let the insanity begin

[rick rottet]

Once again, I would like to give a big thank you to Henry for being so helpful in getting up my subdomain at the CIMA web site set up, and again, sorry about that last email my friend.

This project is the culmination of nearly two years of research involving not only types, styles, and options of different greenhouses but also all of the additional construction supplies such as wiring, plumbing, wood, tools, rental prices for equipment like trenchers and excavators, and local zoning ordinances. I also researched prices for all of the equipment I would need to run the facility including pumps skimmers, blowers, supplemental lighting, propagation and quarantine vessels, and other supplies like salt, water filtration equipment, pumps, buffers, kalk, etc... After all of that, I checked out the building site for shadow lines, bought a light meter and took some measurements then did some more research for the natural lighting levels measured on actual reefs for given species of coral. Assured that there was plenty of light available, the first step was to go to the County Zoning Board and apply for a zoning waiver. Our county zoning laws specifically address greenhouses. I could build a private use greenhouse without a waiver but it could only be 25% of the square footage of the first floor of my primary residence located on the same property. That would have meant building a greenhouse about 250 square feet (10' x 25') which was nowhere near what I wanted, so the only way around that was to apply for a zoning waiver and classify the building as commercial even though it was to be built on a residential property.

I then had to go to each of my neighbors that lived within 300 feet of my house and have them sign a petition either in favor or against my proposal. There was only one opposition but that meant I would have to appear before the planning commission of the zoning board and present my proposal to them and assure them that the fears expressed in the opposition would never come to pass. I passed that commission.

The next step was to appear before the actual zoning board in a public hearing to present my proposal and again calm the fears of the opposition. I also passed that hearing.

I had to take out a newspaper ad declaring both of the meetings to the public which had to run for three weeks prior to each meeting.

This whole process sounds allot easier written here than it actually was and it was very nerve wracking for me because the one opposition was from my neighbor directly to the south. The zoning board puts more emphasis on the surveys from people who live the closest. There were concerns of the availability of off-street parking.Then there was the expectation of semi trucks pulling in and out of my driveway for deliveries not to mention big earth-moving machines making loud noises and leaving tracks all over the neighborhood. It just happens that my driveway doesn't run straight down to the street and the last fifteen feet or so, at the end towards the street, gradually tapers over the property line to those neighbors. There was some legal issues to settle first, title searches and aerial photographs going back thirty years, but I ended up laying down new gravel to make the driveway straight and totally on my side of the property line to avoid a costly/ lengthy court battle- which I was assured that I would have won anyway since the driveway has been in its' current location and function for over thirty years. There were lots of little and big hurdles to jump over along the way, but in the end, it all came out fine.

Having received the 'ok'/'go ahead' from the zoning board of appeals, I just had to purchase a building permit and get started.



The future site of my greenhouse coral propagation facility-(my backyard). The first step was to clear the land of some trees. There was a crabapple, red apple and an ornamental pear tree which just had to go. Keep your eye on the big tree on the left and the three smaller trees on the right as this column progresses, they will eventually come down too.




A closer view of the first three trees to come down.

One.




Two.



Three.

[pongo]

very cool. we have lost 2 drag strips locally because of ppl worried about things that "might happen". glad it worked out for you!

[Sloeber]

got any free firewood?

looks good so far! hehe...

[rick rottet]

Those trees were cut down back in June. The maintenace man from the nursing home where I work took all of the wood. He is an avid camper, but come spring i plan to tackle that last tree on the right (south) and you're welcome to it.

[DKKA]

Wow! Sounds like quite a project. So, how big will the greenhouse be?

[David MC Lee]

What only 4000G? Come on dream big. Go for at least 10000G.

Looks like fun to me. Let me know if you need anything/help/ideas.

[rustang]

very cool, keep posting updates.. I would be willing to come down and help set up on a weekend or two...

[rick rottet]

pongo-thanks for the encouragement, sometimes ya just gotta say *** and go for it.

DKKA- the greenhouse is 20 x 36

David- 4000 gal of water in the tanks (actually 4200) but will have 2000-2500 gal sitting around at all times aerating, buffering, mixing, etc... When I presented my proposal to the planning commission and zoning board, I included a future expansion of another greenhouse of the same size so I wouldn't have to go through all of that beaurocratic red tape all over again.

rustang- I appreciate the offer for assistance. The building itself is up and complete, almost finished wiring it. Amerigas came today and set my tank so now I can have heat. I still need to run plumbing, build tanks, stands, skimmers, cycle some rock and let the new corals settle in. May be going by new year.

Henry- I'm not ignoring you, see above about the wood.

[rick rottet]

All three of those trees were cut down using a twenty five year old electric craftsman 1/4 HP pruning saw with a 14" chain- whew! I ended up burning out the bearings (big surprise) and had to buy a new one.

The greenhouse package delivered. The (rookie) semi driver couldn't make the turn to back up into my drive so I unloaded it on the front yard and took it back to my garage piece by piece and bundle by bundle in my Blazer.



