Topic: replacing glass with ?

[gwynnethmary]

My son and his wife have recently moved to southern Sweden, and have inherited a greenhouse on their property with several broken panes.  They do not want to replace with glass, thinking ahead to children and footballs.  Given that they have longer, more severe winters than in the Uk, can anyone suggest an alternative that would not be too brittle in sub zero temperatures?

[gwynnethmary]

My son and his wife have recently moved to southern Sweden, and have inherited a greenhouse on their property with several broken panes.  They do not want to replace with glass, thinking ahead to children and footballs.  Given that they have longer, more severe winters than in the Uk, can anyone suggest an alternative that would not be too brittle in sub zero temperatures?

Just wanted to ask again.....

[Ellen K]

Hi - I worked for a company in Goteborg and yes they have a later spring but it's on the same latitude as Aberdeen and I don't remember the winters being that bad - though Goteborg is on the coast and it certainly did get its share of rain.  And the winter days are short rather than cold.

Really, glass is hard to beat, and you could go for the toughened safety glass..  Polycarbonate doesn't have that much longevity, the long sunny summer days would perish it as much as the winters.  And perspex is worse from the point of view of yellowing.

I saw a greenhouse in Loughborough and it had a chickenwire fence on one side because it was taking hits from stone throwers outside the allotment site so something like that might be the way forward if the GH is at risk.

But interested if anyone else has an opinion ...

[gillian62]

I have been doing cheap and cheerful for the past couple of years as I haven't been able to afford new glass panels. 

I have had some polycarbonate sheets which I have put in.

But I have also had good success with bubble wrap - you can often get quite large bits on freecycle and I have attached them with good old brown parcel tape.  This seems to have done the job for a year at a time, and has been easy enough to replace.

We have also thought of using the blue builders plastic sheets.  We used this in the past when the boys were small.  They thought it was great to have a 'bluehouse' rather than a 'greenhouse'.

[Vinlander]

Polycarbonate doesn't have that much longevity, the long sunny summer days would perish it as much as the winters.  And perspex is worse from the point of view of yellowing.

That's weird - I've found perspex goes brittle in sun and polycarbonate doesn't (15-odd years of up to 6 hours direct sun a day).

I also find that polycarbonate does go very yellow after 8-10 years (almost amber) but perspex hardly at all.

I know there are several grades of perspex/acrylic, but I'm not aware of different types of PC.

??

Cheers.

[Ian Pearson]

Most clear plastics come either as UV stabilised, or not (usually cheaper). If supplied for glazing, it should be stabilised, but worth checking the spec.