hi, its been a long time, but i would love to see the pictures from your build! my HFGH just arrived today and I'm so excited to put it together without crying! Your profile on photobucket is set to private, would you mind sending me a link? thanks!

Hi Willa, nice of you to think of other HFGH owners. There have been a few posts here in the past with folks looking for replacement parts (one for roof studs, and one for door parts...I believe.) I think it would be really helpful if you could post back here with a list of the specific parts you have available, when you know, and then maybe you'll get a better indication of interest. I also hope you'll post about your HFGH "recreation", sounds very interesting!

Update on January 1 (Happy New Year folks!) in response to a question by Baileybear in another thread... I wanted to add a photo of how we added a drape of Aluminet shade cloth to the interior roof. I think the Aluminet is probably more effective on the outside of the greenhouse, but I knew the wind would be a constant battle here, so we're trying it inside first. First we attached a 10' steel tube to the inside of the roof peak. (We had a piece of stainless tubing sitting around, but EMT would work fine.) My husband formed three hook shapes by doubling a length of plumbers strap (that flat metal strapping with holes) and bending it into a hook shape. Then he removed the nut from one of the bolts at the peak, slipped the hook in place, and replaced the nut. You can see the hook in the center of this photo, holding the bare rod. I laid the Aluminet cloth out flat in the yard, then folded it in half, and slid the rod into the fold. I secured the Aluminet to the central rod with wire twisty ties about every foot. (Classy, huh.) Then we carried the whole thing into the GH and hung it on the three roof hooks. (You have to make little holes in the Aluminet to poke the hooks through.) After securing the sides, it looks like this: On each side, we wrapped the Aluminet around another 10' piece of EMT tubing. If I decide to keep this set up, I'll put a hem in the shadecloth to slip the tubes in. Since this was a "temporary" experiment, we just rolled the edge of the Aluminet around the rod until it was taut, and secured it with more twisty ties and baling wire. The rod was then anchored to the top of the greenhouse wall with baling wire, looped around the bolts on our three central EMT ceiling braces, because they were handy. (The EMT ceiling braces are the three horizontals you see in the lower part of the above photo.) I just cut a small slit in the Aluminet so I could stick my hand through to operate the roof vents. The Aluminet does not unravel when you do this (it's cool stuff.) So far I like it. If I want less shade, I can unfasten the rod on the south side and slide it all the way across the greenhouse to the north side, riding along the tops of our three central EMT braces. That way the south side of the roof is fully exposed to sun, and the north side of the roof has two thicknesses of shadecloth in place. Although, I haven't done it very often...I'm learning that sunny days even in December can heat up the GH so fast that I just leave the roof shadecloth in place...but that may be a quirk of our desert climate, and I'm still experimenting. One more update...because of the cold nights, I have all of my poly panels back in place on the south side. But, I figured out I can put the screens back in place OVER the poly panels by holding them in with clips installed backwards. Looks silly, but it provides just enough snugness to keep my screens in place. I've also made a triangular piece of Aluminet to go over the inside west gable, over my doors. I just cut it to size, hemmed it by hand, and it's attached with velcro to the aluminum frame. Our west sun is brutal even in late afternoon, especially in summer. I can take a photo if it would help anyone. If any of this is unclear, let me know. That's where I am so far in my learning curve! Sheri

I built this greehouse specificially for starting bedding plants. I don't start heating it until the first week in Feb. At the time I didn't think a ground heat sink would have that much effect so I didn't do it. If I had it to do over again I would put the lip of the 2x4 base to the inside and put some foam board into a trench and up to the redwood around the base on the outside. The insulation on the north side just goes to the bottom of the redwood. The trays didn't melt uniformly along the whole shelf. It was just the 2 trays or so in the corners on the top shelf where the light would get concentrated. None of the seeds in those trays germinated however. Low angle sun reflecting from the top combined with the corner reflection against the dark plastic of the trays made for some real hot spots. I you look at my weather station at http://wx.uvci.com I have a temp sensor in a tray of soil on the soil heating germination mat. When the soil is dry and a bright sunny day the temp will get up to 130 easily. Another change I would make is to have the potting bench in the end just sit on supports rather than build it in. That way it could be easily taken out when not in use. It would make getting to the last two feed of shelf much easier. It also gets a lot of water on it when watering which has caused the composit material it is made from to expand. I will probably replace it next year and when I do It will not be built in permanently like it is now.