Annie Hope

The house in on piles that are about 40cm off the ground.  IT does have insulation in ceiling, under house and at least some external walls.  ((Definitely in the new section walls build 20ish years ago, not sure about the walls built 40ish years ago).

no, mainly because the only insulation I know of is rather toxic stryrofoam based.  I do plant to have double walls of plastic and raised beds and heat sinks at the edge to help buffer plants prom the cold at grass level.

I am building a leanto greenhouse that is doubling as "double glazing" insulation and heat store for the house.

We have a house on wood piles with an open gap between the floor and the ground.  

In terms of the plant health I think it best to plant directly in the soil.


As far as heating, I am not sure.  On the one hand I am thinking if we plant in pots and keep the ground dry there will be less heat moving from the outside into the house area in the soil.  On the other hand, I think that watering the ground will help the day's heat transfer into the soil and make a large thermal mass battery.  
We live in a temperate zone.  The Grass level will often have frost to -4C in winter that melts by 10am, but the soil is usually at least 7C+ 10cm down, and 14C year round within 1m down.  There is likely going to be as much warmth coming up from the soil as frost coming in sideways.  

I have seen lean-to greenhouses in places that go to -20C that plant directly in the ground.  

I live in a sandy area with a high water table.  Even after months of summer drought, my well has water at 2m deep.  The grass may be dry and dead, but my orchard will produce fruit without any irrigation. In winter it is much higher and in flood years the lowest points can be under the water table.  

We also live 7km from the sea.  We get frosts down to a max of -4 that are gone by 10am.  At 10cm / 4in soil depth the average monthly soil temperature in mid-winter is still 8C, (46F) and at 1m soil depth, the temperature sits at about 14C (57) year round.  Theoretically then, our water table should be sitting at 10-14 C in the midst of winter (depending how high the water table is - when the water table floods for months over winter  we never get a frost)
We are looking at putting up a Chinese style greenhouse that is 36m (118ft) long.  
How would we pull up the Geothermal heat?  If we just dug an open pond to the water table, would the cold air sink into the pond and heat rise from it naturally, or would we need to have some sort of passive air flow built in?  (Such as the Manti Greenhouse?)

I would like to raise the thread with the question of how to practically use solar hot water and wood fire heat (including stored heat) to make power in the KW.  Is there an easy go-to DVD or website somewhere?

Also, is it possible to use the same unit both to generate thermo-electric heat, and to create heating and cooling with electricity.

I am in in a place with both solar and wind in abundance, but am interested in peltier for the following reasons:

- I would want to pump water in summer anyway to irrigate my gardens from a sand-trap bore
- I would want to pump water in winter anyway to take heat from my heat store, and put it under my heat-loving plants, (or to put heat into large bodies of water to 25-30C like my pallet swimming pool or water around a methane middy).

A also want to produce heat when needed for things like:
- A backup for under seedlings if there is several days without sun
- to keep things like youghurt at a constant temperature

I also want to use cold for things like the following without spending big money on the appliances that do this:
- Making ice cream
- cooling down mushroom rooms in summer
- Cooling a temporary cool room to 4C or less to hang meat for a week when the yearly calf is butchered
- Putting excess electricity into heating a heat store above boiling temperature
- Putting excess electricity into a cold room to give berries their sufficient chill hours and then grow berries out of season.

I have inherited 3 blackout tents, with lights for each and ventilation fans for at least one.  This is an example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1suSz5ObVs

The details are:  
40cm x 80cm  floor x 50cm  high propagation tent with two 20W led lights.  these will cost 23c a day to run lights for 18 hours.  

Grow Tent 60 x 60cm floor x 180cm high with 250W Halogen bulb.  It will cost $1.60 a day to run for 18 hours.
Grow Tent 150 x 150cm floor x 120cm high with  500W Halogen bulb.  It will cost $3.20 a day to run for 18 hours.

I have had no previous experience using grow lights at all, but do have tables of seedlings in front of the lounge room window each winter/spring.

I am in a very temperate climate on 8 acres.  I can understand the use of a propagation tent to ensure that emerging seed/seedlings stay warm enough to sprout well, but don't grow long and sideways towards a window light.  Especially fussy tropical things like Bottle gourd or papaya seeds that want to stay at 25C soil temperature.  I also appreciate that they will help keep the soil most with tiny seeds like celery etc. I do wonder about whether they will easily damp off, however, in a closed environment.
Are these of any greater benefit than a cheap Temu seedling tray with clear top and LED lights built in put on top of the fridge or on a heat mat?  (Which I have just bought to try for the first time with $1 per seed papayas when I got these tents.)

I wonder about the Grow tents, however.  Unless you are growing something illegal or have free excess electricity, can they ever be cost effective to grow plants to maturity?  Are they just a fancy hobby for apartment dwellers, and why would they not want to have the plants in full view with just grow lamps - unless it is for places that have very cold and low humidity winters?

This is maybe a topic for another thread, but if I do make my dream greenhouse with passive heating and wood fire back-up heating, and have over 9 hours  of natural light on our shortest day, and minimum temperatures that never go below -4C, is it worth the cost to extend the daylight hours with LED lights unless the plants require it for fruiting (e.g. Capsicum)?  

I have heard a few references to Peltier power generators being using off grid in Europe.  Can any give a link to how to make one of these or where to buy one?

This really interests me as an alternative to plastic.  Would it be possible to make it out of any other type of paper or make cloth from second hand sheets?

This is picking up an old post.  My water table is only about 4-5 ft down on sandy soil 7km from the beach.  The grass can dry brown, but the fruit trees in the orchard will still bear, and I have never watered them.

Twice in five years, the water table has flooded 90% of the property including under the house, and sat for months.  The town council has finally put a ditch down our road where it flows down and into our property, but much of our property is still lower than the ditch.  The flooding takes months to build up in paddocks about a km away before it floods down our road and into our property, so we need to wait another few years to see what effect it will have if it drains the source of the flooding early enough.

What will happen if there is a heat sink and it gets flooded, will it still work?

The lowest it ever gets in winter is -4C as we as so close to the sea.  On an average winter there a frosts several times in winter.  In such temperatures is a heat sink so important?