The Greenhouse Story

 

The Greenhouse Story 

The greenhouse was originally conceived to be a garage with a door facing on the driveway side of the building. The idea was to use the timbers that were left over from the timber framed house construction project that was completed in 1998. When I ordered timbers for the 3-year long house project, I always added one or two extra timbers of each size to allow for the possibility that one might bow or twist. Indeed, that did happen in some cases, the worst being two 16-foot 6x8 purlins that bowed by about four inches before I could even use them. Ten years later, I decided to design a structure to make use of these leftovers, a garage, I thought.

In the photo above, the original stick framed shed is in the background and a section of the house roof is visible behind it. The shed was built with nothing more than a handsaw and a hammer for tools. It served as my residence for the several years while I was building my timber framed house. The shed is sitting on flat rocks sitting on the ground. The house has a real concrete foundation and the garage was designed to sit on cinder-block pylons. These pylons are three blocks high, mostly because that was as deep as I could dig with a shovel when I hit bedrock.

At this point, I had already designed the frame and had all the joinery cut and ready to assemble. The engine hoist that I used to build the house was still functional after sitting outside for the past ten years. On the left, the crane is lifting this first post. This post was originally a house beam and so it has all the original mortices as well as the new mortices. In the background is the test-assembled south bay frame and the crane is resting on the posts for the north bay. Once this post was raised and secured with guy-lines, the two eight-foot beams were lifted into place, their braces installed and strapped to hold them in place.

On the right, the southeast corner post is being lifted into place with a come-along. Once the post was nearly vertical, the two braces could be loosely installed. Notice that the tall center post has two brace mortices at the top and the bottom since this post was originally cut to be a house beam. The top mortice is being re-purposed as a ridge pole brace mortice. Just below the beam being installed is a girt dovetail mortice that was in the center of the original beam. I cut some blocks to fill this mortice and glued them in place. The photo below shows the assembled structure, what I called Bent 3, tightly strapped together ready to be pegged.

With the third bent raised and guy wired in place, the crane needed to be moved from its east-west orientation to a north-south orientation. This crane is very heavy so this re-orientation process is a bit tedious. Strapping the legs to the boards allows the boards to be slowly rotated, supported by blocks in the process. It also has a maximum height of eight feet. Since the corner posts are ten feet tall and the bay girts sit atop the posts, the crane must be elevated and the strap slack taken up with a small block.

In the photo to the right, the north bay girt has been installed on top of its two posts with its two braces in place. The crane has lifted the south bay girt in place with one brace installed. The missing post is leaning on blocks. This post was pulled up into place with a come-along attached to the other post. That other post was raised with the crane and guy wired before the girt was lifted to the tops of the posts. Both of these post raising methods work. The north post raising method requires moving the crane twice. The south post raising requires a lot of come-along cranking and post bottom bracing. In either case, the braces must be installed as the girt is lowered into place.

Next, once again, the crane and its support system needs to be moved. It actually takes longer to get the crane repositioned than it does to raise the timber! On the left, the bowed 16-foot 6x8 is being raised into position. The term “bowed” means that the wide side of the timber is arched and the narrow side is straight. A “crowned” timber means that the narrow side of the timber is arched and the wide side is straight. A timber that is both crowned and bowed is very difficult to join to other timbers and best cut up into smaller pieces. Likewise, a twisted timber leads to difficult joinery that is best avoided.

On the right, the north (left) post and girt have been raised and the south post is in the process of being pivoted into position by a come-along. The crane is positioned to raise the girt once the post has been guy wired in place. In the center of the photo, the extent of the bowing of the center beam is obvious. With a 90 degree connection, the brace ends have are 45 degree angles and the length of the brace can be calculated. Because of the bow, the brace tops that meet the bottom of the beam were custom cut on the ground to match the angle of the bottom of the beam with extra length to reach a bit higher than what is needed for a 45 degree angle connection.

