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Post by maraxas on May 31, 2007 11:20:55 GMT
Looking good matti. Thanks for keep us updated on your project.
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Post by endodoc on Jun 1, 2007 15:52:10 GMT
Matti Very cool pics, greenhouse project looks great, hope those cows are not eating any cp's in the area Keep em coming regards ed
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matti
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Posts: 216
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Post by matti on Jun 2, 2007 8:12:58 GMT
Hi ed, The smelly cattle will stay away if they know what is good for them! Or I will turn them into Dog food. ;D
I do not grow any cp's in the area except for a few Nepenthes in the pump shed... I do not live there... thank God. I was working on the Greenhouse today installing the top brace, the whole structure is 3.5 meters tall, heck I can fit my biggest tractor in there with ease, it is what I stood on to drill the holes, I got to my third hole and the drill bit broke (B***H).
So I will have to wait till next saturday to work on it again, I do not mind tho as I was not feeling to well today and I would like to get some timber for the base on Monday.
Matti.
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matti
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Post by matti on Jun 9, 2007 8:49:03 GMT
OK an update, I went to see the local plumbing shop about a automatic watering system (pump,control box,solenoid) - 600bux or so .... anyways I originally wanted to run the water line of a existing water line that supply's the cattle with water, but this afternoon the $*** hit the fan with the family vs. me.. something along the lines of "You need a plumber to do it or you will **** our water". So I found a way around this, I will have a chat to the owner of the shop on Tuesday and see if it is fees able then decide what I want to do. On another tangent I have some side bords for the GH with their first coat of paint sitting in the shed, they will be what I attach the film to and to keep the gravel (floor) in place, I also sprayed the grass were the GH is with a herbicide (Oh how I pray that stuff is not carcinogenic). I also got the top brace all drilled with alittle hindrance from blunt drill bits and some steel that obviously did not come in the annealed (softened) condition. Till next time!, Audios am-ego's. ;D
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Clint
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Post by Clint on Jun 9, 2007 14:41:18 GMT
Wow that profanity filter is pretty good. It even took the $ into consideration
I agree that you should get a plumber for something like that. That way in case something goes wrong you aren't the one to blame. That's why I don't do electrical work myself; I'm no electrician!
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Post by rsivertsen on Jun 9, 2007 17:15:34 GMT
ahh, you're just beginning to realize that having and operating a greenhouse is quite an expensive commodity and pastime, welcome to the club! I hope your water is suitable for delicate CPs, otherwise you're looking at even more expensive hardware!
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matti
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Post by matti on Jun 10, 2007 0:06:58 GMT
Oh it's ok, I don't need to hire one.... not that I would anyway at the hourly rate they charge , I am just going to hook the pump up to a seperate water line that leads into a trough so I am not cutting the main line, also I will not get the vacume effect that could stuff the pump. I agree that you should get a plumber for something like that. That way in case something goes wrong you aren't the one to blame. That's why I don't do electrical work myself; I'm no electrician! I didn't hire a sparkey to do the electrical work on my nepenthes fridge, I didn't hire a fabricator to build my greenhouse I did it myself.. this set up is very much like the water set up we had to our tap at our old house, water line went down into the creek and up a line into a pump and into the house. (not that we drank creek water). Don't worry rich, I do not have to pay for the costs to run it, I have a couple of thousand $ to spend on this project so if I need the automatic system... I will get it. ;D
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Post by pitcherfreak on Jun 12, 2007 0:43:33 GMT
Hi Matti,
I'm in the process of building a plastic house to and I know what it's like. Mine's second hand too and is 26 x 22m in size so it's taking me quite a while. Just a thought if you are looking for an automated watering system. It might be worth looking on second hand goods sites like e-bay or asking any horticultural suppliers around your area if they know of anyone selling or dismantelling their houses you may well be able to get most of a system cheap if you're in the right place at the right time.
