The Ultimate Guide to DIY Greenhouses: Pros, Cons, and Everything In Between - YTread (2024)

This is anchored by nailing some 2x2 boards into the ground and screwing them to the baseboards and one thing to keep in mind if you are building this type of greenhouse is to use UV treated PVC or paint it with some type of latex paint for protection against UV rays. The advantages of this is that it is a simple construction. by one person and it's very cost effective, you don't need many materials to make this and we had the PVC and most of the wood on hand before it was built so it wasn't extremely expensive for us to build this.

Another advantage is that this is angled to be able to throw snow and deal with our snow loads up here and this worked very well in the winter. The last Pro I had on my list here is the size: 12 by 19 feet, it is very large and especially considering the amount of time and money invested in this, it is a good deal, some disadvantages of this design is that every time you use six mil plastic you will have to help with the snow, so every time there is a big snow storm you will have to go out and remove the snow from the plastic, fortunately the angle of the PVC makes it quite easy, the biggest disadvantage in my opinion of This design is that it is constructed from PVC, it is probably not the most durable construction material and it is probably not the most ideal material to have around food, but for a short term solution, this is a great option.

You'll need to replace the plastic on this every three to five years, so you need to take that into account and rigid plastic panels like corrugated plastic or twin wall. The panels that will be in designs four and five on this list will regulate temperature a little better than the six thousand we used in this design. We also have some pretty big bug problems in this greenhouse and that's probably something you want to keep in mind if you're building this yourself, maybe you can come up with some sort of solution to catch some bugs and keep this place a little cleaner .

A few more years out of this structure compared to something like PVC or wood or something, this greenhouse has lasted three winters so far, so this metal is doing a very good job. It's also very large, measuring 12 by 19 feet, which gives you plenty of room to move around in there and have a lot of things growing and some disadvantages to the greenhouse style, first of all, it's not angled for snow, so It is not ideally shaped to shed snow and although we have not had any. problems with it so far, it's a little harder to get the snow off of it when you go out to clear it and the snow sinks in between the metal chute because it's not angled to slide off of it, so it kind of sits there until you you remove it from the plastic so I would say that's one of the biggest cons and the rest of the cons I have are just a result of using six mil plastic so you have to remove the snow from it.

It will only last three to five years there will be a lot of bugs inside or at least that is what we have found and the six mil plastic does not regulate temperature as effectively as the rigid plastic panels I am going to talk about In my later builds again, I think this is a very good greenhouse for the price and what is required to build it. This current greenhouse has made it through three winters so far. The structure shows no signs of slowing down and you just have to keep replacing the plastic. as needed and this should last a long time, so number three on the list is my livestock panel greenhouse.

This greenhouse is 10 by 16 feet and as a base it has four by four anchors and 2x4 baseboards and we folded four livestock panels to create For the structure, I also made some step by step plans and an interactive materials list for this build, for so if you are interested in that information, that information will be in the description and some advantages of this greenhouse are number one, it is a simple construction. It is not extremely difficult to assemble and livestock panels are very versatile. You can set up your own greenhouse or configure it in many different ways and the versatility of livestock panels is useful because you can bend them to whatever width or height you need. be and this gives you many options on how to build your own greenhouse.

Some more pluses are how it handles the snow load or at least how it has handled it for us so far. Livestock Panels Provide support throughout plastic instead of early designs. where I showed you where there are just a few posts that hold all the plastic up which really helps manage the snow and we put a ridge beam and a ridge beam support in this greenhouse so I haven't had any problems with snow management. the snow load and that should prevent these livestock panels from collapsing on themselves and this should exist for quite a few years and a disadvantage of this greenhouse is more or less along the same lines.

I know I just said it handles winter and snow loading very well and it does, but you have to put a ridge beam and ridge beam support in there if you're in a winter like ours, at least because if not You do it they will probably collapse on themselves. Additionally, these livestock panels have many sharp edges. Jagged edges that will put holes in the six mil plastic so you want to make sure you get some greenhouse tape or some foam rolls to cover them because we actually tore the first sheet of plastic that we put here and that's just a nightmare. and a complete waste so make sure you keep that in mind if you're building one of these and then the rest of the cons are related to using six thousand plastic which will only last three to five years there's winter.