On the right, the south beam is being raised. The crane is on 10-inch blocks on top of the sill plate and a block is strapped underneath the beam to reduce the slack in the two-foot strap. Both of these measures are necessary to raise the beam to the top of the ten-foot posts.

 

 

 

 

The first photo of the construction site is from September 9, 2008. The photo at the left is from a month later. There were actually only four days of raising activity during that month shown in these photos.

 

 

The greenhouse project actually began after the house was dried-in. We had moved from the basement to the upstairs of our new timber frame house in May of 2004. A garage site plan was drawn in September of 2005 and a several potential framing drawings created that winter. By January of 2006, a plan that accounted for the available timbers and their characteristics was completed. It was not until September of 2007 that the foundation pylons were installed. 

The greenhouse project lost its priority when in April of 2006 we decided to build a new laundromat in Trinidad. After purchasing a lot in town, dealing with the First National Bank in Trinidad and the City of Trinidad to approve the project, construction of the Linda’s Laundry began in June of that year. By the end of the year, the laundromat was finished and opened for business in January of 2007.

My initial proposal was to build a 50-foot by 50-foot timber framed structure. This idea was quickly dismissed by both the bank and the city due to both entities requiring that the construction process take no more than 9 months. Since the house frame took three years, there were no local construction companies that could help or had any timber framing knowledge and the city building code did not even address the notion of a timber framed structure, the laundromat was designed as a standard stick-framed building on a concrete slab.

Ho Hum.

In 2005, I had a vision of a 50 foot square, four bayed timber framed structure using 5 huge hammer beams. Alas, the town got "Linda's Laundry", but it did not get a magnificent timber framed structure.

Linda and I ran this business until selling it in 2020, which is why it took seven years to build the greenhouse at home in my spare time.

It took several years to establish this laundromat business so my timber framed greenhouse using leftover house timbers became just an idea. By the summer of 2008, the business was operating fine and I finally had a few days a week to pursue my timber framing hobby.

On September 11, 2008, the last beam was installed. This was the “crowned” 16-foot beam, the opposite of the “bowed” 16-foot beam in the center of the frame. Again, the braces for this beam had to be custom designed to conform to its curve. Since this beam was originally cut back in 1996, it was well dried and unlikely to continue changing shape.

The next phase of the plan included three king posts and two ridge poles. All three king posts had to be carefully measured since the three beams upon which they stood were at different heights. Once the two ridge poles were installed at the top of the king posts, it was important that they be straight and level!

It was not until August 20, 2009, that I finally raised the king posts and ridge poles.

Now my structure needed some rafters. I obtained a collection of pine rough-cut 2x6’s from an abandoned cabin project since I had used all of my oak boards.

 

 

 

I planed them, added a board to the ridge pole to support the top of the rafters and another board on the outside walls to support the rafter tails.

 

 

By May of 2010, I was ready to make a roof. Three-quarter inch thick plywood was applied for the roof sheathing. Left-over red metal roofing from the laundromat project finished the roof.

The above photo was taken on June, 11, 2010, almost 3 years after the foundation pylons were installed. The plan was to build framing between the posts, install framing for a door and lots of windows on the south and west sides and more windows on the south facing roof. This was still a low-budget project so I planned to use more left-over materials. I had a chestnut exterior door that had been looking for a place to be for the last ten years. There was enough left-over red metal roofing from the laundromat project to cover most of the roof if I omitted about 64 square feet for roof windows. A friend provided a used sliding glass door and Linda found an assortment of double-paned glass windows that were going to the dump. So, I designed an exterior plan to incorporate these materials.

Starting with the roof, I had to buy three-quarter inch OSB sheeting which was nailed to the rafters. The north and south roof were covered with metal roofing except for the 4-foot by 16-foot opening for roof windows. Once the roofing was installed and the roof window opening edges framed, I bought 2 four by eight pieces of plexiglass to fill in the opening and silicone caulked the edges. This turned out to be a mistake, but it did solve the roof window problem for the next eight years. On the right is a photo of the north roofing being installed.

