Greenhouse from window frames

Ready -made greenhouses from ideal aluminum profiles and cellular polycarbonate undoubtedly look great. But their cost is so high that even the most economic gardeners can completely abandon the idea to acquire such a miracle. Therefore, summer residents can build their greenhouses literally from any improvised material look beautiful and not forbred, but almost free and practical. For this purpose, old, but quite decent wooden frames with whole glasses are suitable. And in order to build a greenhouse from window frames, much difficulty is not required.

Table of contents:

The advantages of a greenhouse from window frames

The use of a greenhouse is considered a good way to solve the problem with planting with too long spring. The seedlings that were planted in a greenhouse during a period when the street still cooled enough for planting plants in open ground is better. And when heat comes, seedlings bloom faster.

Now in city apartments it is customary to replace the old window frames with new plastic ones. At the same time, old frames go to the trash. But in vain. Because you can make a good greenhouse with them. The presence of glasses in the design helps to maintain the optimum temperature for fruit and vegetable crops, herbs and fruits in the room, and the wooden frames create a strong and reliable frame for the construction.

In addition to the door, there are many windows that will provide additional ventilation and help control the air temperature inside. The construction of a greenhouse from window frames is a simple lesson, and using our leadership, everyone can build it. The greenhouse will turn out to be original and unusual, and a good harvest will please you for more than one year!

The dimensions of the greenhouse

Before construction, each frame should be measured, because they often have different heights and width. It is worth choosing the best option for installing them. In order for the greenhouse from the frames to be even and symmetrical, it is necessary to fit the frames to each other. In other words, it is recommended for the construction to take window frames that have the same height.

After that, you should measure the width of each frame and mark it. Knowing the width of all window frames, you can determine the length of the future greenhouse. And to find the exact width of the structure, you need to draw up a drawing in which it is customary to denote all the beds and passages. The width of one bed, as a rule, is equal to one meter. Remember the aisles between the beds! The width of the aisle for maximum convenience should be such that a small household trolley freely passes through it.

Placement of the greenhouse

After determining the size of the future greenhouse, you can choose the place of placement of the greenhouse itself. The functionality of the structure in general depends on the right choice. The greenhouse from the old window frames needs a well -lit sun, an even area. Place your greenhouse in such a place that it is well protected from strong winds. In addition, near the structure there should not be tall trees and buildings that are able to hide the greenhouse.

If you decide to organize a gable greenhouse, remember that it needs to be placed in such a way that the longitudinal greenhouse axis is placed from the north to the south. The soil section where it is planned to build a greenhouse should be dry. Ideally, under a layer of chernozem, which acts as a fertile layer, sandy soil should be located.

The soil base for the structure, which is made of frames, should be strong, since such greenhouses have great weight. If the site on which you build a greenhouse is clay, then you need to prepare it. Make a blind area of \u200b\u200bgravel of the middle fraction, then organize a pillow from a compacted sand, the thickness of which should be less than 10 centimeters.

Pour on the sand pillow fertile soil. Do not forget when building a greenhouse about groundwater. They should be located at a depth of at least 1.5 meters. The soil, which is characterized by a fairly high humidity, is not suitable for such construction.

We select the foundation correctly

Experienced craftsmen advise starting the construction of a greenhouse from window frames with their own hands with the foundation, even if the future structure is placed on normal soil. In such a building, the main thing is that the necessary temperature is constantly maintained, and in this matter the filling of the foundation plays a large role. In addition, it has been proved in practice that the foundation gives heat saving up to 10%, and therefore reduces the cost of heating the greenhouses.

The foundation for a greenhouse performs two functions: it acts as a reliable support for the frame and increases the protection of garden crops from the harmful effects of the external environment, directly through the soil of the greenhouse. At the moment, there are several varieties of the foundation that are suitable for the greenhouse: a ready -made metal foundation, strip and point.

A metal foundation can be purchased in a specialized store, and very often such a product is an integral part of a particular model of a greenhouse. Such a foundation is installed exclusively under the supporting pillars, giving the greenhouse reliable stability. But good protection is not guaranteed.

The strip foundation is a filling of the foundation to a certain depth around the entire perimeter of the structure, which provides a reliable support for a greenhouse from window frames and retains heat in the ground.

The most practical and popular is a stone or concrete ribbon masonry, which takes no less than 80 centimeters into the ground. The width of such a foundation should reach 10 centimeters. Depending on the climatic region, the parameters can change, but you should not delve into those areas in which there are no winter colds, this is simply an extra waste of money and time.

In regions where large frosts are pushed in winter, the foundation is usually deepened to the freezing of the soil and insulate with sealing slabs made of polystyrene foam. Isolation is simply required for structures in which it is planned to install a heating system to reduce material costs.

The foundation for the greenhouse should be perfectly set in level and evenly distributed the entire weight of the structure in order to avoid penetration from the outside into the structure of cold air masses between the frame and the foundation. For a dense butt, use additional sealing. Silicone putty and bitumen will help to significantly increase the useful life of the greenhouse.

Preparation of window frames

Before making a greenhouse from window frames, you should prepare the window frames for the installation. To do this, remove all the metal elements away from them: handles, loops, spinger and valves. Then clean the surface of the frames from the old paint so that the new coloring composition lay down in an even layer. And in order to protect the structure from dampness, rodents and malicious insects, treat them using a special antiseptic.

