Topic: greenhouses & perspex "glass"

[bennettsleg]

So, educated brethren, what's the view on buying a glass free/glass destroyed greenhouse and replacing the glass with perspex?

Thoughts this end are:
- warmer greenhouse, plastic conducts less than glass
- safer, perspex won't break so easily/can be shipped easily
- beautifully flat base not needed as perspex can bear a little torque that glass cannot tolerate.
- potential fumes?

Over to you  :)

[grotbag]

hi, sounds ok to me, wot about cost?

[tim]

Yes - very expensive for the right thing. But peace of mind with the crazy grand-children on go-cart things.

But not Perspex - it yellows depressingly. We have found polycarbonate very longlasting. We have quite a bit of the twin-wall stuff, cut to size by DIY Plastics.

[adam04]

you wont have a warmer greenhouse.  Plastic doesnt keep in UV rays as well as glass and so takes much longer to warm up.

Also, plastic is scratched very easily, even by poeple brushing against it tc and soon it becomes that cloudy that no UV rays enter and you end up with a cold greenhouse.

it is safer, and easier to work with, but the cost of it means you must really have a good reason to use it instead of glass.

Check the growing under glass section of the site and there was a thread there not long ago, comparing glass to plastic.