[infowarrior]

   Anyone got any suggestions for what can be used for sides of polytunnels??  Not taking my polythene right to the bottom and wanted originally to just use scaffy boards for the sides but now want to maybe use something that light can penetrate like some sections of polycarbonate but that's a bit pricey. Any ideas appreciated.

                           Cheers. 

[Trillium]

Polythene would still be your easiest and cheapest route. If you could get hold of old windows you could rig up something, provided future broken glass won't cause its own problems for you.

[arugula]

Your question bothered me when I read it, not so much because of the difficulty in choosing a material, we have doors at either end made of windbreak fabric for instance, but for the feasibiltity of making a construction with a plastic sheet roof and different sides which won't either rip or turn into a sail when the wind comes, as I feel it is quite likely to in Northumberland . However, I found THIS short clip which shows such a construction method quite clearly. It looks as though he has used windbreak fabric or similar too.

[infowarrior]

   Cheers, I've seen that clip before but my plan is to have the doors at each end made of the netting for ventilation but want something quite tough and rigid for the walls as they'll be ripped & holy in no time on my plot.

[arugula]

We have doors either end made of windbreak fabric which have to get sheeted over in the winter or it gets like outside in there. You haven't said why you're not taking the poly sheet down to the ground - I still feel this would make the strongest construction. I assumed it was for ventilation, but of course it might be that you've only got a poly sheet of a certain size.   If the latter is the case, this is how the size of our polytunnel was determined, by being given an offcut sheet of poly after which calculations were done to work out the sizes and other materials needed.



http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=46130.msg543885#msg543885

contains a couple of pics taken not long after it was built.




Edit to add link to photos.

[infowarrior]

   I've went back to my original plan of using scaffy boards, (2 high, to be one side of raised bed) for the sides then netting for ventilation then the cover attached to that.  Wondering if the treatment used on the boards can possibly leech into the soil as I want to try to keep things as organic as poss? I know the tar etc in sleepers do.  Also does anyone know the standard lengths they come in??

                Cheers.

                    Infowarrior.