If you plan to fix the window frames to the wooden frame and use nails and a hammer during operation, it is better to remove all the glasses, because during the installation of frames to the frame, glass may be damaged. When fixing the ramps with screws, it is not necessary to remove the glass, but it is worth carefully clogging all the windows, this will exclude the possibility of a draft.

The height of the walls of the greenhouse from old frames should be at least 170-180 centimeters. But the height of the structure itself depends on the angle of sloping on the roof, which is determined in turn used by the material for the greenhouse film, it is larger for polycarbonate.

Installation of the frame

To install the frames, you must first make a wooden frame. Use a wooden beam for this, which has a size of 50 by 50 millimeters. A more inexpensive option would be the use of a dry board with a thickness of 40 millimeters. A similar thickness of the board is needed because most frames from old windows have a similar thickness. The window frame on the board will be located the entire plane, which affects the stiffness indicator of the entire structure.

Any frame of the greenhouse consists of 3 elements: racks, upper strapping and lower strapping. The lower strapping can be made from two identical boards, which will increase the greenhouse walls by an order of magnitude. Mount the long elements of the frame to the racks so that the cracks between the frames are covered with a board.
With the help of recesses created in cement, make wooden planks a plane for installing walls. Sticks need to be nailed to the backups with nails. And so that the welder’s roof has a slope necessary for drainage, it is better to cut the upper edges of the supports.

Window frames can be attached to the racks using nails and screws, as described above. The use of screws is considered a more expensive way, but at the same time better and more reliable. But regardless of how the old windows join the frame, between the frames themselves, without fail, cover all the cracks with foam with foam. Only then will it be possible to build a greenhouse from the window frames really reliable.

Window frames are recommended to be fixed outside and inside. To fix their products from the inside, you need a support board. Usually, take a board of smaller thickness. If the whole greenhouse did not have enough window frames, then close the free areas from the frames with sheets of polycarbonate.

Floor arrangement

To make the floor in the greenhouse with your own hands, you need to dig a hole for at least 15 centimeters in depth. The entire base as a result should be well aligned and compacted. You can pour the floor for special strength by concrete directly on the tamped earth. On the prepared base, pour small gravel with a layer, which has a thickness of about 10 centimeters.

After that, cover the gravel of the crowd or with plastic so you will make an excellent barrier for damp and undesirable weeds. On top of everything, it is necessary to pour 5-10 centimeters of good construction sand and then tamp again. In order for the floor in the greenhouse to compact well, you can use the vibrating plate. Then put bricks on the floor more tightly to each other and fill them with sand in such a way that all the cracks are filled.

Installation of the roof of the greenhouse

The most common type of roof for a greenhouse is a simple gable roof if windows are used for it. But it is recommended to cover the greenhouse with windows only partially, otherwise it will be difficult to avoid overheating in the greenhouse. More economical and easier to install a film single -sloping roof. And in the winter months, the film roof can be completely removed if you do not plan to use a greenhouse in severe frosts, then it does not threaten a collapse due to tons of snow.

Use any suitable material as roofing material, but its weight should not be particularly large. The most optimal solution is sheets of polycarbonate. To correctly determine the angle of inclination of the roof, it is worth pushing directly from the roofing material itself.

The angle of inclination of the roof varies within 5 - 65 degrees. If it is planned to cover the greenhouse with film material, then it is necessary to make the angle of the roof tilt as large as possible so that rain water flows well from the roof and does not stagnate on the film. If you use polycarbonate sheets as roofing material, then you can make the angle of inclination more gentle.

Using the film as a material for the roof of the film entails additional actions. Fix the film to the roof frame using wooden racks that need to be beaten to the roof frame. It is recommended to lay a mesh frame on the film, which is made of thick fishing line or nylon cord to exclude the possibility of sagging material to the maximum.

The fastening of polycarbonate sheets is usually carried out using wide goals and bolts. To protect the structure from the risk of rainwater, you need to make an overhang of roofing material. And the boundaries of the greenhouse wall polycarbonate sheets should be at least 15 centimeters. Before construction, review the photo of the greenhouses from the window frames and select the most suitable option for your summer cottage.

Greenhouse protection

The greenhouse from the old window frames serves as a rather fragile design. Almost all of its walls are made of glass, which at any time can break. The structure for such a reason should be placed where there are no trees. In addition, the arrangement of the greenhouse should include the presence of gusts of wind. It is best to build a greenhouse so that the window frames are protected: on the opposite side of the solar wall there should be some kind of structure, which will take on the main force of wind.

Constantly keep the greenhouse construction under the supervision. The slightest damage to the glass part of the walls should be eliminated by replacing the glass section. Otherwise, the microclimate that is needed to grow cultivated plants can be violated in the greenhouse. A large role for the greenhouse from the frames is played by heating using special equipment. Now you have to watch a video about the construction of a home -made greenhouse from old window frames to consolidate the theory.

So, you know how to make a greenhouse from frames, is ready. It remains to think about the arrangement of the internal space and install supports and racks for plants in a greenhouse. It will turn out to be a durable, warm and environmentally friendly greenhouse almost for a penny. Remember this when you replace the old window frames in your city apartment with new plastic ones.

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