Hi Nancy! Although I grew up in Sonoma Co, I haven't lived there since '95. The last place was out off of Bodega Hwy, west of Sebastopol. I still have relatives in the area and my brother lives in Penngrove. I still live by vinyards as well. There is one across the street and several down the road. Sonoma Co has been sort of home base since '68. Whenever we moved , we always still had a house there. We sold completely out of the area in '95. I've been up here for about five yrs and we sold out of Ca completely last March. I still love that area, even though most of what I knew and loved is gone. Even the parts of the Palm Springs area that I loved are gone! Congrats on the length of your marrage by the way! My parents have been married for 41yrs. You don't see a lot of long marrages anymore! I don't know how much you've been following or how long. Other than being far too busy, my largest issue has been trying to cover ALL of my bases in chosing a greenhouse. I'm actually glad that I delayed one more year. It's so easy to forget, during summer, exactly how much water and snow that I get. Many close potential building sites are either far too wet or stay far too cold/frozen all winter. All of the best places are taken, by the house, barns, etc. Something's gotta give up some room!! I don't know if you read some of my earier musings. It gives some ideas that I'm wanting, worrying and fussing over! I really want the effort to go into the planning and construction, not continual repairs and climate maintenance! I want some size for the climate stability.(I'm also greedy and want the space!) Scott Here is a link that might be useful: Sustainable Solar Greenhouses

MissAgnes, I doubt that you will be able to locate specific statistics for snow or wind load for the HFGH (and I am very doubtful that Harbor Freight has this info, or will attempt to estimate it for you.) To be honest, their focus is not on long-term durability; it's on selling as many inexpensive kits as they can. The rest is up to us, as HFGH owners. I honestly have no idea how this might be calculated for the modified greenhouse; I can tell you that we estimate our modified greenhouse has handled wind gusts over 50mph on numerous occasions, and possibly a few 60mph gusts in the last six years, with no damage. However, our greenhouse is sheltered on the north side by our house, and we don't have any monitoring equipment, so this certainly isn't any kind of scientific evaluation. My guess is the wind resistance of the Harbor Freight greenhouse, built out of the kit, with no modifications, is ridiculously low (laughable.) In my opinion, it's almost certain to fail; it's just a matter of how much time before the event happens. There are many old posts here with sad tales of those who have watched their (unmodified) structure being permanently destroyed by wind. Also, many sad reviews on the Harbor Freight website, from folks who didn't know how critical the modifications were. Same story with snow load; I have no idea who would have exact figures, but I can tell you there are posts archived here of roof failures from snow. The weakest portion seems to be the center of the roof studs, so that's the area most folks focus on, when trying to build for snow load. I have gathered some links to older threads here regarding snow modifications, and they are posted in the Comments section of Part One of my blog (scroll down about 2/3 of the way through the comments at the page below, and look for the question posted by snwplwdrvr.) Part One, Building our 10x12 Harbor Freight Greenhouse Hope this helps!

I still dont understand. It took us forever to get ours up. I really have to give gardenerwantabe lots of credit. It was you who put the first one up was it not? I bought mine right after you got yours and it has taken my son this long to get it up and finished. Course it sat in the package for a long time before he had time to start and then it took a long time to get done as he only could work on it once in a while. We dont have the vents all done either. They r in but that is about it. It could have been done in half the time if the directions had been written right in the first place. We had to redo so many things but did not end up drilling many holes. Just a few. My son is trying to figure out how to put on the attatchments and also how to make it so I can open them standing on the ground. Any ideas? I guess we r not to smart cause it has us stumped.

Hello treed1304, I wanted to let your post sit for a few days, in case others might pop up here with a solution to the vent window problem. I had the same problem with the vent windows on my HFGH. Even in the most "closed" position, the windows could be lifted open just a bit. I was not able to find a good solution, and the orientation of my GH is so that the prevailing winds loved to pick up the vents that small fraction of an inch, then let them bang down again. Bang bang bang. Too often. I was worried that this would lead to a problem at 3AM when I was not there. Failing a brilliant fix, I finally gave up and wired the latches shut with baling wire. A few years ago, when we replaced our roof panels, I removed the vent windows entirely. I was only able to do this because I replace my south wall with screens all summer, and I use an exhaust fan to pull air through the open doors during daylight hours (through a curtain made of Aluminet.) Otherwise, I would not have been able to give up the venting. I think this annoying problem is present with most of the HFGH kits. Maybe, it's worse for some of us, depending on wind direction. So far, nobody had posted to my blog or here with a good fix. It's possible that equipping the windows with hydraulic automatic openers will resolve this problem. I never tried this, but I've read here that the automatic openers sold by Harbor Freight don't work well (or, for most, don't last long.) I'd try some of the other brand auto openers instead...by Bayliss, for example...after doing more research. Maybe...some brilliant person will show up here with a better solution (hope springs eternal...) Looking forward to seeing pics of your project!