The Ultimate Guide to DIY Greenhouses: Pros, Cons, and Everything In Between

This video details pros and cons for FIVE different DIY greenhouses. Information about the builds and materials used are below.

1) PVC GREENHOUSE:

2) METAL HOOP HOUSE:

3) CATTLE PANEL GREENHOUSE

4) A-FRAME GREENHOUSE

5) TWINWALL GREENHOUSE:
6mm 4' x 8' Clear Polycarbonate Twinwall Panel

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About Me (Evan):
I moved onto our century old family farm with the goal of turning the land back into a self-sustaining homestead using regenerative agriculture practices. I want to set up long term food systems that will provide my family with food security for the next 100 years.

Chapters:
00:00-00:35 INFO IN DESCRIPTION
00:36-03:17 PVC GREENHOUSE
03:18-05:36 METAL HOOP HOUSE
05:37-08:15 CATTLE PANEL GREENHOUSE
08:16-11:35 A-FRAME GREENHOUSE
11:36-13:37 TWINWALL PANEL GREENHOUSE
13:38-14:12 GREENHOUSE FOUNDATIONS

[TheNorthBranchWI]

Hey everyone! I wanted to clarify what I meant when I list "bugs" for a con on the 6mil plastic greenhouses. In our experience there were always an excess of flies and other insects in these designs and they would die and end up in the crevasses of the 6mil plastic. It was difficult to clean them out and over the years there were a gross amount of them built up. There were no issues with pests on the plants or anything like that!

So far this has not been the case in our greenhouses with rigid plastic panels, so that I why I list that as a "pro" for those designs and a "con" for the 6mil. However, they are young so we will if that continues over the years. Our A-Frame greenhouse is older than our cattle panel greenhouse (with 6mil) and the same issues appeared in the cattle panel shortly after it was built, so that is why I decided to add that to the video. I realize that there are other factors that go into that, but that has been what we have observed. We are also close to industrial farms so there are an abundance of flies hatching in the summer months with the spreading of manure. I just thought I would expand on this a bit, I have gotten a lot of comments on this topic. I should have been more clear in the video. Thank you all for watching! I appreciate it more than words can describe.

[FrederickDunn]

These are all great examples that should get the greenhouse design wheels turning. One thing I would recommend for anyone building some of the more permanent designs is, Build a Model first as in a small wooden model that is to scale with all of the structural elements - hobby centers sell balsa wood in scalable dimensions. You will work out joint angles, and material use, and encounter any design challenges before you're working full scale. I did that before I build our home, and it was a great tool. AND always stop at the commercial desk of Home Depot, or whatever building center you're using, they can often give you a package discount if you're getting everything there, including windows, translucent panels, etc... can't hurt to ask. Thanks and thumbs up! Also, ask for Scratch and Dent, or Returned Windows/Doors, building centers won't tell you about them unless you ask and you can design from your most expensive items up. :)

[vanessacrouch]

This is one of the most helpful videos on this topic like EVER. thank you so much for putting this up. My husband and I had a hard time deciding which one to build that will last just a few years and our winters are not too bad. We'll have maybe one or two snow storms a year so I think we want to go with the cattle panel greenhouse. Awesome content thank you again

[Tinyoak]

we built the cattle panel version and in order to avoid tearing of the plastic, we made a slit along one side of pool noodles ( not in half) in order to make a kind of sleeve and then slid them over any edges that directly touched any plastic. it has worked like a charm

[brandoncuts]

Fun fact for snow growers or Northern can use Pam or Windshield RainX for the UV Plastic to make it super slick so the Snow and rain falls off more Welcome🎉

[msddehaan]

I was in China a few years ago. They had large earth mounds on the north and west sides of their partial hoop houses. It kept the wind at bay and the earth mounds did a great job of insulating. Has anyone tried this approach?

