Construction of a wooden greenhouse: selection of materials and foundation types

Let's consider a greenhouse option made of wood. Wood is the best, most profitable, and most accessible material. Of course, it is also the most susceptible to environmental influences. Therefore, when building a greenhouse, it is necessary to take this factor into account and choose the material for your structure from hardwoods, if possible, as well as treat all elements and parts of the hotbed with various preservative agents.

Which tree species are classified as hardwoods and which as softwoods? Hardwoods include most deciduous trees, and among conifers, larch and bald cypress. Softwoods include pine, spruce, alder, linden, and aspen.

If your greenhouse is temporary, you can use inexpensive softwoods and spend almost nothing on their treatment.

If you are setting up a greenhouse for a long term, then in addition to suitable timber, you will need to prepare a foundation. Greenhouse foundations can vary. You can choose the most suitable one depending on the design of your greenhouse.

A foundation made of timber or railway sleepers. We prepare a trench, into which we place the timber or sleeper on top of roofing felt. Everything is connected with metal brackets. After that, the frame is installed.

If strong winds prevail in your area, a pier foundation will suit you. The concrete base is laid quite deep, which helps to hold the hotbed in place even if a hurricane starts. To build such a foundation, you will need pipes with a diameter of 20 cm or more, which must be installed in the ground below the frost line (from 90 cm to 1.2 m). If your greenhouse has dimensions of 3x6 m (this is usually the standard), you will need to install 6 posts. Beams are laid on them and connected to each other and to the frame in the same way as in the previous method.

A trench is dug along the perimeter of your greenhouse, into which concrete blocks are laid on a gravel-sand cushion. A cement solution is used to secure them. And already on top of these blocks, a frame made of large-section timber is fastened.

A strip foundation is installed for large-sized hotbeds, as it withstands heavy loads. Such a foundation is a concrete slab from 30 to 50 cm thick, poured into a shallow trench. The service life of such a foundation is quite long, so hotbeds can be replaced on it if necessary.

After the foundation is ready, we proceed to the assembly of the greenhouse frame. There are quite a lot of options. As mentioned earlier, there are arched, single-pitch, and gable greenhouses. It is important to choose the one that will meet your requirements and the requirements of the area where you will install it. First of all, everything depends on what you are going to grow in the greenhouse and how long it will serve you.

The most optimal (however, standard, encountered by most gardeners) greenhouse is of a rectangular shape measuring 3x6 m, with a gable roof. Such a greenhouse is most often covered with polyethylene film. Many, however, use polycarbonate. But this depends on the possibilities. Polyethylene, of course, will cost less. However, it will have to be replaced every season.

It is most optimal to start assembling the frame of the future greenhouse by assembling individual sections located parallel to the front and back walls of the greenhouse. The number of such sections depends on the length of the structure, as well as on the required reliability (the more sections, the less sagging and the greater the stability).

Features of greenhouse frame design

If you use polycarbonate for covering the greenhouse, the number of sections will depend on the width of this covering (210 cm). The sections, for example, can be positioned at a distance of 0.5—1 m from each other.

The dimensions of the sections themselves will be as follows:

However, you can choose the dimensions yourself.

Selection and adaptation of construction schemes

Several schemes are presented below, from which you can choose the most suitable one for yourself. I, for example, became interested in these particular schemes (which is why I took them). But I want to create one for myself based on all these schemes, according to which I will build my greenhouse.

The figure above shows not only the greenhouse scheme but also a list of materials required for its construction, as well as their dimensions and consumption. This list is intended for standard dimensions of 6x2.8 m, however, based on these data, one can calculate the amount of required material for one's own size.