Finally after 8 years of procrastinating I am going to get my 20 x 60 greenhouse set up...

When I bought this place there was an old caved in 20 x 60 greenhouse 1/4 of a mile out in the hay field...  Don't ask me why it was all the way out there, been wondering that since I bought the place...  I thought oooh awesome I will take that down and reset it up near the house...  8 years later I finally got it all taken apart today and loaded on the trailer and back to the house...

My son Ted came out and joined me the last hour of work and informed that school has been closed until April 6th due to Cornavirus concerns.  I scouted out 50 trees near the house that I need to take down so I can use some of those for the posts and beams that I want to use to support the old weakened metal tubes.  Then fire up the sawmill and cut some flat boards to run the length of the greenhouse for better snow load support between the metal frames.

While I have built several greenhouse over the last 30 decades, I have never built an actual greenhouse, mine were all wood framed greenhouses in the past.  This will be my first actual normal greenhouse, with the exception of the added beams and posts inside for structural strength to make up for the mangled metal tubes.  I have read in the past about concerns of having wood inside a greenhouse, as all my past ones were completely wood framed and I never had any issues I am not expecting any issues here either but we shall see.

I wanted to try the mulch heating idea in this greenhouse for winter use, creating a wooden pallet type structure down the middle about 4 feet wide and 3 feet tall full of mulch and then another one running the length of the north wall about four feet wide and 3 feet tall.  That should give me the capability of adding in about 1,200 cubic feet of mulch in there for winter warming.

With the pole and beam frame I thought I would put a raised floor down the middle at about 6 feet height and about 6 feet wide to use as an upper plant area above the 3 foot tall mulch bench/table area.  I would plant directly on the ground on the south side and then use the North side with some lights for starting plants out.  I will go find my Alaskan mill setup tomorrow and start cutting trees and roughing out beams and posts for project.  I will need 22, 14 foot long 6 x 6 posts and 11, 6 foot long 6 x 6 beams, should be pretty easy to get all of those cut tomorrow.  Then fire up the mill on Saturday and cut my 2 x 6 and 2 x 8 flooring and some 1 x 4 for extra supports to run the length of the greenhouse  to make sure the plastic will hold up under snow loads.  Once I get the basic idea of where everything will be I will cut some large beams to nail to the ground and set up for holding my side pipes in place.

I am thinking of getting some extra metal pieces so that I can run 3 sets of plastic sheeting rather than one large sheet.  I could do 20 feet wide x 20 feet long ( 2 pieces of 20 x 30 plastic sheet , dual layer) and start with just 1/3 of the greenhouse size.  Then buy two more for the next section and then again for the third section.  I kind of like the idea of having it broken up into three separate sections.  

Any advice or ideas are welcome, as I noted this is a first for me and no doubt there are some things I haven't thought about yet.

As I start into this  I will get some pics of everything as I do this.

Sounds pretty cool!
I think I would put the raised platform to the north side,  and hang the lights on the underside of it.
This would keep the platform from shading the rest of the greenhouse.

post pictures as you go if you can. I am familiar with old metal frame and glass pane and galvanized pipe hoop styles of green houses but wood post or framed construction, not so much.

Hi Roy

That is a good sized green house. My 12 x 24? Has all the room I need.  Best of luck.