[timn]

I've rescued a greenhouse from my grandfather.  He no longer wanted to keep going growing and fancied relaying the area to lawn as it was quite shady.

Unfortunately the rubber seals had all gone before he got it off my other grandfather so he used a bathroom caulk gun.  The result is that the 50 odd year panes were very much glued to the sides and I had to wrench them off with a screwdriver and wallpaper scraper.

Suprisingly I managed to get about 95% of the panes off in one piece.

I've had proper foundations put in:



And a wall - I'm 6ft 5ins and I didn't want to bang my head:



I've had it installed in the sunniest part of the garden.  This part is truely south facing and gets light pretty much all the day.  It has an old concrete block wall behind it which gets really hot in the sun, so I'm hoping to use it as a sort of storage heater.  It's sheltered from the prevailing winds by both of my neighbours sheds

I got the roof and sides back on, but only had four clips left.  The greenhouse didn't have very well cut glass which means that the standad Z/w clips don't work, it needs a type which fit the frame and allow completely custom shapes of glass (so you can have quite an overlap - many of mine are 2-5" overlapped).  I use W clips to reinforce the glass against the old clips which are C123, C217 & C218s apparently!

Here it is at the moment:



Most the glass that was broken seems to be for the back of the greenhouse.  Now I've got additional clips I'm hoping I  can use standard glass from other greenhouses (my neighbour has a lot of spares)

2/3rds are patioed inside, I intend to put in racking inside and am considering building some irrigation inside.  If anyone has got suggestions on the best type for a small greenhouse like mine I'd like to hear it!

[JayG]

Nice job timn - you clearly have a steady hand and a lot of patience! 

[timn]

Nice job timn - you clearly have a steady hand and a lot of patience! 

Not really.  I used a hammer on the wall paper scraper in many places.  I found light persuading loosened the caulk up a bit.  It'd been dried since about 1980's so like lead!

was a bit naughty and posted a link to my blog because I've got other stuff on which is now in my sig - I'm not actually laying the foundations and bricks, I've got the next doors son to do it as after I built my earth oven I realised brick laying is an art and I've never been artistic

[Big Stev3]

Looks good!!
How did u make your base?

[timn]

a 6-8" deep reinforced cement base (not your average bits of rebar, think any old bits of metal)

Medium density concrete blocks.  Hard as nails.  Greenhouse screwed down into it and then the aluminium is 'buttered' onto the blocks to reduce drafts etc.

Clips delivered on Thurs ready for today!



Finished it today!  Neighbour donated 8 2'x2' panels and I had enough bits and bobs to finish the job!  Now just got to dispose of the old broken panes!



And built some staging - cost £45 including screws.  Took about 2hrs