It requires maintenance, it won't regulate temperatures as well, but it is very cost effective, you will still get a lot of bang for your buck, build it very simply or add some amenities like we did, but either way it will be a sturdy structure. The panels are great to build, they should last a long time and again this greenhouse is very spacious and airy for the amount of money you invest and the time it takes to build so next up is my personal favorite which is the frame on A. The greenhouse is eight feet by eight feet and is framed with cedar and has rigid plastic corrugated panels as a base.

We used square post anchors and metal deck plates to anchor the structure. I also put together a bill of materials with updated prices for In this build we purchased most of the material for this greenhouse a couple of years ago and I went and looked at the prices I paid on my orders versus the prices that are now on my updated bill of materials and some of these materials have become very expensive, especially the base pieces like the posts and plates, they used to cost a few dollars each, but now they have skyrocketed to around twenty dollars, so we pay a lot less for this than the price list would suggest but this is built to last and should last many more years and that brings me to the first advantage of this build and that is that it is built to last so it is built with cedar and metal and There is only metal on the floor, no wood.

There are also rigid plastic panels on the floor, so instead of six thousand that need to be replaced every few years, this should last a long time and these panels not only last a long time, they also regulate temperature very effectively. . some thermometers here in late fall and when it was below freezing it would stay in the upper 30s, approaching 40 degrees Fahrenheit, so it would stay above freezing and even at noon it would only be about 10 degrees warmer than outside. so it was very good at regulating temperatures and one thing I'm really a fan of when it comes to an A frame is its ability to shed snow so this is their first winner and so far snow hasn't been able to even stay there for more than a day but this has had no problems with winter so far and we built it to be able to shed snow and so far it is doing exactly that.

Another advantage of this style of greenhouse is that it is very easy to collect rainwater. We made some gutters out of scrap metal we had lying around and collected the rainwater and returned it to the beds through a pipe. It is a kind of greenhouse with automatic irrigation. We still have to solve some problems. There are problems with getting the water evenly distributed across the beds but it is very easy to collect rainwater when you pitch a roof like this and use rigid plastic panels and the last plus on my list is that so far there have been no There were insect problems.

The only other thing I could say as a negative about this is probably that it takes a little more skill to build than the first three concepts I went over, but I would say it's doable, especially if you have an extra pair of hands to help you and I have many videos on building this greenhouse that I will link in the description below if you are interested and finally number five on my list. is our double wall paneled greenhouse, this greenhouse is 12 by 16 feet and we really wanted to build something that would last as long as possible so a lot of the advantages of this one have to do with how well it was built, it should last a For a long time we poured a concrete base and used these double wall plastic panels.

These panels have an extra layer of air and that is supposed to dramatically increase their thermal insulation, not only because they also have a 10 year warranty against damage from hail, weather and any loss of light transmission, so we should get a great harvest food from this thing for years to come. Another advantage of framing a greenhouse with sticks is that you have more control over the dimensions, so you can build it to fit any area you have. or whatever shape or size you need, some cons of this greenhouse would be that it is very expensive and you will have to pay for a lot of different materials and there is a lot that goes into building a structure of this size and it is quite a deep build, there are a lot of skills you need to know and there are a lot of skills we had to learn to build this greenhouse as if this were the first time we poured concrete, just keep that in mind, it's definitely not impossible and I'm sure many of you could do this without a problem, but to usIt took us a lot of time and energy and learning how to build this, but we did it and we made a video about it and I will.

Hopefully this can help you if you are thinking about building your own greenhouse. If you have any questions, please ask. in the comments and I'll be sure to answer them. If you like this video, please subscribe and I will make more videos on basics of each type of greenhouses and pros and cons and go deeper into that topic and I plan to do a lot of temperature readings, experiments and updates throughout the year and all these greenhouses, so yes If you want to see any of them, follow us and those videos will be out in the coming months