William Bronson

Neat idea for a home!
Very exciting, it gives me all kinds of ideas!

Now first of all I believe  snow guards  are the conventional solution.
These are "racks" that hold snow on the roof until it melts.
Commonly used on metal roofs, which are extra slick.

Now on to some crazy ideas!


If you had an uninsulated roof or used electrical melting cables, you could keep the monitor design, no problem.
Since you are enjoying a living space in a greenhouse, I doubt you want to spend thermal energy that way.


If you center roof has a steep enough angle, there shouldn't be any accumulation of snow on it.
That creates other complications, but it should work.
A Gothic arch or gambrel roof might do the trick.

Alternatively, you could skip the monitor design, while keeping the flanking greenhouse.
Instead of the greenhouse roofs being lower than the center roof, they would start right where it ends.
Essentially you would have a standard gabled roof, but the lower half on each side would be glazing instead of opaque.

You could even extend the roof like all the way to the ground, so basically you would have two story house built into an A frame.
The space that is usually "wasted" in an A frame would be your  greenhouse space, and  A frames are considered excellent for dealing with snow loads


You could have a flat roof in the center section.
Your roof framing and decking would need to be very strong, and you would want parapets all the way around, but snow would accumulate and not fall, plus the roof could be used for gardening ,etc.

Most simple of all, maybe you don't need glazing on the greenhouse roofs.
Winter sun is low in the sky and mostly should enter via the vertical glazing.
By using a conventional opaque roof on the greenhouses , you can insulate it.

You could even make them flat roofs,build the greenhouses as elevated decks, accessible from the second floor of the  center monitor section, enclosed with glazing underneath.
The deck can stand up to ice and snow, and an under deck drainage system keeps rain and meltwater out of the greenhouse.
Any snow that piled on top of the deck would be extra insulating!

Ok, enough crazy ideas for now, thanks for the prompt, I really enjoyed it!

A flexible pipe coupling sized for 2" , should accommodate the IBC valve on one end and your PVC pipe on the other:


It's not food safe, but neither is the PVC pipe.
You can filter out the chemicals before drinking.

I think these are ready, but I've never grow them before.
I honestly didn't remember it was growing in this barrel untill I went through and weeded it!

This is one of my favorite subjects.
Space heating is the obvious best use, followed by fuel drying.

I have built a Tlud powered boiler for heating a greenhouse while making charcoal at the same time.
It sits, decommissioned, waiting for me to take another stab at it.

I think it was Sean from the Edible Acres YouTube channel that popularized using stainless steel steam table pans as a retort in a wood stove.
Small fuel that would other wise burn very quickly, is slowly converted to charcoal and contributes to warming the house.

When I consider rebuilding the Tlud boiler, it's with adding a retort in mind.
I would keep the option to fire it with a Tlud, but I like the idea of using a small charcoal fire to start the pyrolysis.
Tluds work best with regularly shaped "refined" fuel like pellets or rice hulls, and they need to be dry.
Sifting charcoal to get regular sized pieces is easier than chipping then sifting wood, or cutting wood to size.

Phil, rather than a batch box rocket stove to provide heat to your retort,consider a sawdust stove.
They are cheaper and simpler to build, they can burn many hours without any human intervention and the fuel is tight there at your fingertips.

How about urine?
It's slightly acidic.

Round dishes can fit together like hexagons, with extra room at the intersection of any 3.
That's  where I was thinking to plant, but  plants growing out the middle of a plate would look very neat and tidy!
Plus it gives another opportunity for planting  at exactly half the distance.
It will also keep the plates from pooling water.
Plates are designed to stack, but the stack would probably collect water without a center hole.
Stick a terracotta pot underneath and you have a reservoir.

Glass plates are tricky,I think.
Probably better to leave them undrilled, inverted and used to warm the soil in the spring.
Maybe skip them entirely as other items do the job better.

I'm liking plates more and more!

My next trip to the reuse center I plan to grab seed starting trays to use as mulch in my pumpkin and watermelon beds.
Eventually these plants will shade the soil themselves, but right now it's either apply mulch or weed often.
So far I've been weeding, but stacking  seed starting and soil protection appeals to me.
I was thinking beans, because the seed is so cheap, but now I'm thinking fall greens, because they like shade and are less likely to get tangled with the vines.

I found some scapes on top of a compost pile at my community garden.
They were too far along to eat, too tough.
I put them in a pressure cooker with oil and water on high for an hour
It made nice infused oil.

I cleared the bed and harvested the beans.
Shelling by hand was easy.
I do wish they were more stout, by the end  the plants only stood up because they were crowded together.
Maybe another variety would be shorter, with thicker stems?

I finally got the pumpkin bed enclosed.
The plants were growing through the plastic crates I was using to protect them.

The beans are running !
Evidently they are running instead of bushing out, as a response to the extreme heat.
On the other hand, they are running towards the sunnier end of the bed, which seems counter to that theory.