|
Only one person so far has mentioned the problem of power
outage. I grow in southern SC in a twinwall polycarb house with propane
heaters. Where I live it’s propane or electric. The biggest problem to
greenhouses in the south is not snow load (roof angle is not critical) or even
actual thermal load on the heater, but power outage from ice storms in winter
or super-cell t-storms in spring & summer. A large greenhouse that’s
fairly well insulated and constructed has enough thermal mass to carry on for probably
a day or so without additional heat. But if the outage goes on several days,
which is not uncommon, heaters dependant on large electrical currents are
useless. I believe that it is foolhardy to have an expensive house filled with
orchids without a backup generator capable of producing enough power to run
circulation fans for winter or summer, and a propane heater or 2 in winter and
cooling pumps in summer. Even fairly large generators are not capable of
running any kind of electric heat or cooling for the size greenhouse mentioned by
Maureen. I think a generator should be considered a mandatory part of the
construction budget and heating & cooling devices based on their electrical
demands vs generator output. Good luck and good growing. Gary |
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