[Kaelland]

For your self-watering system, it seems to me like you could better spread the water throughout the bed if you were to find some way to adapt your funnel from your gutter into the greenhouse into something to which you can attach a water hose, and then connect a soaker hose to it so that the soaker hose distributes the water throughout the plant bed.

[technics]

Thank you for sharing your experiences!

P.s. I don't know much about gardening, but as a carpenter's son, I think you should strip the bark off the wood thoroughly. Fungi and various other microorganisms live on the bark of dead wood. As I mentioned - I don't know much about gardening and perhaps these organisms are not harmful to the crop, but the pole you made will rot faster than the pole with the bark removed.

[boa]

Oh, You’re in a cold climate and didn’t do a geothermal greenhouse. There’s a Chinese guy in Edmonton who runs one. They’re all over the place, but a great idea for us northerners who don’t want to rely on California for their veggies. Then there’s oranges in Kansas. There’s a lot we should be doing.

[tesshiva]

I sent this to my husband, who said “I thought you didn’t want a greenhouse!” and I said, “When you see this video, you will want to BUILD me one!” Many Thanks!

[jamesthiel]

Great video and design! thx for the content and sharing this.
For heating greenhouses: I found out the best option on a youtube: some dude has built huge greenhouses with nice climate control system and with one motivation: build with scrap/recovered materials and cheap options yet doing the right job the optimal way. Smart man, understanding thermo-dynamics, his climate control vents are like so:
Large intakes vents circulate outside-air through layered-pipes of circulating water from the underground reservoir.
The large reservoir is a huge temperature buffer.
In summer, this vent is cooling down hot air, and in winter it's heating up cold air.
With this buffer option you can also lay some pipes on the ground.

Reservoir solution/liquid:
1. You could also have this reservoir be your nutrients reservoir for aero. (low nuts and R.O. water to keep maintenance low cleaning the system).
You may need to keep the reservoir topped with ambient temperature for it to be the most effective. If there is less volume the buffer liquid will heat-up or cool down much faster.

2. Dedicating the vent reservoir for climate control using R.O. water (filtered soft water for pumps and pipes)
and as extra: adding some kind anti-crap agent (like bleach) and maybe a cooling/ temp buffer agent (to increase the buffer potential) in it. This is finalise the dedicated solution for climate control.

3. Simply use filtered (rain/tap) water (filter particles/debris for pumps and pipes) you could use to water beds.

Happy gardening, Love

[briarpalek]

Thanks for a very well detailed overview of your various builds. We are currently erecting a 10x12 greenhouse kit on a wood deck and adding a 12x12 to one of the gable ends that will be wood framed and sheeted with the corrugated polycarbonate panels same as one of yours. I have used those panels in pole building construction, so I am very familiar with them. They last far more than a few years. We will be heating our greenhouses with hot water heat from an outdoor wood furnace that also heats a 36x 104 pole building. We are also building a 12x24 greenhouse as a addition to another pole building that will not be heated. Perhaps in the future it will. All your greenhouse designs look well done!

[munchkin]

We use temperature actuated foundation vents in our raised bed hoop houses. These hoop houses are wood frame built with concrete reinforcing wire to form the arch that is covered with 6ml greenhouse plastic. We store these hoop houses inside a building when not in use, but we know that wear from the plastic against the wire causes damage we watch for and repair with clear Gorilla tape. But what makes these hoop houses possible for us to use are those vents that open and close on their own. These or similar vents could also be installed in any of your greenhouses.

As for bugs & insects, thats part of greenhouse and hoop house gardening, so progressive IPM should be used. Sticky traps, etc., can also help. And keep weeds, etc., back away from your structure 2-3’ around the outside perimeter. These are not perfect solutions, but can help. Of course too, it depends on where you are and your environment. Maybe even planting beneficial plants/flowers outside the structure.

[Trottelkopf]

I read about a really nice fuel free heating system. you just need a pv-panel, some insulation material, 2 pipes and a fan. The fan blows warm air through the pipe throughout the day into the soil. They insulated a cube of soil, to storage the heat there. At night warm air will go up again and keeps the greenhouse above freezing temperature. It think its from: Self-Sufficiency for the 21st Century: The Complete Guide to Sustainable Living Today, but i only know the german version.

