DIY verandah-style greenhouse, sunspace, draught lobby from recuperated materials.

I love this greenhouse because it seems so right in the surrounding rural scene and because it is made from such an interesting eclectic mix of recuperated materials including ships timbers, giant industrial packing cases and discarded pairs of French windows (here in France they are called 'door windows'). It also has multiple uses, providing water for the sheep and poultry from its roof, a reading room on a wet day for grandchildren, as well as the usual and expected year-round food production. 

I also view it as a prototype for something we want to build, which is a sun space on our own tiny house.

Preamble

Eight years ago, when my neighbour, Bernard saw the recuperated-glass greenhouse I’d built, he wanted to follow suit and build his own. It took 7 years for him to ‘bite the bullet’ and finally fulfil his ambition. It was well worth the wait in this robust yet deceptively 'light' and 'airy' design.

Recuperated Materials

Before retiring, Bernard was an engineering technician and was involved in the installation of steam turbines at sites in Europe and the Middle East. He very prudently recuperated the wood from the crates used in transporting the turbines and brought it home to be stored in his shed. He also took some old ship timbers stored on his sister's farm before it was sold, these he used in the central roof support (see below).

For the recuperated windows I took him to the joinery company from where I obtain all mine. The proprietor had already expressed his gratitude that someone (me) was taking his ‘rubbish’ and putting it to good use. Fortunately for Bernard on the day we went to see what was available, we found that the company had just completed a contract for replacing the windows in a large house. The result was that we filled Bernard’s trailer with 7 pairs of  wood-framed double-glazed French windows.

Some years’ ago there was a strip of land that ran alongside Bernard’s garden owned by a retired guy who grew vegetables on it. He sold this to Bernard when he moved away and on removing the fencing that separated the plots Bernard also removed the concrete foundation for this fence. These reinforced concrete beams were moved into his lower field for ‘safe keeping’. You can see them here, put to good use.

Construction

Bernard had erected a garage-sized ‘shed’ on his land in which he stored recuperated timber. The western elevation was chosen as the rear wall for the greenhouse. The garage/shed was steel-framed and clad in corrugated steel sheet. And had a single-pitch roof sloping to the western elevation.

The concrete beams were laid directly on the ground to form a ring beam and a mild steel  angle iron was secured to it. Vertical wooden posts were secured to the garage wall from which the roof rafters could be attached and these in turn were attached to a wall plate supported by three uprights extending up from the ring beam. 
 

Bernard fabricated his own joist hangers, to support the rafters, from scrap steel sheet. Additional support for the roof sheets was provided by noggins nailed between the rafters.

  


The windows were supported on the ring beam and were bolted to the upright face of the angle iron and to the wall plate at the top.

Provision was made for a door at each end of the greenhouse and once again suitable ones were obtained at our friendly joinery company.

The roof of the greenhouse was of clear, rigid plastic. Bernard was able to match the profile of the roof sheet to that of the metal roof cladding of the adjoining shed. Thus, by sliding the plastic sheet beneath the edge of the metal one, there was a weatherproof joint which would allow rainwater to run from the shed roof into guttering on the greenhouse roof perimeter.

Rainwater harvesting

As mentioned above, a gutter was fitted to collect the rainwater run off from the combined roofs (approximately 50 m²) and this was stored in a 1m³ food grade plastic container, thus providing adequate supply of water for irrigation in the greenhouse and as a bonus providing a clean water source for the animals grazing in the field.

In conclusion

After almost 2 years use, Bernard is really pleased with the increased yield from the prolonged growing season in the greenhouse and his only regret is he did not do it sooner. The cost for the roofing was obviously the biggest expenditure in this construction, but the resulting benefits of rainwater harvesting and structural integrity have proved it was a wise investment. The sheep and chickens are happy too!

I really like this project because it is a robust, weatherproof construction which could easily be adapted to provide a conservatory or draught lobby to a house.

It looks as if this is what we’ll be undertaking later this year in front of our tiny house in the garden. I’ll keep you posted!!

Now if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film.

Thanks for dropping by and feel free to, ask questions, comment and/or share this article. Hope to see you next time. Cheers, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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DIY Bird Box for Robins, Wrens, Pied Wagtails, Eastern Bluebirds, Northern Flickers and Purple Martins.

