FarmTek Greenhouses

[highlands]

Anyone here have a large FarmTek (or other company brand) 'greenhouse' for livestock?

These are the large unattached ones. I'm looking at the 36' to 50' wide by 100' long.

We have done a number of smaller ones out of cattle panel over the years and are considering setting up a larger greenhouse on 4' high sidewalls for our pigs to have more shelter space in the winter. Like with the ones we've done in the past we would leave the south east end, the lee side, open for ventilation and have cross ventilation control.

The hope is to temper our climate a little. The pigs would still go outside like they do now with the open sheds we have but this would provide more protection and headroom and reduce hay consumption while improving growth rate.

We're considering the translucent 90% and the 'clear' 55% transmission coverings. Ideally in the summer we would be able to use it for a greenhouse (we have short cool summers).

Wind and snow loading are a big concern. I would setup an internal support - we don't need clear span ability.

I would be interested in hearing people's experiences with these kits.

[Johnny Dolittle]

I bought this collapsed 34 x 96 Farm Teck from some unfortunate homesteaders who live about 30 miles North of me (and a bit more in the snow belt). Unit collapsed before 2 years old and I bought it for the tubing. I bought several used houses and needed tubing for roll up sides and to replace ground stakes.

I have a good bit of knowledge having bought new and used frames and at one time considered manufacturing them.

The collapse had several causes.... which I will discuss later

For now .....sit back and enjoy the show............

[Johnny Dolittle]

Me assessing the damage

[Johnny Dolittle]

See any problems ....

notice the weak points in the structure

[Johnny Dolittle]

........ don't know why 2nd and third post did not stack the pics?

[highlands]

Scary looking. I've seen a lot like that which is why I'm intending to put in a center support like pictured below. Thoughts?

[Johnny Dolittle]

.... I will be taking some additional pictures of the tubing tomorrow.

Highlands I think there are strong enough structures available.

The supports you suggest will cost you some $$$.

Does it make sense to buy a cheaper structure and then buy additional materials to support it.... A well built structure with rated wind and snow load for your area might not be more expensive than what you propose.

[Allen W]

Dad put poles and bracing in an old wood and tin quonset barn and it has worked well, last one standing of that design I know of. But you are more limited then you would think working inside of it. We use it mainly for hay storage.

[highlands]

Johnny, My concern is we get high wind and snow loads. When I talk to the various greenhouse companies the sales guys assure me that the snow and wind loads will be okay but when I read the warranties and talk with them about that they start hedging and talking about keeping the snow cleared off - impossible. There is no way I can take the snow off the top. Not with it being that high up and sometimes we get several feet of snow very fast followed by ice. I've seen many collapsed structures so I am not incline to believe them.

The warrantee will do me little good since all it does is the cost of the structure. The structure itself is cheap. It is what is inside that is of value. I'll have hundreds of thousands of dollars of inventory inside (livestock) where they sleep at night, where the sows farrow in our winter and can't afford to lose them.

The cost of the extra interior structure to strengthen even a strong structure is trivial compared with the cost of the greenhouse, labor to set it up and more importantly the value of the animals. I have materials on hand and the construction skills.

I guess it comes down to "I don't trust clear spanning greenhouses because I've seen too many crushed." They're all over the place in tangled messes.

Allen, in our case we have a use for dividing it into the three sections so this works to have the supports there. The section divisions would be there no matter if the supports were there or not. This will create small interior paddocks of about 20'x~14' which we can dozer bedding (wood chips) in or out and it breaks the sleeping areas up. The animals go outside to food which is a hike on purpose (exercise + distributes manure and reduces impact). Thus we're only doing tractor work in there during setup and clean-out and it is linear.


Thanks guys for helping me think this through more.

Cheers,

-Walter

[Allen W]

Look at hoop barns and buildings most come with a translucent cover option.

[highlands]

That is what I'm thinking. I would like to get as much sunlight inside as possible.

FarmTek has:

1) Dark Covers which I definitely don't want - 15 year life.

2) 'Clear Cover' 55% transmission cover that I'm considering - 15 year life

3) SunMaster film 92% transmission that I'm considering - 4 year life

4) Polycarbonate wavy 88%? transmission - 10 year guarantee - longer life probably

5) Twinwall 88%? transmission - 10 year guarantee - longer life probably

I would love #5 but the cost is high. I would feel best about this from a strength point of view. I have heard stories of #4 and #5 having hail damage (rare) but we don't get much hail. Snow and ice plus wind is our issue. My father has a small greenhouse with #5 Twinwall that has been up for decades - totally different wood frame construction and small just for starting plants.