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matti
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Post by matti on Jun 12, 2007 6:58:00 GMT
Hi Matti, I'm in the process of building a plastic house to and I know what it's like. Mine's second hand too and is 26 x 22m in size so it's taking me quite a while. Just a thought if you are looking for an automated watering system. It might be worth looking on second hand goods sites like e-bay or asking any horticultural suppliers around your area if they know of anyone selling or dismantelling their houses you may well be able to get most of a system cheap if you're in the right place at the right time. Thanks for the help pitcherfreak, but I need to know what I am getting. My greenhouse second hand? nah, I think you have the wrong end of the stick I built the whole thing from 10, 6.5 meter lengths of (streight) steel tubing, bent the hoops and all, wasn't hard, only took a few hours. very cheep too
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Post by pitcherfreak on Jun 15, 2007 6:42:02 GMT
Looking at the photos you're doing a great job then. Sori wouldn't be the first time I have had the wrong end of the stick. Good luck with the construction it looks like it's well on the way. I'm off to have a look for more parts for mine tomorrow, there's someone demolishing one in my district which is potentially great. $600 should be enough to get a pretty good system. How did you get the streight steil tubing bent so evenly? ) Have had a bit of trouble bending even hoops myself.
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matti
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Post by matti on Jun 15, 2007 10:15:04 GMT
Looking at the photos you're doing a great job then. Sori wouldn't be the first time I have had the wrong end of the stick. Good luck with the construction it looks like it's well on the way. I'm off to have a look for more parts for mine tomorrow, there's someone demolishing one in my district which is potentially great. $600 should be enough to get a pretty good system. How did you get the streight steil tubing bent so evenly? ) Have had a bit of trouble bending even hoops myself. Thanks for the comments pitcher freak. It mite cost abit more than 600, I went and bought some things today...considerable expence, (listed below) and they ended up being cheeper than expected, however the cheepest control box he had was $147 it had 4 station capacity with three stages... err..no. The one that is suitible for me has 16 stages with upto 24 station capacity (What do you want with 24 stations? to grow a hash plantation?.), its can water from 1 second to 8 hours. Altho I only need one with 12 stages, there is another smaller cheeper one than the 16 stage controller but the guy is going to find out about that as his catalog dose not list how many stages it has. I wanted to know how many stage controll boxes people use that is recomended for nepenthes? and what your misting/watering intervals are?, maybe Michael could chime in?. I only bought a few things today as I had to haul it home and still have to messure things ect, but we have the decided pipe sizes worked out. 1, Onga TF30 pump, 30 litres/ minute (6.6gallons) -1800 lites/hour (400 gallons) 1, Pressure/dry running controler. 1, foot valve, 32mm. 3, right angle elbow, 32mm. (1 1/4") 1, 1 1/4"-1" adapter-bush. www.onga.com.au/www/109/files/tf30ap10.jpgThis is the pump I bought minus the pressure vessel on the top and a few other things, mine has a streight controll box that the water goes through and out to the Misting system and various other Greenhouse parafanalia. I bent my steel with my arms and an old Farm House door. ;D Just incase any of you were wondering what I was building it is an automatic misting system. Matti. P.S. pitcherfreak, what part of NZ are you from (I have family there) and do you have any photos of your GH?.
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Post by Michael Catalani on Jun 15, 2007 15:51:46 GMT
I wanted to know how many stage controll boxes people use that is recomended for nepenthes? and what your misting/watering intervals are?, maybe Michael could chime in?. Mine is driven from a Wadsworth controller. I have 4 watering/misting ports which connect to 4 12v solenoid valves. 3 of the valves are connected in parallel to the misting system. One is connected to the watering system. I rarely ever use the automated watering system, and only activate it if I am going to be gone for a week. I normally water manually by hand every 2 -5 days, depending on the time of year and how much the misters have run. The misters handle much of the automated watering for me. One mister port is set to activate anytime the humidity drops below 75%. This port will usually activate when the exhaust fan is running on low speed and the temperatures arent high enough to activate the swamp cooler. One mister port is set to mist for 5 minutes every 1 hour during the summer on a timed schedule. I back it way off during the winter. This port activates enough to keep my manual watering schedule down. One mister port is set to activate any time the temperature rises above 90 degrees. This port rarely ever activates. Its primary use is a fail safe in case the exhaust fan fails or vent doesnt open. It will mist cool water while the computer notifies me that ther is a problem. This way, if I am away from the greenhouse, it will buy me some time before the plants get cooked, cause the temperatures will hit about 120F within a few minutes if the exhaust fan can not activate. Misting was easy for me to automate. But I quickly found out that automated watering was difficult in a commercial environment where entire sections of plants where being added, and then being moved out, on an every day basis. I was spending more time setting up the watering tubes than it would take to simply water by hand. This is a much easier process if your collection is stable as far as number of plants. You do need to keep a close eye on the pots if you use an automated watering system, because the tubes that run to the pots usually only water a small section of the pot. Even though the plant may receive enough water, the top part of the pots soil could dry out, causing it to deteriorate much more quickly. During the winter, I hook up about 200 feet of black hose and lay it out on the floor of the greenhouse. This helps warm up the water so that the plants dont get shocked by 45 degree water during the winter time.
