Passive Solar Greenhouse Construction
Written by on February 21, 2020
I went ahead and began installing some siding on the rear wall. Let me pause here for a minute, and give some background about the siding.
My sister recently had some acreage harvested, and down in the creek bottom were some large cypress trees….perfect for the greenhouse! The logger laid three huge trees in a clearing about a mile from me down a long double rut dirt road. Here is a photo of the trees:
I cut the long trunks into 12′ and 8′ long sections in order to pull them back home. I began dragging the nine sections with my tractor. The poor thing strained its guts out pulling the long, water laden, extrememly heavy monsters back home down the road:
Turning a log is TOUGH by yourself on a manual mill. The tractor just can’t help much doing that with my setup:
Here is a photo of the 8″ wide cant used for cutting beveled lap siding:
Here is a closeup of some siding being cut. I place a couple of 3/8″ thick small sticks under the edge of the cant to lift it, and take a cut. Then I remove them for the next cut, and can achieve a consistent beveled thickness for the finished siding:
I took a photo of some of the siding stacked into the dry kiln in preparation for drying a full load. (Update: I ended up not needing the siding for a good while as my real job once again got in the way. By the time I got back to needing the siding, it was already dry enough with the heat naturally generated inside the kiln with no fans circulating!) Here is a picture:
A few days before I began installing the exterior boards, I unloaded the kiln and stacked the boards under my carport to use. Less than a WEEK later, after they sat inside the kiln for MONTHS, a strong and nasty storm blew through here producing 80 mph straight line winds. The kiln was blown off its block supports. To be honest though, I’d planned on moving the thing to the rear of the barn one day when I built it, and made it tow-able. I figured it was God’s way of letting me know the time had come to move it, so I went with it! Here is a photo of it blown off the support blocks (It was in place for almost 10 years):
Here is a photo of my cousin helping me (or really, me helping him since he knew what he was doing) put the tires on the axle:
And that’s my old Chevy van backed up to tow it to the back…first time I’ve ever moved it, and it did perfectly! Anyway, in order to back it into the tight area where it needed to be, my van ended up almost perpendicular to the kiln. Danny (my cousin) kept hollering at me which way to cut my wheels in order to do such a perfect, and tricky maneuver. He drove an 18 wheeler, and taught big rig driving at the local voc-tech. It was a cool experience. Anyway, here is a photo of it in its new home. The area is not quite as ideal a location as before with total sun, but I think it’s good enough to do the job:
We also took the time to remove the axle and mounted it permanently to the blocks….no need to keep the axle on there any more.