Thanks to Lindhart ans steamhead

Roland_4

Hi Arbcon, Just curious, have you done a heat loss calculation for the greenhouse? Are you heating it with steam or scorched air? Thanks,Roland

john_122

Thanks to Lindhart/Steamhead

I've been busy with the markets lately, but I wanted to report back to Steamhead/Lindhart that the gas bill for January was 1460 or so...down from 3000 the prior year. Included in these figures is the running of an 1100 square foot greenhouse full time both years. I'm running a total btu load of 2 mm currently, and am playing with solar hot water as my next effort to further bring down the load.
I run the lgb -15 at permanent low fire and get a much more even generation of steam than before. Average thermostat setting is in the high 60's versus low 60's.

john_122

Hi R....you can look up the calculation you need in the Library on this site. We had about 300k of heat loss because it was glass. We got it down to about 100k by creating a 4"air barrier and insulating the side walls with pink board and radiant barrier insulation. It needs to heat now only at night....it goes to 70 degrees on a 25 degree day in February on its own. So, it really isn't much of a factor in our heat bill....possibly 75-125. We use underbench hot water.Steam is too variable for the job, and hot air deprives the plants of radiant heat. One impoprtant point..if you go hot water, read Steamhead's article on correctly sizing your circulator(also in the Library)..correct flow in a greenhouse often requires more than one circulator...this is important because we balanced the heat load in the greenhopuse off of the end furthest from the furnace to assure quick and even heat distribution...John

john_122

Hi R....you can look up the calculation you need in the Library on this site. We had about 300k of heat loss because it was glass. We got it down to about 100k by creating a 4"air barrier and insulating the side walls with pink board and radiant barrier insulation. It needs to heat now only at night....it goes to 70 degrees on a 25 degree day in February on its own. So, it really isn't much of a factor in our heat bill....possibly 75-125. We use underbench hot water.Steam is too variable for the job, and hot air deprives the plants of radiant heat. One impoprtant point..if you go hot water, read Steamhead's article on correctly sizing your circulator(also in the Library)..correct flow in a greenhouse often requires more than one circulator...this is important because we balanced the heat load in the greenhouse off of the end furthest from the furnace to assure quick and even heat distribution...John

Roland_4

Thanks arbcon, Do you have any pictures of the greenhouse structure and the heating arrangement? Roland...

Steamhead (in transit)

Glad to hear it, John

and glad we could help!

Gordo & Steamhead

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