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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Hen House Chicken Coop Mark 2 - using pallet wood instead of store-bought tongue & groove.

We are building a new hen house to replace the oldest one of the three in our garden.  The design will be the same as that illustrated in my four blog posts. The first is: http://thegreenlever.blogspot.fr/2012/09/pallet-wood-hen-house-and-prototype-for.html and with two accompanying Youtube films. The old one (below) was built from recycled floorboards, thrown out by a neighbour as storm-damage in the 1999 hurricane but they did a great job as a wall covering. 

It has a Japanese theme and the roof was built by my father-in-law from bamboo he split down, again something a neighbour was throwing out. It was also partly a green roof as the bamboo was ideal for rooting sedums. Now however, after taking a pounding in the heavy snows and rain last year, the floor has finally given up on us and the flock has expanded and needs new accommodation.

This is the last of our hen houses to be updated and it has a charm, which has only increased with age but now is the moment and I have a new source of untreated wooden pallets. These pallets are non-standard in size and the planks are much thinner than normal. I have decided to use them in the construction of the roof panels instead of purchasing tongue & groove panelling.

In the past, I have used tongue & groove as a roof covering, prior to the final waterproof layer because it makes a homogeneous, light-weight roof panel. I also had several packs of this material left-over from renovating the house and had been given a few damaged packs by a DIY shop, who deemed them unsaleable. I would now need to purchase them and am not happy with the present quality on offer. Although I can use lower grade tongue & groove in such jobs, recently I have seen much more damage or missing tongues within the packs. Although by careful planning and cutting, I can lessen the waste, I still resent the additional time and moreover paying for what often ends up as expensive kindling! So, with my new source of lighter pallet planks and still needing to minimise the weight of the completed roof panel, this is what I came up with.

The problem and its solution 

The design of this hen house was conceived to cover the various needs, both of ourselves, hence the height and pitch of the roof and those of the flock. This in particular because of the inordinate amount of rain here in Normandie throughout the Winter months and conversely the high temperatures in Summer, due to the fact of it being situated within a walled garden.

In this job, where the wooden roof panel is to be protected from the rain, the lateral tongue & groove is no longer critical. However, what is necessary, is that the end of the individual planks should be joined. This because the pallet wood planking is not long enough for the panel and needs to be joined, so as to give the roof enough overhang. This latter was factored into the design, both to protect the walls from rain, to give our hens enough dry space for Winter dust bathing and to provide shade and keep the interior cool for laying or brooding in Summer.

Butt joints vs tongue & groove

Tongue & groove has both lateral and end jointing and as we explained above, only this latter is important in the construction of our roof panel. A butt joint is an old fashioned and simple way of joining two planks either end-to-end or side-by-side, using nails, screws, wooden pegs, biscuits or metal fasteners to reinforce the joint.

Making the butt joint work 

Conventionally the butt joint is used when two pieces of wood are to be joined at a right angle rather than here, where the joint is end to end. In our butt joint a 50mm nail is driven half-way into the end of the shorter plank, the nail head is then cut off with wire cutters and the plank is positioned and hammered into place, thus joining the two planks with a single nail (see below). The shorter plank can then be nailed to the cross-brace.

 

Cross-braces

As you can see in the above photo the panel design incorporates an additional cross brace to support the extra planks. You may therefore, be wondering why we didn't just use additional cross-braces to support each of the plank ends, instead of the nailed butt joints. The answer is, that a single cross-brace would not suffice, we would have been nailing too close to the end of each plank. In addition, each cross-brace is secured with two screws to the side of the panel and an additional cross brace would be wasting wood and more importantly screws, which are considerably more expensive than the nails used in the butt joints. The nail usage would also have doubled.

Below is a photo of the finished panel.

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



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, Big, Low Cost Glass Greenhouse from Free Recuperated Windows Part 2

The very first step in constructing the greenhouse was to decide on the size for it. We'd earmarked a vegetable plot where it was to go and as it had a hedge along one edge and a rose border on another, both of which we wanted to retain a practical size of 5m long by 3m wide was decided. This gave adequate space for access with ladders or steps during construction.

Although it is a large sized greenhouse and in itself quite an imposing feature, it actually fits very well into its surrounding landscape. Being surrounded by greenery as it is now, obviates the need for shade cloths, which in the early days were necessary to prevent the scorching of leaves in the very hot, clear days of Summer. We live near the sea and at times the light here can be very intense.

The roof covering was to be of 200 micron polythene UV stabilised (polytunnel material) and this could be purchased by the metre and was 7.5 metres wide. As the roof was to be gabled we bought a 4m length, the polythene width was more than enough to cover the greenhouse length.

For the south 3m wide end I had recuperated some French windows and these and the entrance door on the North end set the wall height of the greenhouse.

Having now decided the overall dimensions of the greenhouse the preparatory work could begin.

All of the windows I'd collected were casement windows, that is, windows that open on hinges attached to one vertical side of the frame. Most of them were paired and had a weather strip where the two windows met in the middle.

