New Build with Welded Frame

I live in Southern Colorado near the mountains and plan on building a greenhouse.

I was going to build the frame out of Chain Link top rail, or posts, and cover it with Soleex. I was planning on welding the rails together. I want straight walls with a sloped roof like a conventional house. That way I can walk near the walls without ducking.

I was thinking about a 10x16. I will have automated vents on top.

I am looking for opinions on using welded top rails, and coverings.

I found a couple of companies that sell connector kits, but I thought welded would be stronger. We get 100 mph winds almost every year, and a fair amount of snow. We also have bears and deer that hang out in our yard at times.

I have welded galvanized in the past so I am familiar with the process and prep required.

I plan on putting a concrete footer around the edges to anchor to.

Any help and tips would be greatly appreciated. I did search top rail but most people use a bender.

Thank you for your help.

Welcome to Permies!

I think a welded frame is a great idea.
Top rail has a great strength to cost ratio.
I had to go look up solex, it looks great.
How do you plan on affixing it to the frame?
Self tapping roofing screws might work.

William Bronson wrote:I think a welded frame is a great idea. Top rail has a great strength to cost ratio.

I agree. Any time I've looked at the connector kits, they've been really pricey, and yet I've seen too many fail under snow loads.

Because the connectors are expensive, I find that kits don't come with enough uprights. I would think in terms of house building standards and not have your uprights too far apart. I'm not an engineer, so I'm not going to say whether you need 16" centers, or 24" or could stretch it a little further, but I will tell you that one winter we lost pretty much every commercial-sized greenhouse on the Peninsula because of a snowstorm. Supposedly they were all "snow standards", but storms are getting bigger, weirder, crazier, and sometimes just plain unbelievable. We just have to start building with that in mind, because this will have a lot of embodied energy tied up in the materials, and a lot of human energy tied up in the building process. I would spend a little more of both up front, rather than loose everything!

I was going to use self-tapping screws to attach the covering.

I was going to go 3' on center, but will now do 24". Someone suggested using a short row of blocks, or bricks around the bottom to hold heat. Then build the frame on top of the blocks.

Thanks for your input.