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Greenhouses & Garden Structures

PVC greenhouse weatherstripping

steve_in_los_osos

14 years ago

I have finally completed my little PVC house and am now stumped by the problem of weatherstripping the door and two window vents. Since I used snap clamps to hold on the poly film, all the sides of the door and windows are irregular surfaces and the gap between them and the frame of the greenhouse (where there are more snap clamps in other positions....) varies a lot.

Has anyone else successfully addressed this problem?

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Comments (4)

mojavebob
14 years ago
I'm using 3/8" poly foam caulk saver for the same application. Run a bead of exterior adhesive caulk along the immovable pipe, "stuff" the round foam strip into the space, and you have a flexible seal that should form fill varying gaps. It won't last indefinitely, but it should hold for a season or two and be easy to peel off later. 30' of 3/8s was $2. Also on my door it causes enough pressure (being squeezed) to make the door self closing, which I think is a good thing, but could also cause the seal to wear out a little sooner. Anyway, I hope this is helpful. I've used this stuff for a dozen purposes over the years.
steve_in_los_osos
Original Author
14 years ago
Based on what I can see in the photo for the link this looks like the "caulk backing" material (long foam rope stuff) that I used to shove in between the bottom of the greenhouse and the foundation base.

So it sticks to caulk and the caulk actually sticks to the poly film and PVC? Huh. I would not have thought so. This may be the ticket, although I will need some smaller material for the window gaps which are not nearly as large as the door gaps.

Thanks!
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If you are going to use four 10ft lengths, one on each side and two for the top, your total distance ground to ground would be 40ft. From that you can figure the poly width which depends on base board and attachment system. That's a big greenhouse for PVC! Are you sure it will stand up the the wind and snow? I'd say not in CO unless you have an incredibly sheltered location.
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My experience is that PVC fittings break. PVC pipe bends in ways you don't want it to bend. If you're determined to use PVC anyway, study how metal pipe frame greenhouses are built and try to do something similar on a smaller scale. Make bracing connections to more PVC (or wood) using metal plumbers' strap and nuts and bolts. This will allow more flexibility in the joints. I've got plenty of broken pipe and twisted carriage bolts to show what a direct bolt hole through the pipe will do. If you have to put a bolt through, glue in wooden plug reinforcements to drill through. If you're going to sleeve PVC over rebar, sleeve a smaller bit of PVC (longer than the rebar stub) inside first to reinforce and spread the load at the pressure point. If you want advice on your build, post pictures of what you have in mind. It's hard to envision exactly what your structure will look like from just "a PVC greenhouse". Tell us about size and height. Tell us about shape (gothic arch, gable, round arch, low arch on kneewalls like Jay Slick's, etc). Tell us about frame spacing and what you'll have for purlins. I personally like wooden strapping and wood block gothic arch frames. They're easy to build, cheap, shaped to shed snow and wind, and they're very strong. You can fasten to it easily. In my limited experience, PVC is only suitable for very small houses, or for houses that will be disassembled and moved periodically on the shoulder seasons and left uncovered (no snow/wind loads) in the winter. Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening The Hard Way
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Best way to post pictures and to have a place to just keep pictures, is at www.photobucket.com When you get there, you'll see that it's very easy to make albums and upload your pix. Once uploaded, you see 3 fields below each picture. You cut do a copy of the middle one ("Tag") and simply paste it here. That's it. For example, our greenhouse last winter's tag is: (note, I've just added spaces to that it won't actually display the pic) When the above, is pasted here (without the spaces of course) you get this: IMPORTANT TO NOTE: If you change anything about the photo's location, it will no longer display here.
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mojavebob
14 years ago
Steve, that's it, a foam roap. It comes in several thicknesses as you probably know. I trimmed the plastic so I only ran the caulk on PVC. One of the Dap "adhesive silicone" caulks lists PVC in the fine print as one of the materials for the product. I used clear because my PVC is gray and the white may have looked sloppy, because, well, I can be slopping with a caulking gun.
steve_in_los_osos
Original Author
14 years ago
Right...so I looked at the situation again with this in mind but I see a problem. BOTH the door (or window) and the frame it abutts are wrapped and have snap clamps (and not all in the same places). So attaching the "rope" with caulk to the frame solves the gaps there, but I don't think there will be sufficent flexibility to close the gaps between the door and "rope" when the door is closed. The stuff doesn't seem that squishy.

Or is it?

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