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Post by pitcherfreak on Jun 16, 2007 5:19:13 GMT
I'm from Taranaki on the west coast of the North Island out in the country (I have to put up with cows to, and your brush tailed possums [they walk over polyhouse plastic and punch holes in it, or they did anyway until I got them].
I've spent three and a half years in Australia so my pronunciation of vowels isn't too bad. I even got asked what country I was from when i got back grrr.. I have aunties in Brisbane and Sydney too.
I'm afriad I'm really only growing sarra's at the moment, they naturalise here, so I don't know nearly as much as Micheal about misting frequency.
One note though, in Aussie if you decide to use an electronic leaf for automated irrigation with anything other than rainwater be careful of salt buildup on the leaf surface it can give false "wet" readings. With a misting system you probably won't need one anyway.
I'm still getting used to using the messageboard but I'll try and post some photos for you have plenty from the deconstruction reconstruction process, am lucky one of my friends is an ex builder.
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Post by pitcherfreak on Jun 16, 2007 8:06:59 GMT
Right lets give this a try . First time ever, here goes. We'll see how fast a Kiwi can learn (or not) ;D. Next is a better avatar. Hopefully below are photos of my greenhouse before we deconstructed it, as you can see the house was deconstructed pretty well before I got to it due to a violent windstorm (you can see most of the plastic's gone. The house is 22 x 26m and is designed similar to a tent with metal poles holding wire cable which the plastics joined to by cliplock. The house was originally set up as a hydroponic house to grow the cut flower sandersonia a company sold the plants, house, packing shed and coolstore as a package and promised to buy back the tubers and sell the flowers. But when the market collapsed the company collapsed and a lot of growers went broke . I'm 3/4 of the way through the rebuild after deconstructing it and dragging the bits 15km on a trailer and tractor and trailer. It's been a long process but it's great to finally see the plastic going on (despite possums (a pest here) clawing a few holes in the sheets. Interestingly the shutters are lifted by water ram. One of 8 greenhouse spans Side of house with door Controls for shutter water rams Hydroponics table (should look great full of Sara's) The view from home of Mt Egmont, Taranaki, N.Z.
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matti
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Post by matti on Jun 16, 2007 10:03:19 GMT
Thats a nice GH there Mr.PitcherFreak might want to scrape the green crap/algae of the side of the film, I am not sure why you would want it so large? it would cost $$$$$ in heating/ cooling, I've never seen so many solonoids, how bigs the control box? . An update, I got around to filling all of the gaps in the steel frame work (see PF, they wern't so streight) with a grey cauk, this will protect the film from ripping, and I ground some of the bolts down so they sit flatter on the top of the middle brace . I have not got around to finish painting the side boards as the local hardware shop dose not have the paint I like (British paints, all in one, white) so I shall get some more on Monday. I also sprayed the grass again (twice) as I was not happy, its not dieing fast enough. ;D ;D *Snicker* I just noticed that TwoTon person from PPP has obviously been browsing this thread, not sutle or anything. pitcherplants.proboards34.com/index.cgi?board=greenhouses&action=display&thread=1181877477&page=1
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