Ideally I would like as much light as possible because that helps in the winter, helps dry bedding and would make the greenhouse useable in our cool spring-summer-fall for plants.

I would be very interested in people's experiences with the various covers. Picking a cover determines structure, of course, since that sets the needs for support.

[TnAndy]

FarmTek is overpriced, IMHO, on their stuff. Since you plan to brace anyway ( a good idea ), I'd probably buy a tubing bender from Johnny's Seeds, and use chain link fence rails for my tubes.

Tarheel (member here) turned me on a place that sells the 4 year Sunmaster plastic a WHOLE lot cheaper than FarmTek, along with other green house stuff:

http://www.noltsproducesupplies.net/

Website isn't near as pretty as FarmTek, nor do they send you a dozen catalogs/year, but their prices are great.

[fishhead]

I watched a video of a guy who built a homemade tubing bender using just a couple of pieces of stacked tubing bolted to a table. The tubing to be bent would sit between the pieces of the tubing bender. Very simple and effective.

That would give you the flexibility to make an A framed building so it should shed snow better. Then maybe a guy could first put down some reinforcement mesh or netting and the plastic on top.

[highlands]

I've wondered about doing the bending.

Thanks for the link on the SunMaster.

[Johnny Dolittle]

Here is the original inventor of the cheap diy or buy it bender. I had inquired with this man back in the 90's when I was thinking about building greenhouses.

http://www.lostcreek.net/

The problem is greenhouse manufactures buy tubing in large quantities at prices the ordinary person will never see.

Also there is a lot of low grade tubing out there .... I would only use Allied Steel.... and you can get it with a special corrosion resistant coating called "Gator Shield"

Unless you can get cheap tubing I am doubting you can save much by diy method

[DeRock]

I'll second Nolt's for plastic prices. They have two stores/warehouses - PA and IA.

And I'll second Lost Creek for the tubing bender. I've had mine 3 years and built 3 hoop houses with it (12 ft wide). I believe they are the supplier for Johnny's.

I had an educational experience with my last hoophouse. I bought all my chain link fence top rail at Menards (a regional big box). Got home and bent the first two pieces. Assembled them to check the dimensions and found they had not bent nearly far enough. To much spring back. Way to much.

I called Lost Creek and got the story that in the last few years steel manufacturers in Vietnam and China have increasingly been making the steel with whatever steel and alloy they have on hand. Sometimes it is the right hardness and sometimes not. Turns out my batch of top rail was extremely hard and, while I could bend it, the resulting spring back was too much.

I returned the material and went to Home Depot. Checked their stock and it was noticeably lighter and bent perfectly. While the extra hardness might be appreciated in chain link fence applications it is not desirable when bending hoops.

[Johnny Dolittle]

Yep... the Chinese buy our scrap metals and manufacture into whatever and sell it back to us. I know a man who bought a discount frame for a roadside market. Frame was 24 x 48. It was set up near a highway. This man was not farming.... just selling. The business failed and was for sale for several years and snow accumulated and bent some of the hoops... so the owner rebuilt it with what parts were undamaged.... shortening it to maybe 28 feet and he left it uncovered. Then it sat there a few more years and being near a highway the salt for winter road maintenance got on the frame and it began to rust.

[highlands]

Has anyone used the grey PVC? It comes in 20' lengths.

Cold weather durability?

Longevity?

[Johnny Dolittle]

Originally Posted by highlands

Has anyone used the grey PVC? It comes in 20' lengths.

Cold weather durability?

Longevity?

Good question!.... I have a neighbor who has several acres of greenhouses. He started out with diy 16 foot wide pvc quonset houses and then when the business grew went to factory made larger steel hoop houses. One day he told me that the 4 year poly he bought lasted about twice as long on the steel frame houses compared to the pvc hooped houses.

I did some investigating and turns out that pvc slowly emits gasses.... which is called off-gassing.... it is the odor you smell when around pvc
What happens is when the 4 year poly covering comes in contact with the pvc hoop the gas evaporating from the pvc chemically reacts with the poly causing degradation and makes it more prone to rip especially on large houses which catch more wind.

If you already have a poly frame house you can minimize off-gassing by painting the hoops with several coats of latex paint

[highlands]

Very interesting on the poly lasting on steel vs pvc.

Just found this interesting document:

http://www.uvm.edu/~susagctr/Documen...gStructure.pdf