Heating in a polytunnel

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jjat8cv

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Heating in a polytunnel
« on: December 03, 2012, 18:30 »
I read somewhere that  bottles of water put in a polytunnel in winter will warm up in the day time and help keep the temperature up a little during the night. Has anyone tried this? I was thinking of using two litre bottles filled with water to edge my polytunnel beds to take advantage of this but am not sure if it will work.

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mumofstig

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Re: Heating in a polytunnel
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2012, 18:48 »
Neither am I - it was -3C in my greenhouse a few nights ago, so the water in the bottles would freeze, no matter how warm it was during the day.


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AshtonValer

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Re: Heating in a polytunnel
« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2012, 09:12 »
Small bottles wouldn't retain heat. I'm looking into two options:

a) a section of water-filled plastic drainage pipe (black will absorb more heat during the day) that can be set upright in the poly/greenhouse. Needs to be fairly big to retain heat longer. You could also use an old iron radiator, painted black, in the same way - or jazz it up with a solar pump to distribute the heat around some piping


b) - slightly more technical, but can be done cheaply with some recycled materials, a gravel heatsink. Can be jazzed up with a timer/solar panel/temp sensor switch

  Dig a pit, stand a pipe in it and then fill around with pea shingle. Fit an old PC fan at the top to push warm air down from the ceiling of the GH/poly into the gravel. Side benefit is the moving of air and moderating the overall temperature.

   The gravel heats up, then slowly releases the heat during the night.



« Last Edit: December 06, 2012, 18:50 by Aunt Sally »

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grinling

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Re: Heating in a polytunnel
« Reply #3 on: December 07, 2012, 16:18 »
what are you growing in the polytunnel?
Charlie grows lettuce over winter with no heat except sun. Mine has no heat except sun and I have spinach and swiss chard for the chooks in there.

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Amilo

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Re: Heating in a polytunnel
« Reply #4 on: December 16, 2012, 11:34 »
It's not a new idea, but in days of old, if you wanted a heated cold frame you dug out a 2 or 3 foot deep trench, filled half of it with fresh compost, IE new horse manure then put the soil back on top and the composting heats up the soil.

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shaun

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Re: Heating in a polytunnel
« Reply #5 on: December 20, 2012, 20:43 »
-5 in mine last week so putting enough heat in there would be expensive, plus there's the lack of light during the winter
feed the soil not the plants
organicish
you learn gardening by making mistakes



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