Albert's Greenhouse

I've been doing some rewiring and reconfiguration of my greenhouse recently. You can read about how I built my greenhouse here.

8 feet by 12 feet doesn't sound that small until you're inside the greenhouse, and then you realize that you can really only have one row of shelves on each side - nothing big down the middle and nothing at the ends. So I've started hanging plants on the walls. I grow a lot of epiphytic orchids, aroids and vines.

Hanging plants on the walls leads to wanting to water the aforementioned plants, and I came to the conclusion that putting the electrical outlets at bench level was not such a great idea, given my desires to spray water around randomly - so time for an electrical update, and might as well update the circulation, lighting and ventilation as well.

New Equipment: After seeing various equipment failures, many brought on by cheapo equipment, I've become a sudden fan of more high quality stuff. So, about $1000 later, I've got a couple of Schaefer 12" vent fans, a couple of 16" motorized louvers, and a couple of 8" circulation fans. I've also redone the wiring so all the outlets are up near the ceiling of the greenhouse, all the outlets have water resistant covers, and I've bought an electrical box that hangs down from the ceiling nearer to the center of the greenhouse, in which I've installed two cooling thermostats, a fan speed control, a heating thermostat, a humidistat and a remote thermometer sensor. All this is wired through PVC conduit to control the various outlets.

The idea is that the metal box in the center of the greenhouse will better shade the temperature controllers from the evil effects of the exterior walls and the sun. It will also better protect the already waterproofed thermostats and switches. I've installed a little 12v fan to blow air through the cabinet and keep everything bathed in the ambient greenhouse air.

Hopefully, the two fans and two louvers, connected to two separate thermostats set at slightly different temperatures, will lead to a more robust system that is impervious to failure of any single component.

After dealing with rusting, non-starting, and frankly ugly fluorescent lights ( I only have time for the greenhouse after dark, especially in the winter ), I finally bit the bullet and got some nice new sealed T8 fixtures from Home Depot. They are waterproof, and they start right up, even when the greenhouse is a bit cool ( it only ever gets down to 65F, but does so almost nightly ).

I've also got a fertilizer injector attached to a spray hose, which is mounted in what turns out to be a very inconvenient place. The great dream may be to attach the fertilizer injector directly to the irrigation system, but there are issues with making sure that the fertilized water does not make its way into the carnivorous plant setup. The carnivores can't deal with what they consider contaminated water.

These greenhouse renewals are almost finished, but for me it's an ongoing process. Half the fun for this engineer is trying to design a system that is robust enough to keep all my plants happy through the summer and the winter and everything in between.