Reinventing the Greenhouse

Not much new info to most on here, but still a fairly good read. The second half is pretty good from a historical perspective, at least to me...Enjoy.

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/reinventing-the-greenhouse.html

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/fruit-walls-urban-farming.html

I really think that this particular quote from the first article is very worth thinking about, especially for people in cloudy places who are thinking of a big greenhouse project. Not to discourage, but just for the sake of information, and not overbudgetting what the proposed greenhouse heat potential is.

"Note that these results can't be applied to all locations at 50°N. The Canadian research shows that solar output has a greater impact on the inside temperature of the structure than does the outside temperature. The correlation between inside temperature and sunlight is almost four times greater than the correlation between inside temperature and outside temperature. [2] For example, while Brussels lies at the same latitude as Manitoba, the latter has on average 1.5 times more sun."

Some good stuff in here. Worth reading. Thanks for posting.

In the second article, I really like these innovations to the fruit wall:

"Another variation on the linear fruit wall was the sloped wall. It was designed by Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, and described in his 1699 book "Fruit Walls Improved". A wall built at an incline of 45 degrees from the northern horizon and facing south absorbs the sun's energy for a longer part of the day, increasing plant growth." Of course we know now that the angle would be optimally different at different latitudes.


And the serpentine effect, used by some in Holland, creating concave micro-climates, increasing heat absorption. This also allows the owner to build thinner walls, using less resources.

"Although it's actually longer than a linear wall, a serpentine wall economizes on materials because the wall can be made strong enough with just one brick thin. The alternate convex and concave curves in the wall provide stability and help to resist lateral forces. Furthermore, the slopes give a warmer microclimate than a flat wall."

And here is another thing I like and that could be combined perhaps with RMH tech.
"these "hot walls", horizontal flues were running to and fro, opening into chimneys on top of the wall. Initially, the hollow walls were heated by fires lit inside, or by small furnaces located at the back of the wall. During the second half of the nineteenth century, more and more heated fruit walls were warmed by hot water pipes."

I am presently brainstorming ideas for my own project, and after being reminded of all of these innovations, I was thinking that a person could improve a design in the following ways in a passive or semi passive greenhouse or solarium built with a strong thermal mass north wall (that also, maybe has a RMH helping with heat sometimes!), and with a sun catching hugulkultur (the slope!) built against it. This would allow for all of these fruit wall improvements to be included in a passive greenhouse design. Behind the thermal wall would be an insulating layer. Also the wall could be further used as a thermal source by making part of it a chimney for the rocket stove, as was done in England with chimney walls.