Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What is the best direction to position a greenhouse, is it north-south or east-west.

I have strong hot winds coming from the east, potentially no shading issues to deal with, however could incorporate shade into design for summer heat reduction.

Hey Fizzy, orientation will depend on a number of things, greenhouse design, system design, and what you want from your system.. Were you going to build your own or get one off the shelf? Was it going to be a simple tunnel house style, or gable roof, etc, etc...

And what did you want to do with it, whats the purpose? Do you want to keep Barra all year round, or is it more to keep pests out..

Hi Fizzyj,
If you build one like this, only bigger, http://www.nurl.us/6py
whichever way you face it..it`ll be perfect

Couldn`t agree more with EB.. lots of variables to consider

If you have a peaked or arched roof, I think you get a bit more light if it is oriented with the ridge pointed north and south. But if you have a prevailing wind from the East, you should plan your design to take advantage of that -- put most of your vents on the East and West sides so the wind will ventillate

oh man,
I have about 5000sqm of land to play with for house, big shed, greenhouse, orchard and rain tanks etc.
I am in the process of planning to build the shed and am just trying to generally orientate where things will go etc.
So the greenhouse was going to be the traditional tunnel design, most likely off the shelf. Similar to something aussieponic posted a few weeks back.
It potentially will be sheltered from the easterly winds by the shed either way it faces. In summer the easterlies can blow you over - quite strong.

The purpose of the greenhouse was purely for grow beds and possibly also the fish tanks (however depending on how things go I may stick the fish tanks in an adjoining shed that could be insulated etc).

I want to be able to grow summer veg in winter if possible, so I want it to absorb much of the winter sun, however I will not want it to get too hot in summer.

Does this help?

With the strong winds you have there i would put the door to the east and have a nother door on the other end ie cooling in summer

Is the wind strong enough to damage thre greenhouse? If it might be, I would run it east-west to present a smaller face to the wind.

Rollup sides and perhaps cantilever roof vents might help in the summer.
As light in winter is mostly diffused rather than direct, (or at least it is here) the orientation may not be too critical.
If the wind is strong enough to blow you over, survivability would probably be the main concern when siting the tunnel.

Personally, I think a geodesic would tick most of the boxes

Yes the dome would be nice and "cool" like a new age hippy, however the cost and whereabouts to get one would be tricky.

Whatever you use, make sure you secure the greenhouse to the ground very well. and if you cover with plastic, keep it under tension at all times (either two layers inflated or else 1 layer with tension straps) I've seen three greenhouses get blown of the ground.

One time it blew across a parking lot in Valdez ,scattering plants and pots across the landscape -- when it landed, it broke into several pieces. That got our pictures in the newspaper.

fizzyj, I would place it east west because of the wind.This will also give you good sun. The one I posted a while back is made with a fitted cover all one piece solar shield and shadecloth as one. The cover at the bottom is placed in a trench all around the greenhouse and filled in with gravel /sand or whatever. This helps with pests and the strong winds.

AussiePonic

Yeah, east west is probably best.. Even better if you can attach it to the north side of the shed...

The greenhouse operation I work at was hit previously by a tornado.
It was a much smaller space at the time (7 years ago, well before I was there)
The owner told me she saw the funnel come down as she and her husband watched in the window of their house, situated ~150 ft away. It pulled the entire thing out of the ground (from concrete piles) and was held to the ground by something you do not want to see it being held down by....a natural gas pipe!
It snapped (no explosions luckily, and the greenhouse flew by their house, just missing it.

Must have been quite the sight.

Hayden

nice - how about some nice stories...

Got a little bored so stuffed about with sketchup today. Slowly getting better at it.

Attached are 3 pictures of a 12m by 6m greenhouse, doors at both ends. 3, 10m by 1m grow beds and 2 submerged fish tanks, 1 is 1400L and the other is around 4000L. These are to be placed directly under the grow beds, withed timber walkways on top of them. The large tank is to supply 2 grow beds.

The idea is too use flood & drain, with beds flooding to a point and then draining directly back into the fish tanks, reducing the need for a sump tank, additional pumps and a point of failure.

Base of greenhouse will be a compacted blue metal with pavers as walkway. Space between GB's probably around 1m with 0.5m on edge to allow limited access if needed.

GH is to be raised by 0.8m as per the standard ones Aussieponic is planning on using.

GB's to be made from stramit monoclad sheet metal, bent to shape of \__/. Monoclad has shape of /```\___/``\_/```\ etc

Only problem is that I am probably around 3 years from building it.