Along the bottom edge of all these windows was a weatherboard to deflect rain running off the window onto the window sill. As the casement window fits into a frame this moulding is not flush with the bottom but is attached about 10-20mm from the bottom edge.

Apropos of hinges

The hinges need to be removed as they will interfere with the fit.

Some hinges can be removed by unscrewing but, bearing in mind that these are old windows, the screw heads will usually be sealed under several coats of paint. Nevertheless, with a little care they will usually come out. I clean the paint away from around the screw heads with a sharp awl and ensure the screw heads have all the paint removed so that the screwdriver fits tightly. If after all this effort the screws refuse to budge then you have to resort to drilling out the heads, it won't matter if the rest of the screw remains in the frame. Alternatively, you can use a hacksaw or angle grinder to remove any protruding part of the hinge and leave the remaining metal plate complete with screws in place.

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To bring the windows' heights to that of the French windows I decided to support them on walls made from pallet wood. Now that I knew the wall lengths I could sort the windows to fit, number them and mark their position on a plan.

Before making the walls, the bottom of each window projecting beyond the weatherboard was sawn off providing a wider face to rest on the wall.

TIP: (photo above) Screw a plank of the appropriate thickness to the face of the window so as to ensure that the saw blade will cut a square face to the bottom of the window. 

The wall panels were made from pallet wood planks nailed to a rectangular frame. Each frame was again of pallet wood but I selected planks for this from more robust pallets (approx 100mm x 22mm, 4" x 1"). These planks were screwed together to form the frames and the pallet wood planks were nailed to what was to become the outside face thus forming a box.

There were seven 75mm (3") square wooden posts, each bolted to a galvanised steel stake driven into the ground (one at each corner, one midway along the longest sides and one to form the doorway). A line running from post to post marked the perimeter to which the wall panels needed to abut.









In addition, I made T (Tee) shaped stakes from 22mm thick pallet wood, which were to be driven into the ground on the inside of the greenhouse. These would provide a solid support for the wall panels.

All the above preparation meant that when we finally came to construct the greenhouse it went together as a kit.

The roof trusses too we pre-fabricated in the workshop too but for clarity I'll deal with these in a separate post
.

If you are thinking of building a glass greenhouse and would like to know of some of the extra plants, in particular tropical spices you will be able to grow, then sit back and take a look at this film:

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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DIY Pallet Wood Hen House Chicken Coop Part 4 - Assembly contnued and Finishings

Natural Finish - A piece of buddleia branch trimmed to make way for the Hen House is used to fashion its doorknob.

It's day three of the Assembly of the new Hen House. The chicks have spent their first night in their new home. It's bigger and roomier than their old one, never again will I design or make a hen house which doesn't have space for us to stand upright! I also found that putting a door in both back and front makes for ease of cleaning and is a good way of removing perches and keeping the house aired in hot weather. The house is sited on the far side of the garden and is in the angle of the back wall of a neighbouring longère and the North bocage (raised hedge). In the Winter it receives the sun quite early in the morning, when the rest of the garden is in the shadow of the house, which runs the entire length of the garden, some 50 metres (164 feet). It's  a regular suntrap in the Summer, which is why the fig tree does so well there and the hens, sybarites through and through, love it.

 

Breakfast in front of the New Hen House.  

Raising the Roof

We start the day by putting the gable ends in place. These are temporarily held in position with diagonal supports to the walls, which will be removed once the ridge purlin is in place.

 

Using a straight edge ensures that the wall and gable end are in line so that the ridge purlin brace may be fitted.

The House is now beginning to take shape with both the gable ends in place. We are now ready to fit the ridge purlin.   

The ridge purlin is measured and cut to length once the gable ends are in place.  

The ridge purlin is screwed to the inside face of the gable end apex. Screw holes are drilled through the gable end frame prior to fitting the purlin in place.

Once the purlin is in place, the braces can be fitted to each end of the Hen House. These braces are designed to take the roof load off the screws securing the purlin to the gable end. The roof load is thus borne by the side walls and floor. 

Once the ridge purlin and brace have been screwed together, the temporary diagonal supports may be removed.

 

Furring strips are now fitted to the ridge purlin. 

The roof is now ready for the panels to be fitted.

The panels are screwed to the walls and gable ends from the inside and from the outside to attach the ridge purlin.

  

The most expensive part of the Hen House, a good quality tarpaulin, can now  be fitted.

The surplus material is trimmed off and battens cut from pallet wood are used to fix the tarpaulin to the underside of the roof panels.

The open sides of the pallet base are sealed with planking, nailed to the wooden blocks.

The decoration with découpage is made from paper napkins.

The building inspector calls to assess the job. He's a white-laced buff crested and bearded Polish, one of three brothers who are joint heads of this house.







If you want to see our Polish chickens in action:

There is another post here, which shows how I used butt joints to construct the roof panels of pallet wood too. This makes the house even cheaper for those of you who don't have left-over or recuperated tongue & groove cladding.

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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