[Market-farming] Bench heating in greenhouse

Sharon and Steve shopkins at tdstelme.net
Fri Feb 8 20:13:33 EST 2008


Rachel,
I am having some trouble with details here, just what is it that you are 
trying to do? 4 x 40 sounds like a giant area for just stuff like 
germinating and rooting stuff.

Is the modine a hot air unit or a hot water unit?

If it is hot water, then you will be running a boiler and from that it is 
simple to run fin pipe, bio-therm tubing, or plain old black plastic pipe 
(up to 130 - 140 F water) under or on a bench you want to heat. Pex is 
excellent, but pricy. If you place seedling trays on warm water pipes you 
will find that seed usually comes up first right over pipe and a bit later 
between the pipes.
\
If it is a hot air unit you may want to use the mats for a season till you 
see just how much extra heating you need, you are looking at big bucks to 
put in hot water to heat a bench the size you mentioned.

I used to do a 4 x 16 bench covered and skirted with poly, with a 15 dollar 
electric heater under it for the short season when we needed lots of hot 
space for germinating cukes and melens. Used a line voltage thermostat with 
a probe that could be placed directly  in the dirt.

MAsteveINE










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