HFGH Door Modification & Reinforcement

16 years ago

Hello Everyone,

Finally finished my door mod on the HFGH. As I posted earlier, my sliding doors were blown out along with a roof window during a storm. Nothing was really damaged but I wanted to make it better. My HFGH has the additional reinforcement outlined by gardnerwannabe in his excellent FAQ.

We installed a storm door from Lowes and fixed it to 4x4's sunk in concrete. It's not a simple project but if you've put together an HFGH, you can handle this no problem. Pic's of the project are at

http://picasaweb.google.com/troy.deierling/HFGHGreenhouseDoorModifications

The front of my greenhouse is not solid. I always felt that was the weakest point of the HFGH 10x12. The sliding doors are crap and the whole front was a bit wobbly even after adding the 3/4" EMT to the peak. I think this thing can take just about any wind now.

Still need to silicone in the bottom of the roof panels and trim out the sidelight panels next to the storm door. Also added an 18" wide x 10' long vinyl coated wire shelving to the top of the EMT cross bars.

Any questions, shoot me an email.

Troy
{{gwi:296458}}From HFGH Greenhou...

Here is a link that might be useful: HFGH Door Mod Pic's

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Comments (11)

yorkie89
16 years ago
Hi Troy,

I was just about to email you the other day to see how your door project was coming along. Looks great! I know it's a lot of work, well, I should say my husband knows it's a lot of work. :) It took him some time to get it tweaked just right. Well worth it though! I'm sure you'd agree. Having a door that actually stays shut is nice. I hated those doors on the tracks. We tried clamping them closed too, and that didn't work too well either. (Too much air came through the crack) What a pain....

Well, I told you in my last post that we plan to add a second HFGH onto our existing one. We are now planning on add 2 more to the existing. For a total of 3 HFGH's. It was really a last minute thought that my husband had while he was working on digging out some of the foundation for the second one. He said "Why don't we just get a third one since you know this won't be big enough? (Half way joking with me) It would save me from having to do this all over again." I told him I couldn't passed that up if he was offering. :) Now if it would just stop raining long enough so he could work on it while he's home! I will be sure and post pictures as we get further along with our project.

Again, Good job on the door. I'm sure it was a lot of work, but soooo worth it. Looks nice.

Have a good one!
Amber
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mudhouse_gw
16 years ago
That looks great Troy, and it sure does look STOUT. Nice of you to do such a good job of documenting all the steps and materials with nice clear photos, I'm sure that will really help folks wanting to tackle this.
Sheri
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Troy, we have a similar set up. I also have strong winds blowing on the doors. I have a fan on the back wall, and the fan louvers bang open on windy days with the GH doors open. We also only used one screw on our roof panels, in the center brace (and extra clips.) I agree, thank goodness for the EMT bracing recommended by Gardenerwantabe and others here. Im coming to two new conclusions. First, I think you're right about the unsecured bottom of the roof panels being a risk in some winds, based on your observations of the roof panel bottoms flapping up and down, and bwrights experience of losing screwed-down roof panels twice. (Thats the first post Ive seen about the loss of screwed-down panels.) I taped the bottom of our roof panels to the greenhouse frame, but only because we were one of the "lucky ones" whose roof panels were not quite long enough to project over the gutter as shown in the manual. Not everyone has this problem, but Laserfan used aluminum tape to bridge this gap on his HFGH, so I did too. I was not trying to prevent the wind from getting under the roof panel bottom, but thats probably been (accidentally) protecting our roof in high winds. This also fits with bwrights comments about using the Freezer King tape to similar advantage, to make sure all edges are sealed. Heres our roof panel at the bottom edge: Second, Im starting to see the roof vents as a fairly big risk for people in very windy areas. My kit may vary from others, but the poly panels in my roof vents were a bit too short to prevent movement in the vent frame. They fit tightly from side to side, but after each window was assembled, we could slide the poly panel up and down in the window frame, about 1/4". During one bad storm, I almost lost the poly panel from one of the roof vents. The wind had pushed the panel up in the frame so the bottom edge of the poly was exposed, and the wind got underneath and pried the panel part way out of the vent frame. I climbed up and taped it to get through the night. Next day, we removed all four window vents, and I caulked each poly panel in place on the outside of the window frame. The poly panels no longer wiggle in the vent frames. But, I still have the problem of bad winds lifting up the vent frames up (maybe ¾"?) even though the vent handle is locked in the last hole ("closed down") position. Wind picks up the vent frame, and when the gust stops, the vent doesn't always fall back in place correctly, so it's ready to be picked up by the next gust. If this happens over and over again in a storm, maybe its enough to shake the window stop out of the hole in the roof vent handle...? Once that happens, the whole vent frame could flip over backwards until it popped out of the roof peak channel (I watched that happen while building the GH, retrieving one vent window from our house roof.) If a roof vent fails, wind likely rushes in and puts pressure on the weakest points from inside the GH. If all the panel screws hold, the doors become the next weakest point, so they blow outward. Thats one theory, anyway, and right now Im thinking the safest thing is to leave my vents wired down permanently, since I cant figure out how to prevent the frames from lifting up that 3/4" inch (or so) in a high wind. Wish I had a better solution, but so far Im stumped. I'll add some of this info to my HFGH blog in case it helps others. Thanks for all the good posts here! Good luck with the door rebuilding Troy, looking forward to your pictures. Sheri
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Perhaps if you had squared the frame to start with the doors would have worked. I read all this drama over the doors mine is in it's 4th season and the doors work fine. In the spring I can crack the doors and let in some cool air and they will stay in place can't do that with a swinging door a gust of wind would whip it around into the GH and tear something up. I mention to my wife that many people was installing swinging doors and she said I don't want them the ones we have work fine so if the little woman can slide them and no reason she can't they slide real easy. In my opinion the sliding doors are MUCH better than a swinging door that must remain latched or it will be tore off by the wind.
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I added an exhaust fan tonight and bolted it in the peak on the rear wall. It did add some stability but I wouldn't want to depend on that alone. I'd stick with spending the $8 on materials to do the reinforcements on the rear wall. After spending the effort and time on building this, I'll reinforce the heck out of it. The weakest links in the kit are the doors, windows and rear wall. I'm pretty confident the rear wall will hold up to high winds. The windows will get wired down in high winds. The doors I'm still pondering.
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Sorry I didn't see your post, feisty! My internet connection at home is down, so I'm offline on the weekends. We finished the greenhouse this weekend and didn't have any problems from clipping 24/25 that I could tell. We did have a very annoying issue with one of the door frame pieces--I had to grind down the top end of one piece so that it would slide onto the track--it was about 1/16 inch too tall just behind the wheel, if that makes any sense, and it acted like a stop that prevented the door from going all the way onto the track. The only other issue we ran into was that my #60 pieces of polycarbonate were just a smidge too short, and wouldn't fit both under the crown and over the gutter, so I ended up shorting the tops just a little so it will hang over the gutter and using foil tape to cover the gap at the top. Anyone else have this problem? Still need to install my automatic vent openers and set up my benches, and DH needs to hook up the wiring (conduit is already run from the house), but it's usable now. We had a big rain this morning, but I didn't have a chance to check the GH and see how it fared before I left for work this morning. I did notice the floor was wet, but I had left the roof windows open. Leigh
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troykd
Original Author
16 years ago
Yorkie are you going to attach the HFGH's end to end or have them stand alone?

