Front Side windows all in.

Today the reasonable weather continued and we soldiered on and completed the first side windows, at the end of the process we acted like a well organised and tolerant team, that is the way most things have improved during the course of the build.

The next stage involves lots of masking tape and brown paint, more good weather on the wish list and the forecast indicates that we will be in luck. The following is an "artists impression" of what it should look like after we have finished painting, although even the AI program missed a spot here and there.

The 2x4 wood supply is dwindling although we still have a good stock of 1x2 and 4x4 material, we may need to be creative on the back side of the greenhouse, however, we still have budget left, plus from one day to the next you never know what will pop up on marketplace.

Wednesday : New Additions

We mounted our first large piece of glass this morning, then fitted two more side windows.

The large pane went in very easily, we used a couple of sturdy straps to carry it over from the work area and initially clamped it into place while installing a few of the strips that will run all around the perimeter, once it was installed and safe, we moved on and removed the temporary column and constructed the frame for the two other single pane windows.

The plan for the side will be quite symmetrical with ten windows in total, the next two windows, in the centre of the greenhouse, are smaller in height, so there will be space at the top for a vent or a "feature" which has not been decided yet, we will wait to see how big the gap is before doing anything, we have options.

It looks like we have some good weather coming up.

In other news, after we finished the roof, we decided to sell some of the remaining polycarbonate on marketplace to offset costs, it sold immediately for $55 and when that was applied to the tracking spreadsheet, the new total is now sitting at $427.91 which means we may be coming in below budget on this major infrastructure project, although paint is needed.

We should run for government....

...NOT!

First Two Windows

The roof was finished yesterday, it was an odd day, even though we organized ourselves a lot better, the time still drifted away and another five hours slipped through our fingers, however, it was done and we are very happy with the results.

Today, as promised, we fitted our first two windows.

We noticed that six of the eight windows were 33" tall and not 34" so we changed our plan slightly, it meant that both of those 34" windows had not been pre-painted grey, so this one will need to be painted in place which will be a bit more fiddly, but it will get done.

We will do it, but not today!

It means that as each day passes, as we add windows, the greenhouse should become more waterproof, we have rain forecast for the next 24 hours, so we are not sure if any progress will be made in the morning. 

Now we're talking....

Saturday. Four and a half hours. Half done, the rest of the roof will be finished tomorrow.

Bays F1 thru F6 completed today. 

It is an exciting time, for the partial bays to be completed, there is a definite production line required for each twenty-five inches of the side to be completed, and a very odd process, because for each bay that was completed, one sixth of our energy was depleted, after all we all have a resevoir, and that is divided into six pieces for some reason, and today, six bits were definitely used up. 

We are done for today, but we will regroup for Sunday and start afresh.

Rain stopped play.

The first front hole, designated F1 has now been filled. 

The upper panel is 24" wide and 48" long, lower panel is 24" wide and 12" long. Splicing those two together are two 22" long pieces of matched H-channel, an upper and lower piece that clip into each other, the lower piece is attached to a 23.5" cross beam that connects between two joists.

On the upper surface of the fascia beam, there are two lengths of lower H-channel that run the length of the greenhouse, on a temporary basis, the two long upper pieces will not be clipped into it yet, so each bay will have a short piece just to hold it against any gusts of wind.

Two screws with washers were added to reinforce the connection, we will add them each time a major joint is completed, it should also be noted that the upper edge of the lower 24" x 12" polycarbonate panel was sealed with aluminum HVAC tape and on the upper side of the cross beam H-channel, neutral cure silicon caulk was added to reduce leaks.

This process will now be completed five more times on the front side, bays F2 thru F6 and when they are all completed as above, the two long pieces of H-channel will be clipped into place along the fascia, after that, a few retention screws and washers will be added and then we will move onto the back side.

The blog, and our brains, feel a little overloaded and tired at the moment, happily it is an anti-social Thursday and we will attempt to correct everything by applying appropriate amounts of imported Czech Lager this afternoon while it is supposed to be raining.

Preparing to fill in the holes

The fascia boards have been installed and we are left with the 12 holes on the roof to fill in.

At the top right of the picture you can see the first "test" cross beam with "bottom" H-channel attached that has been fitted to retain the upper piece of polycarbonate and also to work out the smaller piece dimensions. If you can visulaize the area, the required piece should be 24" wide and about 11" long which, due to all our tolerances and lack of straightness, will vary for each bay.

Once the two fascia boards were fitted (which also have bottom H-channel attached to the top surface) the dimensions of each piece front F1-F6 and back B1-B6 will be worked out one by one, when all twelve pieces are cut and in place, two long pieces of "top" H-channel will be clipped in down the sides and all will be retained. It should be noted that also every bay, F1-F6 and B1-B6 will have a short 22" piece of top H-channel to clip on which splices the two pieces of polycarbonate sheet.

Up to speed?

All pieces of top and bottom H-channel will be clipped into place and the roof should be complete and we know what will be next after that :

Considering that all the other holes need to be filled and painted, the front side windows are being prepainted before being installed. They are being painted grey and the retaining surrounds will be brown, as someone pointed out, we are not painting the windows as that would be silly.

The daily quota for painting is definitely around the three mark. Any more than that is just out of the question.

Major Milestone Days

Yesterday and today we danced with the big ladder and installed the majority of the twin walled polycarbonate sheets, each measuring 24" x 48" and approximately 0.25" thick. The sheets had been taped at the top and after a learning curve day on Sunday, today we completed the optimized "production line" of positioning each sheet, placing the upper H-channel in position, applying the correct caulk and adhesive at the top, installing a shingle on top of that then installing the EZ-Ridge XT on top, all while dancing with that ladder, making sure we were safe, dropping things, losing things, forgetting things...

The majority of the polycarbonate is installed and the big ladder has gone back in the garage.

This is what the EZ-Ridge product looks like when installed almost correctly.

You can see that the H-channel pieces are not closed off at the lower ends yet, this is because our next steps are to install 23.5" long 2x4 cross beams between each rafter at the lower end of each polycarbonate sheet, each beam will have a piece of H-channel attached to trap the large upper panel, in addition to that 48" long piece, we will be adding a short length at the bottom to extend the polycarbonate to the end of the rafter H-channels, the ends of the rafters will then be capped in some way, we have not worked that detail out yet. 

That starts in the morning, for now we are both tired, but happy to have this milestone behind us.