[TheDuckofDoom.]

Professional 6mil greenhouse film will triple the life, 12 years in the northern USA is a reasonable expectation(warranty is 4 or 6 years) and it is availible with infrared additives to reduce heat loss at night(plain polyethylene is transparent to infrared). Double-wall and triple-wall panels, or inflated double-film, are best for overnight freeze protection (Double wall glass is especially good as it blocks long wave infrared from escaping, but for the money plastic plus a thermal curtain may be better especially if it can be automated and put on a timer).
Daytime temps are almost irelevent, they will be high enough with any material on sunny days even in winter. Overcast days are a bit more complicated to figure in as they have a lot more variables than may be immediately obvious.
Use good anchoring, I am in a fairly calm valley but I have still had wind up-end a couple greenhouses, even with anchoring equivelent to those short stakes used in the video. I would double them and put them in at alternating angles so they don't pull out. Or bury a small log along each side and tie into it for an anchor.
Secions of concrete foundation and anchoring is an option where the investment makes sense.

[JaHFarms-ebdu]

In case one's mentioned it... on the next build I would do the following:
#1 build a single slope greenhouse with a corridor on the north wall... running East to West.
#2 use a solar tracking app to find out your locations true optimal location and this will determine your optimal roof slope.
#3 Look into geothermal heating and cooling through intake and exhaust systems. Usually requires a concrete slab floor and some excavation of sub structure.. but totally worth the effort.
#4 look into insulated metal panels for sidewalls. Tons of new effective options now that add barriers andr value to your build.

10 years on polycarbonate is not happening... unless you grease the insurance agent. 😂

Nice work all together.. keep up the innovation!!!
Cheers

[timallen]

I built a cattle panel greenhouse, and i use cheap black plastic water pipe to keep the plastic from ripping. I just put a hoop of the water pipe on top of the panel every 4 feet to keep the plastic off the wire. I screw it to the base and zip tie it to the wire to keep it from moving.

[jsmythib]

I just finished my cattle panel greenhouse after a few months on Youtube looking around. I just wanted to say your framing of it on a slop was priceless! lol I also just decided to wing it! Love it. 8am now 32f outside, greenhouse is 47f.

[jackietomkins]

We made our greenhouse sort of like your cattle panel. We use 2 by 12 ground contact wood to creating basically like a raised bed. Then 2 foot post above that before the cattle panels so that it would be taller. All of it is window screened in. At first we covered it with plastic and being in the far south that was the biggest problem we had because it cooked everything. The solution was to make long strips of window screen and sew them together. Then down the center of the greenhouse put 6 foot wide by 20 foot long plastic which we anchored via eye screws and rope. This helped keep the screen from catching wind and tearing loose from the framing. We also added an outside bed for plants that require bees for pollinating. We placed pvc as a cold frame over that bed. In our not too cold winters (as low as 20° overnight) we can completely cover the greenhouse and outside bed with plastic that is attached to 1" pvc pipe that rolls and unrolls. We tried bug net before using window screening and it disintegrated from the sun/heat in 3 months. We critter protected the underneath of the whole build plus lower sides with 1/2" hardware cloth. No bugs, no moles or any other pests after the changes. The beds are to either side and full length with covered walkway in the middle. T5 plant lights under cover take the edge off the cold nights and oscillating fans on low create wind pollinating. My only wish now is I wish it was 2 feet taller. 4' sides would've been better for tall tomatoes and such. I almost forgot, we also attached gutters and use them for growing herbs. Total size 16wx20l

[johnwyman]

For keeping the greenhouse above freezing in the wintertime, there are some folks who bury tubes 4 to 6 feet into the ground and have a small pump or fan to bring the heat down into the ground during the day, then back up at night using either air, or water. It uses very little electricity.