Brendan Had damage from Wilma so last year I "loosened "it up rather than tightened.lol Took everything off the roof except 4 inch vinyl lattice. Going to use vines for shade come summer. The first time I used Zebra finches ,second time orange cheek waxbills.. These didn't work at all for several reasons besides being killed by rats lol The runaway best has been Honeycreepers. No mess of seed eaters and since I water every third day liquid droppings are no problem. They are voracious insect eaters main problem with keeping them in cages.. One small problem they ate EVERY insect so had to supply pinhead crickets. Again no problem as I keep Anoles ,geckoes and two skinks. They ate all the lady bugs as well as the mantis which is why if I try it again thought I'd go up to those tropical GIANTS lol. It's kind of fun to try to get it balanced out but I fear impossible in susch a small area. Warning for those thinking of using Anoles.lol Given good conditions your pair will turn into hundreds lol. Besides what happens when you run out of bugs?? They will starve. I let them come and go as they choose as they are quite common here in florida so if they run out of food they just go outside. Now that the roof is open again I'm attracting wild birds. Which solves some problems creates others. lol Of couse this means I can't keep domestic birds I'm going to try the honeycreepers again not so much for the bug eating but because two clutches would pay for the entire remake of the shadehouse And also they are my favorite bird. Nothing more beautiful than a male in full color. Wilma almost wiped out my bird collection and was thinking of giving them up. except in the dedicated aviary. There are soooooo many problems with keeping birds and I'm getting old lol I added some California and button quail to the aviary as a method of weed control. Too soon for results but they are delightful to watch and they do clean up the floor. Rats and snakes are just minor problems in aviculture unfortuneately . If your thinking of using finches for bug control I could make some suggestions or at leat tell you which ones to avoid lol gary

Where will your exhaust fan be located. It needs to be opposite of the intake vent or louvre. Some opinions say not to have the roof vents open with the exhaust fan running. But I do both without a problem. Maybe because my exhaust fans are large enough to handle all the openings. By the time you add shade cloth you should be fine without adding anymore vents. Later in the summer if it is still too hot you could open the door or replace the panel in the door with screen.

I don't think the "perfect" GH is out there unless one has $8,000 to $10,000 or more to spend. The Rion roof "design" is horrible. It will take some caulking to fill these gaps and make them airtight. What the heck was the engineer thinking when he/she designed it? How did it pass any kind of inspection and examination? Did anyone from the Company bother to look before it went into production? The other problem is the HAF fans for air circulation. The roof is so low there is nowhere to hang them above your head. If it weren't for the plant benches I'd be walking into them constantly. And we have to contact the place we bought it from because one of the auto-lifters is already failing. Once these problems are taken care of it should work out fine.

When I bought my Rion GH (6x8) there was a small bag with 5 clips that clipped into any of the grooves. I used these to hang my lights....., hanging plants and so on. They work really good, no holes to drill and you just snap the clip into the groove anywhere you need to attach something to the GH. You may me able to email Rion and see if they have these available for sale. I have been meaning to do so myself since I could use a few more. SD