No negative from me. I've had a winter hoop house for two winters with no squirrel damage. And we have squirrels. Lots and lots of very brazen, vocal squirrels. Little buggers decimate my strawberry patch every Spring which sits right next to the hoop house. This year I'm making some protective structures to fit over my new strawberry beds so I'll have their number. However, it's also possible that what you put in the hoop house might possibly have an effect on how determined they are to get inside. Mostly I have bell peppers in there which they probably aren't keen on.

Hi, everyone, I live down near NSW & VIC border, where temps drop down to -5c (23) or more. I have a green house covered by shade cloth, then a huge tarp which rolls up like a roller blind of daytime to allow sun into broms, all are doing pretty good but after a week of below -5 and very heavy frosts, there are a few starting to show some frost burn on a leaf or two, I'm sure this damage happened before i put up a plastic tarp to protect them from early morning sun. The spray Devo is talking about I think, is the use of water to ward off frost settling on plants, but you'd have to have spray going for quite a length of time as frost can stay around here, up until 10-11am. Here & i presume everywhere else, we always get sunny days after a frost, and as most plants only burn or get frost bite, when the early morning sun hits the frozen plants , i find blocking that sun stops the plants burning & gives them time to thaw out thus stopping them from getting frost burn. I also empty the water from all cups so as not to have frozen water in them. I haven't noticed any others burnt in any way since i have blocked the sun from them so seems as if its working so far, but only time and weather will tell how they go.

I have a 8X21 Rion.The pluses are 1)inexpensive 2)easy to maintain 3)Function as well as most greenhouses.Now for the minuses 1)must be protected from high winds and secured to the ground well 2)Doors and windows are usually made shotty at best in my experience 3)Replacement parts cost an arm and a leg.I recommend them for first timers unless you have money to burn.In that case,why not go all out and get what will serve you best?I really like Rions but they didn't think things all the way through and could easily improve to make this a great product but its not my company.Hope this helps some.

This may be one of those projects where you're the one in charge of building a few as an experiment and reporting back to the rest of the crowd.... Steve