 

On the left is a photo of the south roofing installation. A framework slightly larger than the size of two pieces of plexiglass was nailed on top of the rafters and the roofing flashed to prevent leakage. Then the plexiglass was installed on top of the framework and the edges sealed with silicone caulk. Finally, I screwed boards to the edges and the rafters to hold the plexiglass in place. I considered this to be a temporary solution until I could replace the plexiglass sheets with glass windows. What I failed to account for was the tremendous water condensation that would eventually develop inside.

The greenhouse remained a pavilion for the next several months which at least demonstrated that the roof did not leak and where the sunshine would enter the building in the winter. That summer, many wheelbarrow loads of topsoil were transferred from a nearby hill to the inside of the pavilion providing another foot of dirt for the gardener.

 

In August of 2011, I started 2x4 framing of the walls, starting with the easiest north wall. In the photo to the right, because the walls were 10 feet tall, 8-foot 2x4s were built upon a two foot wall nailed to the sill plate. This left gaps under the sill plate between the pylons that were back-filled with rocks. This too turned out to be a problem. Were this building merely a garage, that would have been fine, especially since the original plan included the pouring of a cement floor inside and under the sill plates. However, garden dirt was used to fill the inside floor area instead. Eventually, digging critters found easy access under the wall.

I also made gutters out of my spare roofing materials. The idea was to collect water from the roof and route the center of the gutter to the inside of the greenhouse. The small box framed into the upper side of the wall was designed to house the gutter entrance. The horse trough, originally outside under the gutter center, demonstrated that this idea would work and the trough was eventually installed on the other side of the wall inside the greenhouse. In the gable ends, two boxes were also framed to create vents. After framing for my chestnut door, the north and east walls were sheathed with T1-11 and the door installed.

What I did account for was the need for ventilation. The two framed openings in the gables provide about four square feet of upper air escape. Near the bottom of the south wall I installed three similar framed openings for lower air intake. I made louvered coverings for the outsides and hinged insulated doors on the inside to control the airflow.

Next was to design walls for the south and west sides that fit within the framing and housed the window collection. The sliding glass door was centered on the west wall with matching windows of either side. The south wall utilized the odd collection of window sizes.

 

 It's Dawn – September 10, 2011. I have about one month to get this covered before the first snows.

 

 

Above, standing with my back to the north wall and looking southeast toward the sunrise, the sunshine will first enter through the door. There happens to be forest and a hill on that side though.

Looking right towards the southwest, the horizon is open and lots of sunshine will flood the south wall all day.

The west facing wall on the far right will be in sunshine until late afternoon - there's trees over there too!

On the right is the view from the southeast. Five years from now there will be a fenced in garden on this side enclosing an outdoor growing area the same size as the greenhouse.

At the moment I have a month or so to cover the south wall and install 14 windows. I'll fill in the 7 vent openings for now and make the vent louvers and inside doors over the winter.
 

 

 

There is also a sliding glass door and two more windows to install in the west wall. Five years from now, that sliding glass door will no longer slide. Dirt in the bottom track quickly destroyed the tiny plastic rollers. Now, it's a big window.

October 6, 2011 – a few weeks before the traditional Halloween snowstorm.

With the building dried-in, I could now spend the winter finishing the inside, hopefully, in time for the gardeners spring planting plans! The cavities between the 2x4 walls were insulated with fiberglass bats and the seams taped. Then I used locally available aspen tongue and groove boards to cover the inside walls. Once the vent louvers and inside hinged door flaps were installed, Linda declared it done and it was planting time – this was in February - cold outside but warm inside!

 

 

The photo on the left was taken in May of 2012. An iris oversees the progress of the vegetables.

 

 

 

This is my favorite greenhouse picture of Linda – the Happy Gardener.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess I'm done!