Spring is the time when birds begin to look for good nesting sites. They may try many possibilities and even actually start the makings of a nest before they actually make their final choice. You can help them and attract many of these birds to your garden by providing them with a good choice of homes. In the last blog we looked at one design to attract a specific group. Now I'm going to proffer this design to attract some others. Over the decades the natural nesting sites, cracks in old buildings and garden walls and shakes in ancient trees, have become rarer. Our aim is also to create something which would blend into the background to attract these often shy birds.

As a rule, in Europe these boxes are expected to attract mainly robins, wrens and wagtails. In the USA there are over 50 species who prefer to use an open-fronted cavity nest. However, wherever you live you should research the individual habits and volumes needed for any specific  bird. Martins, for example, prefer to nest in colonies so you should provide either 5 or 6 boxes placed closely together or one large box with separate nesting chambers. Blackbirds may also use this type of box but would need it to be enlarged by around 50%.

The materials and construction are the same as for our previous box but I will repeat them here in case you have not read the post. If you have, then please continue down the page until you come to the section on the positioning of the front planks.

Materials

The box is based on the same design as my Apple House but is formed around a larger 140 mm - 5½" pallet block. You will need 1 or 2, 100 mm - 4" wide pallet wood planks and the wood strips from a fruit crate or orange box. We decorated it with water-based acrylic varnish and tinted it with earth and mineral pigments. For information on mixing these: http://thegreenlever.blogspot.fr/2012/02/using-natural-earth-and-mineral.html

Construction

 

For the four sides, mark out the first length, which corresponds to the length of the block plus plank thickness. Cut four sides to this length.


 

Pre-nail the planks, if the wood splits at this juncture, then drill a pilot hole at a slightly smaller diameter than the nail shank and then nail. 














Position and nail front.

 

 

Cut base to make a platform suitable for nest building, 100 mm x 100 mm - 4" x 4" and mitred at 45°. 

 
 
Mark the position of the shelf from the inside.

 

Drill pilot hole and screw the shelf in position.

 


Trim the edges. 

You now have something which looks like this.

 

 

Select wood for back of box and trace round the box as a guide for drilling pilot holes for nailing the back and screwing in the shelf.

 

  

 

Nail back wall and screw shelf into place.

Trim

Drill pilot holes for wall mounting box at bottom...

...and top.

 

Drill a drainage hole. This is very important with an open-fronted design.

 

Cut fruit crate wood to length to make shingles. Due to the open aspect, these should project well over the front of the box to protect it from rain, sun and to give more privacy.

 

 
To finish, we use earth and mineral paints and acrylic water-based varnish... 

...with a design which mimicked the golden hearted ivy growing on the wall where we were going to site it. 

We made another to fit snugly under the eaves of the pallet wood hen house.

Now, if you'd like to, sit back and enjoy he film.

The previous post has another nesting box - a design for blue tits, chickadees and pied fly catchers

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to share this article, comment, ask questions and if you'd like to be assured of getting the next post, then sign up to follow this blog.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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Home-made Repurposed Wood, Luxury Insect Hotel or Five Star Bug House for the Discerning Arthropod

Fun to make and fascinating to watch, these insect hotels can make all the difference to the successful pollination of your fruit and vegetables and also to the control of pests by insect predators.

Open for Business - Build Your Own Green Hotel

Here's our deluxe version and in the next post I will be featuring our designs for 'Eco Lodges' smaller hanging and nestling accommodation you can place around the garden or orchard. They also make great presents, not only for Christmas but also in this larger form an ideal Wedding Gift. 

Here is a close up of what an occupied room looks like - in this case the 'door' is closed with clay but some creatures like the leaf cutter bee.. yes it's all in the name! 

Larger arthropods we find in our garden and have photographed, can overwinter in the larger stems and or bark and leaf infill. 

 

Some of these like the larvae of the Stag Beetle are becoming ever more rare, so providing them with a permanent shelter is a great idea. The larger stems will also be able to accommodate the beautiful large European Black solitary bee, again another species, who is threatened by extinction.

