Why not check out the Greenhouses forum here. That is their focus and the best source of the info you are seeking. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: Greenhouse forum

I wish I knew how to post a picture. My hoop style GH is 12 X 20, about eight feet high on the inside, with wood ends and full size doors at both ends. I have plenty of room inside, my hubby made a potting bench with storage beneath at one end, and a row of slatted tables at about 4 feet high along the east wall. So I have plenty of gardening space on the floor and on the tables. Eventually I want to run a hanger for hanging baskets on the side with the slatted tables. This GH is solid, and the shade cloth was very easy to toss over, we have it held in place by tying a small rock inside the cloth at each corner with a rope and then weighting it with a gallon jug filled with water. Including the kit for the structure with the plastic shade cloth, ground cloth and additonal supplies for the base, OSB wood ends and doors we spent less then $700 dollars. In our climate (Southwest Washington), the guy we bought our kit from says his plastic is 14 years old and he has not had to replace it. We were in his greenhouse, it is 20 X 100 and he had a great variety of plants growing in early March (a rose in bloom even - sigh) . And in spite of the record breaking wind storms that blew through our area this winter - he had no damage to his. That was enough to convince us - our goal is really to extend the growing season and be able to overwinter semi hardy plants. Not raise tropicals/orchids or so forth. But we are learning as we go - so far so good - but I am really enjoying the conversation on this forum-thanks to all of you who are willing to share your hard earned knowledge.

Refreshg, you brought this thread back to life and there are many aspects to consider: film type, film installation, inflation setup, etc. You will likely find many recommendations on each subject. I'll only give you my choices and you can get other feedback from others. I went with 2 different layers, the inner layer an anti-drip, light dispersing film. It doesn't cost much more than the regular outer layer. When installing I find that you are better to not stretch the film as tightly to allow for inflation. Inflation will "Balloon" the outer layer and snow slideoff is better than with an unflated structure- thus you want to run inflation fan year round. To install the inflation fan I only use 1' square plywood sheets (4" hole cut in center) and carriage bolts. After installing the inner film layer you just sandwich it between plywood sheets and tighten nuts (facing inward) on bolts before installing outer layer. Any small stove blower fan will work and the filling is best if not tight- you don't want to over-inflate. Some growers have "jumper" ducts to also inflate rollup sides. I don't go that far and I'm testing wether to even have 2 film layers on the rollup sides. You can always either cut off the second layer or install a replacement side curtain only with a second wiggle wire overtop of the first. I'm sure you wanted detail and I didn't provide much but you don't need to be exact in any of this. Just when you think you are an expert someone will come up with a better way or more advanced product line.

Your $10,000 budget is the same as my own was, and presumably includes fitting it out? I'm asking, because if you want to use it year round, you will need to allocate at least a third if not more of your budget just for your foundation, utility lines, heater, fans, electrical wiring, outlets, fixtures, benches, etc. It really depends on what you want to do with it. I wanted to use mine primarially to house tropical fish year round in the blistering summers to sub-zero winters of the Midwest, so opted for higher quality and virtually climate controlled, but smaller than I really would have liked. My 12 X 16 Cross County GH cost about $6,000 delivered and I spent another $4,000 fitting it out. However, that included a heavily insulated, footed foundation, floor drains, a sump, finished quarry tile floor, dual combustion direct vent heater, thermostatically controlled exhaust fan/powered intake vents, ceiling fans, hot water heater for a large commercial SS sink, lots of electrical outlets, multiple water faucets, etc. If it had a bathroom, I could just about live in it. But that was to accomodate MY desires/needs for what I wanted to use my GH for. We each have our own. So the best advice I can give would be for you to decide what YOU want to use a GH for, and go from there, because $10,000 would buy a huge commercial clear vinyl covered hoop house you could drive an 18 wheeler through. But it would be striclty seasonal use with no foundation to speak of and at best, a water faucet. But first and foremost, look to your foundation and UG utility lines because you can always add extra accessories to your GH later, but once the structure is up, retrofitting the foundation or UG utilities would be virtually impossible without literally taking it down and starting over. BTW: The above costs were all DIY labor. If we had needed to contract it out, the costs would have been at least triple.