Topic: heating a greenhouse

[weedgrower]

i'm not very technical but have come up with an idea and would like to know if it would work

when i get my new greenhouse i want to heat it and cool it from solar power. i want to put a solar panel on my greenhouse and attach this to a car battery, so the battery is constantly being charged. i then want to run an electrical fan heater in the winter and a cooling fan in the summer from the battery. would this be possible or not. what would be the pitfalls. is there a better way to do it.

i know my initial outlay may be quite a few pounds but over the long term its gotr to be better that gas or parafin

[keef]

A car battery would'nt be able to hold enough charge to run a heater for very long.

You'd be better off building an insulated heat store under the floor - use the solar panel to run some fans to fill it up with warmth during the day and charge a small battery. Then at night use another fan (powered from the battery) to pull the warmth back out again. I think cambourne7 was going to make somthing like this....

[Barnowl]

This thread?

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,19460.0.html

[Plot69]

would this be possible or not.

I do it exactly that way all the time... Well, the cooling part I do. I have a solar panel connected directly to a large PC cooling fan. The brighter and hotter the sun gets, the faster the fan blows, When it's cloudy or not so bright the fan slows right down, just as you'd want it to, sort of self regulating I suppose.

As for the heating in winter, you'd never keep the battery charged enough unless you had a very high power solar panel and a bank of high amp hour batteries or better still, a wind turbine. The initial outlay would probably keep you in paraffin for years and years.

You'd be better off building a heat sink using a 12v fan to blow the hotter air from the top of the greenhouse through the sink which will keep the G/H warmer at night as it releaser the stored heat.
 

[weedgrower]

thanks for that plot 69. where did you get your solar panel from and your fan or what make are they?

[albacore1854]

Not pi55ing on anyone's parade, but I'm not up to speed on all this.How much more efficient is this solution that black buckets of water?

What about solar water heating using gravity feed?Parts freely available at low cost.

[Plot69]

thanks for that plot 69. where did you get your solar panel from and your fan or what make are they?

I bought the panel off the web somewhere a few years ago, originally to use in my caravan. The fan is a simple PC cooling fan from PC World.

[Lost-The-Plot]

Just found this:

http://www.twowests.co.uk/TwoWestsSite/product/SPEF.htm

[cambourne7]

I have not managed to do anything as my greenhouse got trashed in the winds.

I was however watching an old version of gardeners world yesterday as parents have sky and bob flowerdew had a poly tunnel with a plastic greenhouse inside as a hot house. I wonder if you could put one of these walk in plastic greenhouses into a glass one ???

[Gazfoz]

I was however watching an old version of gardeners world yesterday as parents have sky and bob flowerdew had a poly tunnel with a plastic greenhouse inside as a hot house


A mini Kew Gardens.
What a good idea. Hmm Bananas, Pinapples......... etc.
I need to think about this....
Heating costs in winter could still be hefty

[tonybloke]

bob flowerdew has two polytunnels, one indide the other, and he puts bubblewrap on the inner one in the winter, he has a pond in the inner one and grows pineapples and bananas, Me and O.H visited his place in 2006, very interesting garden/ gardener!!