I agree those sliding doors are a weak point, even when I had them clamped they still were blown out. They aren't going anywhere now though :-)
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yorkie89
16 years ago
Hi Troy,

The greenhouses will be end to end, becoming all one long greenhouse, 10' X 36'. We had already bought the second one last October, but hadn't started to assemble it due to the cold winter months. We just went and bought the third one about two weeks ago. So far the only thing my husband has been able to work on is the foundation. Will keep you posted on the progress. It may take a while to build with this on and off rainy weather we've been having lately.

Amber
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funnylady
16 years ago
Amber
I have 2- 10X12 HFGH together and love it. Want to do a 3rd on but would have to take out a tree, so I guess that will never happen. But with the 2 together there is so much more area that it's like heaven. I have doors at both ends so I don't have to walk around in circles to get to my other 2 GH's. I started 40 trays of plants this spring and am have a sale this weekend. DH says that I live out in the GH's, well I almost do. It's different world out there, the time goes so fast.
If you have any ? about joining the GH's ask. It wasn't that hard. This crazy woman did it alone. DH finaly got in on it when I was almost done. And he did put the electrical in when I said I would do it myself.
There are some photos on there that mudhouse posted for me. I had trouble trying to post them.

Carol
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rosepedal
16 years ago
Troy
Your door turned out nice. I bet you are lovin it. Amber three gh's you are spoiled rotten LOL. We will be on your shirt tails adding only one more and a door. I need more room Carol also with a plant sale in May. Carol I have to cut down a beutiful huge maple tree. It makes me sad to think about it. It is one of the prettiest trees on our land. I still have another 100 or so trees to look at though on the positive. My datura that I started from seed started bloomimg this weekend. What a rush... Just wanted to share.... Barb
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banana_fun
16 years ago
What is the rough opening of the HF doors (LxH)? I can get my hands on some free patio doors if the size right. My HF is not assembled yet.
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yorkie89
16 years ago
Hi Carol,

I bet you are loving having the 2 HFGH joined together. The one I have quickly filled up with my tropical plants in no time. I actually have had to overwinter plants at my mom's house because I ran out of room! LOL She's ready for me to get the greenhouse done. :) My husband plans on doing some work on it this evening since it's not raining right now. I think he has it in his mind how he's wanting to join them together, something like you did I believe. I won't be having doors at both ends since we are putting the gas heater and exhaust fan on one end. That was the reason that my DH allowed me a third GH now, so he wouldn't have to move the heater & fan later on down the road when I say that 2 aren't enough. :0) He's knows me well! I'll be sure and ask any ? if we get stumped on joining the three. Thanks for offering.

Hi Barb,

You will love having a single door on the harbor freight. What a pain those sliding doors were! If they weren't coming off of the track when I was trying to open them, then the wind was blowing them open. And where the doors met there was always a small gap between them. I love my greenhouse now, but it will be even better when it's bigger. Too bad you will have to cut down your maple tree. But in the long run you aren't going to miss it that much. ;)

Amber
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mudhouse_gw
16 years ago
Here's a link to Carol's thread about joining her two greenhouses together:
Joining Two HFGH 10x12s Together
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troykd
Original Author
16 years ago
The opening where the HFGH doors were is 68"wide by 751/2" high. Kind of an oddball size.
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banana_fun
16 years ago
Thank you troy, I will measure the doors today. Hopefully they will work.
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HFGH Door Modification & Reinforcement

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HFGH Door Modification & Reinforcement

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