This is a great project to do with kids as there is a massive selection of differing natural materials to be sought from within the garden or further afield in woods and hedgerows. The end result can be quite artistic the only limit is your imagination. Children also enjoy seeing who is using the Hotel and can observe the essential role insects play in nature, for pollination and pest control.

Some of the materials we found for the Hotel, dried teazle heads, fir cones, dry branches, various dry flower and vegetable stems, dry bamboo canes and leaves, moss and lichens and of course pallet blocks.

Making the Hotel Frame

The structure is a rectangular frame with shelves within surmounted with a triangular apex. It is simply nailed together, including the rear wall of tongue and groove planking, which ensures that the hotel remains square and rigid.

I selected 100mm (4") wide untreated pallet wood planks.

The bottom, top and shelves were cut 50cm long. The two vertical sides were cut  50 cm plus twice the plank thickness.

The vertical sides are nailed into the end-grain of the top and bottom pieces and to ensure that the nails do not split the wood this close to the edge, I drilled pilot holes for them.

I used a 2mm drill for the holes, the nails are 2.4mm in diameter.

When nailing the sides I made sure that the rear edges of the planks were level with each other.......

.......and the corners remain square.

I used pallet blocks (pre-drilled for use in the Hotel in this image) to set the distance between each shelf. I found it easier to drive the nails into the end grain of the shelf if I once again drilled pilot holes at the appropriate positions in the vertical side walls.

If you want to put a vertical divider in an area then cut it to length and nail it to the shelf before the shelf is nailed in place. the free end of this divider may then be nailed to the top plank. You can see this in the image at the start of this post.

The triangular section at the top of the structure has a 90° angle at its apex. I initially had cut a 45° angle where it met the edge of the vertical side but I thought this was unnecessarily difficult so I just cut a square edge as illustrated. I found there was no structural difference in doing this and as the wire mesh on the front face was held in place with quarter-round beading this joint was hidden from view.

I had marked a centre line in the top of the rectangle and used a try-square from this line to determine the lengths for the two angled pieces.

Once again, pilot holes for the nails were drilled. Notice that the drill is vertical to the face of the sloping piece of wood.

When the Hotel is filled with the 'bedding materials', the exposed portions of nails are hidden from view.

The rear wall can now be cut to size and nailed in place. I used tongue & groove panelling 10mm thick. I marked the length and shape of the piece and nailed each one in place before marking and cutting the next one. Pilot holes were drilled and the back wall was nailed to each shelf as well as the rectangular frame and the triangular top.

This, ensured the whole structure was rigid and the, potentially, weak points (where nails were entering the end grain or going in at an angle) were reinforced.

And this is how it looks.

Fitting out your hotel rooms

 

Now comes the fun bit, filling the Hotel with suitable nesting materials. I used the pallet block as a guide for cutting twigs and branches to length. The 'compartments' between the pallet blocks were filled with an assortment of natural materials as well as these cut stems. 

I cleared the pith out of some stems (like the elderberry) with a stiff piece of wire. Some stems were left with the pith as certain insects eat the pith and/or use it to create doors to seal the rooms.

For the twigs, branches, and pallet blocks I drilled holes of between 4mm and 10mm diameter. 

Before everything was put in place, straw was packed along the whole back wall of the hotel to provide insulation and extra bedding.

All of this was done with the Hotel laying flat on its back. 

Once filled, chicken wire was cut to size and secured with quarter round beading nailed to the front edges of the structure. I used 30mm long panel pins to do this.

A nail punch was used to drive the panel pins' heads flush with the wood surface.

Siting your Hotel

Your Hotel once completed should be sited in a sheltered location and preferably in a South Easterly to South Westerly facing direction. This house is meant to be placed at ground level or hung on a wall. In the next blog I will show how to make the smaller Eco Lodges, motels, chalets and gîtes we designed for placing around the garden, on a balcony and/or hanging in trees. 

Beware once made, these insect hotels make addictive watching, people have been known to spend hours observing insects coming in and out of their hotels! Have fun and now, if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film.
 

For a smaller insect hotel project see our blog post on The Bee Cosy for cosy bees!

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to share this article, comment, ask questions and if you'd like to be assured of getting the next post, then sign up to follow this blog.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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