Hi y'all. I've been gleaning the pearls of wisdom from past posts for a week and now just have to have input from those who know about my planned build. I live in south central Kentucky (think an hour north of Nashville, TN). The goal is to get me someplace to get some sunshine in the depths of our winters without having to be bundled in eight layers of clothes.(My daughter says it is a sun lizard house lol). As I get better at heat regulation I would love to grow tomatoes over winter and keep gardenias thriving.

My plans are for a 8 x 16 frame building, glazed with either tempered storm door glass (my wonderful husband has a line on this) or reclaimed windows. I plan an offset roof line the width of a sliding shower door, using two of these as vents/solar entry on the south side, the north side sloping away. The unit will be orientated e-w, long side facing south which has full exposure. Current plans call for solid roof (other than the shower doors) and a solid north wall. As of now, there are no plans to run electricity or water to it. Maybe eventually the power will come, but we'll see, and water is close by, plus I plan a rain capture system.

The windows are planned to be removable all around, replaced with shade screens for the summer, leaving me with one roof and one wall for hot weather use.

For heat I plan a small woodstove in the northeast corner, with 4 foot block wall extending from the corner on each side, eventually I will face this with flat creek stones. Also eventually I plan to either put a water jacket around the smokestack or copper tubing. This is to run PEX tubing into the floor for radiant heat. I've also thought about running that line eventually to go under all of my bench beds.

Oh, the floor. The site has a good slope, which I figure on leaving, covering it with creek gravel and stepping stones (eventually evenly covered with the stone), with cap-able drains in the concrete part of the foundation. I wouldn't want to come in to a lake some morning. I thought about a dry well on the west end (the direction of the slope) but figure why not just let it run on down the hill if a disaster occurs. Under the stove I plan a poured concrete slab with a really huge piece of slate on top of that.

I'm going to use stacked 5 gallon buckets filled with water(I have access to an endless supply of these) under my plant beds to collect heat. I've been reading avidly the discussion on wether this is really of any use in moderating temps, but figure it is free and worth a try. In my dreams I see a major thermosiphon system lol.

I would really appreciate any input on these plans, this is my first greenhouse design attempt and I am not sure I could talk the hubby into scrapping one that was unworkable to build another, dear that he is.

Min