FlyTrapCare Forums

For christmas i built myself a greenhouse from scratch. Its 8ft long, 8 ft wide and it has a sloped roof going from 8ft to 5 ft. Wood frame, gravel floor, and the cold north wall is made entirely of wood. It is covered in 4 mil plastic. I will try to get up some pictures tomorrow.
It gets waay too hot! The hottest it has been is 106F! It cools down to the 80s and 90s if i prop the door open, but i know that wont be adequete in the summer and i also want to conserve humidity in the greenhouse. The lighting is bright and diffused through the plastic (just about perfect), so i dont want to cover it with shade cloth to reduce heat becasue i will also lose precious light. So, ive decided i need to get an air conditioner or swamp cooler before i can put any nepenthes or any of my other tropical houseplants inside. Ive sort of ruled out the swamp cooler because just about everyone ive talked to says they start to lose efficiency over 90 degrees,(correct me if they are wrong ) . And it will get about 30 degrees hotter than that in summer. So it has to be an air conditioner. Obviously i need one with a high enough btu rating to handle these high temps, but im getting mixed answers from btu calculators. Ive seen as low as 2000 BTUs and as high as 17,000. I have a limited budget and would prefer to get one only slightly stronger than i need rather than go overboard. And i am too far into this project to give it up now. Please help. Thanks in advance.

I use aircon and I must say the btu must be the same as aircon that you put in the house I think mine is 19000 btu. I bought a mobile aircon that cost quite a bit but works extremely well. Whatever you do don't cheap out! Another thing is the aircon will drastically lower humidity so if you want I would recommend a hydrofogger. It will keep humidity very high and it will drop the temperature by 2-5 degrees celcius

Maybe try shade cloth? I believe most people use it on their GH's to help stop the sun from baking their plants, I could be wrong though.

Shade cloth won't reduce it by much

Ya. And i like the light levels. Kevnep, how big is your greenhouse?

About 5m x 2.5m x 2.5m

Thats about twice the size of mine. I might be able to use a 10,000 btu on mine if a 17,000btu is sufficient for yours. How hot do your summers get?

Here it is.

Nice work!

Our summers can get up to 40 celcuis with an average of 32. Just remember it needs to be strong in order to cool effectively

i will try shade cloths......

Well, i finally bought an air conditioner. I work at a hardware store and my boss was able to give me a sweet deal on it. It is a 10,000 btu. It says it is good for medium rooms from 200-300 square feet. Considering my greenhouse is only 64 square feet, and the hot summer sun is going to bring the ambient air temperature to 120 degrees farainheight outside of the greenhouse, this should do it. I will post pictures of it tomorrow. And i still need to cut a hole in the back of my greenhouse to fit it. Overall, i am excited and should be able to move my nepenthes inside it soon

plantfreak1 wrote:Well, i finally bought an air conditioner. I work at a hardware store and my boss was able to give me a sweet deal on it. It is a 10,000 btu. It says it is good for medium rooms from 200-300 square feet. Considering my greenhouse is only 64 square feet, and the hot summer sun is going to bring the ambient air temperature to 120 degrees farainheight outside of the greenhouse, this should do it. I will post pictures of it tomorrow. And i still need to cut a hole in the back of my greenhouse to fit it. Overall, i am excited and should be able to move my nepenthes inside it soon

So after so many years, how did it end up working?