I have a friend who works in the recycling department at Kraft. She got me these barrels for two dollars each. I picked up 51 of them and will use them for aging, buffering, and mixing. I gave them a wash with a pressure hose, sprinkled them in sodium bicarb, let them sit and washed them out again. Yes, that's a Jaguar XJS in the lower left corner. I've had it for seventeen years now. Nothing quite like the roar of a V-12 cruising down the road.



The lids and locking rings were also included when I picked up the barrels. Here are the other twenty six waiting to be washed.



Maybe a little hard to see but after I laid out the perimeter of the greenhouse, I marked each spot for the anchor posts with yellow stakes.



Four corners in place. Sounds easy, right? Those anchor posts are 70" tall and are driven into the ground 32" with an 8 pound sledge hammer.



It took about seven hours to drive the rest of the anchor posts in. Twenty posts in all. These 40-something arms were pretty sore for a few days. The tops of all the posts must be level with each other. When I went from one side to the other, I used the vacuum hose from my swimming pool filled with water to make an old Egyptian style level.



Toe boards bolted in place. The ground slopes down at the north (left) end but that will all be backfilled later. The first arch is bolted together and upright. Remember, I'm doing this all by myself. Raising a twenty foot wide 10' 6" arch aint easy. I found that if I placed the left side of the arch precisely on the top of its' anchor post, then grabbed the arch directly at the peak, I could pick the arch up to about waist high without it falling off the post. Then I had to slowly lift up the arch as I inched outward towards the opposite side. Halfway to the other side, the arch would be upright enough to cradle into the anchor post on the first side. Then the arch could be stood straight up and would fall down into the anchor post on the first side. The arches are made to be about 18" wider than the finished greenhouse so then the arches must be squeezed to get the second side into the anchor post. This design is supposed to increase the load bearing capacity. I had to lean on it with all I had to get the second side in. The roof has a nice peak slope to shed the snow more efficiently.

[quintonvl]

tagging along - good luck, and speaking as an architect with lots of experience in front of planning commitees, you've already shown your commitment by getting through all that!!

[rick rottet]

Glad to have you along quintonvl. My commitment is pending at the state hospital. hehe

[pongo]

WOW! looking great! i hear its supposed to be an early snow this year. got a long walk from the house?

[not ecooper]

lol Nice, Pongo. Remind the man of the cold, cold walks this winter...

You've come a long way since the last time I was at your house to pick up a tank! To my knowledge, this wasn't even in process yet....

[rick rottet]

It is about 160 feet from my house to the greenhouse, but I like cold- can't stand the heat in summer though. Plan to do most of the "work" in the evenings and nights when it's hot out. Even when it has been in the 40's, if the sun is out, it can be 100 inside the greenhouse unless I have some fans going and the door and shutters opened.

The construction of this project began back in June of this year. (2004) ecooper you were here what, back in october or november 2003??? Still was doing research at that time.

I appreciate the comments

[rick rottet]

Time to trench in some utilities. There were some different options here. A new electric service from the pole on the street would have cost as much as the greenhouse (building only) and I would have had to run the line from the greenhouse out to the pole myself. The power company only would then have to come and hook the line to the pole. BLAH. If I was going to buy all of the supplies and run the line that far anyway, might as well take it from my house. The house has a 200 amp service and the house only pulls 65 when everything that could be turned on was turned on. I purchased a rebuilt meter to keep track of how much electricity the propagation house uses each month. The water was the same way, I could have run a new service but would have had to have the town dig up the street, cross my existing water service and tear up the front yard to get to the back yard. Might as well run it from the house too while the electric is being trenched in. I went to a town board meeting and they said they would be happy to install a separate water meter for me, as opposed to digging up the street and still installing a seperate meter. It seems as though someone with not much foresight has the town's water main running right down under the center of Main Street. When the trench was dug for the water, I dug a shelf in it for the electric. It really was allot of fun running the trencher and the mini-excavator. I also know a man who owns a well digging business who loaned me his hammer drill with an 1 1/2" masonry bit to punch a hole through the foundation. Sure makes hard work easy when the right tools are available.

Electric cable and water line through the foundation and inside the basement/ cellar.



Here is the trench as it leaves the house.



Runs between the garage and the propane tank. This was a tight squeeze with heavy equipment. The trench had to cross the existing gas line from the tank to the house twice, the gas line from the house to the garage, and three buried electric lines- two from the house to the garage and one from the house to the swimming pool. BTW, I also built that garage about four years ago. With the exception of having help working the concrete (24 x 36 slab), and standing up the 2 x 6 sheeted walls, did it by myself.



And off through the back yard to the greenhouse.



Finally there. About 185 feet total. The water is 3/4" diameter 160 psi black PVC. The electric cable is #6 aluminum 3 conductor which runs from dual 50 amp breakers in the main box of my house through the rebuilt meter and to a load center in the greenhouse (will be shown later). Before the show is running, there will be a self starting generator hooked into the load center.

[boxer85]

eek. your water may not be big enough to really supply what you need.
how much do you plan on using this after your initial fill. that will take the longest....

everything else looks great though.

