Go figure they sold my buddy everything so I guess the more the better for them.
As far as the cooling goes we have a 100 amp panel at the gh so we can get some kinda good size cooling whether or not it is a/c or evap cooling. Power is expensive but so is quality. The power bill on the indoor rooms is thousands per month what's the difference? I was also wondering about a big water chiller. I have access to commercial a/c equipment. They are supposed to be more efficient. I was wondering about hooking a chiller to some big heat exchanger and put it in front of the existing fans. Sounds like a lot of b.s. but the fans are already in place and heat exchangers are relatively cheap. And no extra humidity. I'm just worried about the 110 degree summers and very humid August weather. I know evap coolers are more efficient but they will only cool about 10 degrees below outside temp. We plan on a small evap to maintain humidity in dry months. Anyone ever hook a chiller to a evap or wet wall? I'm kinda determined to keep this thing in the 80s year around. Am I crazy? Or is it possible. Maybe 2- 4 ton split systems?

 

[Seamaiden]

Cactus Mart in Morongo. You should see their GHs! All evaporative cooling. I believe your plants will greatly appreciate evap over AC.

 

[MendoGiantZ]

No offense but I think it's kinda crazy to try to keep it at 80 degrees year round. If you have really good airflow it shouldn't be an issue if your green house gets in the 90s in the summer time. It's get 103 degrees here in the summer and the plants that are in my buddies greenhouses love it. I would focus on getting really big dehumidifiers and trying to figure out a way to keep it heated in the winter time and produce enough light to actual get a good Winter harvest. From what I heard you might as well just run indoors during the winters. I haven't heard many success stories of people getting 5 good harvests per year.

 

[Seamaiden]

Depending on his location in SoCal he's got to deal with the marine layer a good part of the year. Dehuis is a great suggestion.

 

[Blaze]

I would agree with Mendo that keeping the GH at 80 all the time is not practical, nor necessary. Plants in a greenhouse will do perfectly fine with temps well into the high 90's. The only times I have seen signs of heat stress on mine was when we had sustained temps of 110 for 2 weeks straight. Our average mid day high in the summer here is usually 95-100 and the plants do great so long as they have enough water and air movement.

@Cali clouds - what did your buddy end up installing for the ventilation on his greenhouse? Did you go with roll up sides and/or a ridge vent or did you go with an active air exchange? I was originally looking at doing the roll up sides and ridge vent, both the sales rep and manager I talked to at Gro-Tech said they had been advising people not to go that route because they have had issues with gusts of strong winds catching the ridge vents and tweaking the alignment of the dep system. I know these automatic dep systems are very finicky and must be aligned just right to work, so that makes me a bit nervous. I think we will end up going with the wet wall and exhaust fans, but that does mean we have to draw a lot more power to run the set up. I'm wondering if it might be worthwhile to have manual roll up sides as well so I could open the structure up if needed (or if there was a power outage).

 

[Cali clouds]

Yeah I definitely don't think we are keeping it at 80 year around. I was hoping just below 90. I could be stupid to think I can even get it that cool as I could imagine the heat load. I size a/c's to be able to hold a indoor room at 70 but run them at 76-80. I know there are a lot of different variables between indoor and outdoor/gh but I think the biggest one is temps. Do the plants outside handle the higher temps better because they are better acclimated? Much over 90 inside a flower room means it is probably all over for that harvest. Should I keep the veg/baby room warmer then 80ish to get plants use to higher temps. I think I would fry them if they went from 78 to 98.

What kind of dehu's is everyone using? I just double up on the 80 pint piece of shit hydro store dehu's in the flower room but we have been trying to find something that doesn't cost 4k and is more of a commercial unit. We do get some of the coastal marine layer but not to bad we are about 30 miles inland. Usually shitty desert monsoon humidity in august and September has me worried about evap cooling in august, when it feels like Florida outside. it seems counter productive to run a evap at that time of year, but usually humidity Is low. Shithole desert with fox tails for flowers. I don't think it even rains here anymore lol.
As far as ventilation goes there is 2 big fans (I don't know what cfm I can find out) with light traps inside of the blackout tarp and big temp controlled auto open shutters about 30"x30" at the opposing ends. Kinda fancy for me but that's what they sold my buddy. Then above the blackout tarp there is one more of the same fans with the same shutter in the opposite end. The gh was supposed to have roll up sides but the gh contractor says we are missing some shit or some non sense and my buddy got pissed off and left them out. We are planning on getting them working after the first harvest before summer really hits. We are pissing away our spring season and the weather is really nice right now, mid 80's and clear sky's. No ridge vent though that probably would have cost another 5k plus who knows how much more time although they look really cool.
Does anyone really get 5 harvests per year? Seems like a lot of work. We run 10 week og's inside and usually veg in the flower room for 2-3 weeks. So as long as I can pull off 4 good runs inside I'm happy. I like a vacation here and there. Why is the winter harvest no good? Because of short days or is the sun just weak sauce in winter time? We typically have warm winters here so I don't think it will be to hard to keep warm with the right sized heater. It rarely freezes never snows and I already covered the rain thing. I have zero experience but always thought the late fall and early spring weather here is perfect for g/h. Usually 80 and if it gets cold it's never more then a few days and then right back to clear sky's and 80. Summer licks ball sack here, like 100 plus and easy 110 plus in July and August. Oh yeah and those fans draw like 3.2a@240v and 6.4@120 each. Not to bad, but I'm used to maxing out 200a panels indoors so I really have no concern for burning juice.
Oh yeah last thing what's up with water rezi temp. Inside I like it 68-72. I know that's not happening but do you guys even watch your temps? I have forgot to turn pumps off before and came back the next day and rezi will be like 95 and that shit smells like pond muck and grows shit overnight. I was thinking about a chiller for that but do I need it? I see the shit hole outdoor grows out here and those guys leave clear plastic rezis basking in 120 degrees and it seems horrible to me. Algae factory.
Anyhow all opinions are welcome and thanks for all help I really feel like I'm starting all over again