Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Design and Construction => Topic started by: Bigfatsi on May 24, 2012, 23:02
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Hi,
I'm looking to build a net-tunnel for the garden in a similar way to the polytunnel designs you can find on the Internet.
Unfortunately, I'm on a tight (very tight) budget. To date I've bought a 50m x 3m debris net in preparation.
My idea is to buy 50m of 20mm water pipe to make 6x8m ribs spaced 2.6m apart giving me a width of 5m, length of 13m and apex (if you can call a dome an apex) of around 2.5m.
This will be held up with 12x3 foot lengths of rebar, sunk 2 feet in.
Does this make sense? Can I go to 2.6m between ribs? Will 20mm pipe be strong enough?
Constructive criticism is happily received. I don't want to spend money on a chocolate fire guard!
TIA
Simon
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Went with 25mm pipe. No good. Nowhere near rigid enough. £30 lesson learned.
S
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oh dear :(
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Went with 25mm pipe. No good. Nowhere near rigid enough. £30 lesson learned.
S
With all due respect,you hardy gave anyone time to reply!! Question posted at 11:02pm and you had bought and tried the 25mm by 4:38pm,still lets hope you find some use or a good home for whats left.
smud6ie
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Needed to make hay (or net tunnel in this case) while sun shines! Lol
Just thought I'd update to let anyone else who was interested know it was a no go. Collective experience and all that guff!
S
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Went with 25mm pipe. No good. Nowhere near rigid enough. £30 lesson learned.
S
Hopefully you haven't completely wasted your money as you can always reuse it to make smaller versions.
From my experience, 25mm is strong enough for a 1200mm span.
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if you bought enough you could triple or quadruple it with duct tape. That should be tougher than the equivalent single pipe due to the increased outside circumference.
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Hmmm, that's a though Jrko (scratches chin).
I might give that a go tonight.
Will feedback later ;-)
S
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I built a similar tunnel for my Brassicas. It is 3m x 7m. I made 5 lengths of the 25mm blue pipe each 5m long. Using 3’ metal stakes I fixed these just over 1.5m apart in parallel down the edge of the bed. The pipe was bent over between the two opposite stakes. Down the centre of the bed I used longer stakes to hold the centre of the pipe in place using duct tape to hold it. The using more stakes I made a ridge along the top like a backbone, again held in place with duct tape. This has survived the recent high winds.
Unfortunately I do not have a clear picture of it, but you can just see it in the background of the attached picture.
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Perhaps try bendy tent poles if you know someone with an unwanted broken tent.
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Perhaps try bendy tent poles if you know someone with an unwanted broken tent.
Any festivals near you this summer? Each one has a huge amount of abandoned tents at the end that they have to dispose of...