[shaw]

How did you go about passing the electric and gas lines? did you hand dig it at those spots?
thanks
shawn

[rick rottet]

boxer85- (politely) 3/4" line will be plenty big enough. I was a plumber for two and 1/2 years before I became a nurse. We ran 1" mains into the houses and immediately reduced down to 3/4". Our typical houses were two bathroom, kitchen, laundry room and external sill cocks (hose hook-up) but we plumbed some houses with four bathrooms (two with Jacuzzi's and double headed showers), two kitchens, two laundry rooms, two refridgerators with ice makers and water, hot and cold sill cocks in the garage, with no problems. There will be twenty tanks with 210 gallon capacity each so it wont be one big initial fill. I will be setting them up four at a time, then will use about 1,000 gallons per week for water changes once all the tanks are full and stocked. I have a Kati-Ani 10 series deionizer which will process over 9,000 gallons before it needs recharged (so I'm counting on it processing about 5,000 between charges). Even a 1/4" line can flow over three hundred gallons per day easy. When I fill my swimming pool, I use a regular garden hose and it takes about four days to run 13,500 gallons.

shaw- yes, I had to hand dig to cross the existing electric and gas lines. I actually had to hand dig allot more than that because the ground was a little wet when I was doing the trenching and the trench caved in a few times. When I dug it out with the excavator, it still caved in a few places but at least I could get down in the ditch to work. All told I hand dug about 70 feet of the trench.

[H20ENG]

Helluva endeavor! Lookin good. Definitely along for the ride on this one!

[rick rottet]

Thaks H2OENG. The more the merrier.

Anybody else getting the little red x where pictures should be? I get a few here and there but they do load when I right click and then click show picture.

[reeftechie]

Great setup bro. Would love to come check it out sometime. Will be well worth the drive.

RT

[rick rottet]

Any time RT, just gimme about another six or seven months to have it all stocked and stable then send me a PM.

[rick rottet]

It was around this point that I got the new chain saw and took on those other three trees. They were actually on the property of the farmer's field behind my house so permission was required. The farmer was very happy to have the trees removed because he said trees around a field are a big maintenance issue anyway. "Cut down all you want", he said. You can see the stumps in the background. I will still cut down that next large tree come spring (2005). The large tree on the other end will not be an issue since it is on the north end, the shadows wont cross the greenhouse. Three more bows up.



Henry, if I'd only known you wanted firewood, I wouldn't have had to burn all of this. Couldn't give it away and had to get it out of there. Glad our town still allows burning.



The remainder of the bows up and the four corner wind braces in place. The braces will keep the house from swaying and flexing in high winds. That 10 ton pile of dirt in the background was a freebie (zip, zilch, nada) from a farmer who cleaned out his ditches last summer. He even delivered it in a semi and dumped it for me. Now that guy could drive a truck.



The purlins in place. It's amazing how much vocabulary has to be learned when there's a new project going on. The purlins are bolted to each bow and prevent lateral movement of the bows. The center (top) purlin has to go under the bows on the very ends to keep from snagging the plastic covering. The two side purlins are under the bows the entire length of the house.



A commercial heavy grade ground cover screen laid down to keep from having to mow and weed-eat inside the greenhouse. This screen will allow water to flow through- I think I'll need that.

[reeftechie]

shoot me an email at reeftechie@gmail.com bro.. Thanks for the invite

[rick rottet]

Here's a helpful hint learned from the man in Gibson City who owns 'The Friendly Flower Shop'. He advised me to dig down about a foot deep around the perimeter of the building and set 2" thick styrofoam to help keep the freezing cold from coming up through the floor (ground). I dug a foot deep trench 112 feet long with a spade. Came out pretty straight, then dug out under the 2 x 6 toe boards so the styro would form a continuous wall down into the ground.



Before the styro could be set in place for the ends, they had to be framed in with pressure treated lumber. Before the ends got framed in, I wanted to have the gravel for the floor dumped. 15 tons for the first load. About 2/3 of that was for the driveway but I didn't want a big pile of rocks just sitting there so the gravel was dumped out back in the greenhouse and I used a wheel barrow to haul loads out to the driveway. Now here's another guy who could drive a truck, backed it in right up under the greenhouse. The driver also drove down most of the pile of dirt from where the water and electric were trenched to help flatten out the hill in my yard. A real nice guy he was.


New gravel in driveway = happy neighbors (or at least not fighting mad neighbors). That drive is over 90 feet long, covered one wheel barrow at a time which was filled one shovelful at a time. Glad I believe in one day at a time.



Then 6 more tons of gravel to finish off the floor of the greenhouse. Moved and spread all of this around with a stiff metal rake (not the leaf moving kind but the stiff metal ones).



Before the toe boards could be nailed on the ends, they had to be framed in with pressure treated lumber. First the vertical studs. I chose to pack the holes with gravel instead of concrete because concrete can act like a wick and keeps moisture in contact with the underground portions of the wood. Gravel will allow drainage and slow down the decay process- a little. Believe me, the posts are just as sturdy once they are in place.



And then the horizontal members in place to frame in the door and shutter openings. This is the south end.



And the north end with framing for the exhaust fan. The frame for the heater flue pipe will be added later.



This is what it looks like under ground with the styrofoam in place and gravel spread out.



There's that rake I was talking about in the lower left.