Aquaponics System, Passive Solar Greenhouse build

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It finally stopped raining. My oldest boy helped me mixed the cement today.
Each hole had two 2’ Tee post drove into the ground with 6” above the ground the 10’ Half inch rebar cut up in each hole. It was put down like a cross hatched pattern. That should make it very strong for the pallet racking.

The weather is so nice today it is hot in the greenhouse.

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I now have eight barrels full of water ready to become solar batteries. We just need some sun and less rain.
The first small front vent is 90% done. There are two four foot vents on the sides then three eight foot vents across the front they all take about the same amount of welding.





These are the POP Rivets I am using Stainless CLOSED/SEALED 4-4 1/8 x ¼
This is the first time I used a closed rivet. I like them. I bought these because water or wind will not go in the holes in the vent.

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My wife bought this for me for Christmas. It should came in handy for hacking a heat pump for the fish tank water after I finish the greenhouse.


I cut all the sheet metal triangles that will get welded to the vents. I cut up the metal parts for the second vent.

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It is raining hard with flood warnings. But I was able to make some progress inside.
I mounted the hinges on the one small vent and it is ready for weather stripping then mounting.

I have the second small vent ready for the hinges.
I have more hinges coming tomorrow and more rivets.



Only three big vents left then the back vents.

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Two smaller vents are mounted. I think it would look better with silver paint. I am going out today maybe I pick up a few cans of silver for the front.









My hinges came from Amazon and they did not ship them in a tube this time. At what point does a driver see an 8’ box and decide they can bend it 90 degrees?
I think two of the might be useable.

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Last night it went down to 29 F and the greenhouse went down to 51 F not bad at all.
It was nice to see the auto vent in action today.



The rest of my stainless steel rivets finally came in the mail today.





I finished the other vents today. Just need to add hinges to two of them and seals. Then mount them hopefully tomorrow.

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This is was at 7:30 am on 1/3/16 you can see 32 F outside and 51 F inside the greenhouse that is pretty sweet.

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All the bottom vents are in. I still need to install the auto openers I will not need to use all of them in the winter anyway.

I left a space between them because they do a lot of the venting on the outsides. The auto vent openers can only open them so far.
The openers attach the middle silver brace. All the cross bracing lets you open them from one spot. This will also will help protect them in the wind.



Each vent has about 11 welds and about 50 rivets.

[Xringer]

Wow! That is looking super.. I'll bet when you started this, you never planned on it being
so much work!
The way you are building, it's going to last a very long time, barring earthquake..
Every time I look at this build, I'm just blown away.. Great workmanship!

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Thanks for your kind words.

It has been way more work than I ever imagined. Even on the weekends I go out when the sun comes out and maybe back in when it goes down.

I had old jeans in the closet that I could no longer fit in for a few years. Now those jeans are loose on me. I joke with my wife and call it my greenhouse weight loss program.

I am very pleased on how it is turning out.