My husband found a wood stove that he wants to install our greenhouse

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Guest

Post by Guest »

His idea is to keep the gas stove as a backup (so that if the wood stove burns out at night, the gas one can turn on.) Overkill?

I told him i’d ask about it on here, since folks much more greenhouse knowledgeable than myself have seen it all.

Thanks!
Adam

Post by Adam »

I have 4 -24x50 double layered greenhouse, all have double barrel wood stoves,(we have propane backup) I have fans up top and then a fan close to the stove blowing on the stove to move air around. My plants are close, like 4 ft away from the stove. No issues what's so ever.. and I grow a good mixture of plants..

I grow retail, so my plants need to be healthy and looking good.. I'll try and find a picture of the inside to give you an idea of how full and close my plants are... 🙂

Oh, I do have a 12x 20 wood greenhouse that I tried to heat with wood.. didn't work out, got way to hot... so I just turned that into my chemical house..
Chris

Post by Chris »

The off-gasses produced by a wood stove can stress the plants out. I would keep an eye out for unexplainable signs of diminished growth/death/etc.
Jill

Post by Jill »

Just a thought.... would a pellet stove work better than wood stove for regulating temperature?
Al Grust

Post by Al Grust »

The only thing to be careful of is overheating the house and have the fans kick on and suck the hot smoke through the greenhouse I can tell you first hand the plants will not be happy ugh
Mark

Post by Mark »

Nothing is overkill when it comes to keeping something alive. I had electric heaters in our shed, but now have propane because the electric one doesn't come back on after a power outage, but the propane one is always on.
Sam

Post by Sam »

My parents live in northern MN and ended up using their backup old timey wood cook stove since the furnace went out. If it gets very cold where you live, a backup heat source is always a good idea!
Donna

Post by Donna »

We use wood heat only to heat the house. Best heat in the world BUT you can't regulate the heat. You can burn up in one room and freeze in another. It's messy not to mention all the work that goes into it. We have a couple of small wood stoves here and there and thought about putting one in the GH. That lasted about 5 minutes. During really bad weather we make a small fire in the workshop, the outdoor fireplace and of course in the house. Didn't want another stove to keep up with. Glad it works for some and when I recieve the first electric bill I may have wished I had. I just didn't know how I would keep a good temp going and not burn everything up.
Dallas

Post by Dallas »

Always a good idea to have redundancy. Fires absolutely can go out, electricity can go out, gas can run out. So your husband's plan is a very sound one. I personally heat with electric but have a backup propane heater set slightly below my electric thermostat setting. So if the electric fails the propane will kick on. I typically don't need it, but if you don't have it and need it it's too late....
Greg

Post by Greg »

If you've got time to manually take care of that everyday and you have a good wood supply I think it's great idea. But I would do it the opposite way turn the gas powered heater with a thermostat into the primary and of things don't go well or you run out of fuel then use the wood stove as a backup.
Roy

Post by Roy »

Great idea, add mass to the stove.
Harold

Post by Harold »

Can you elaborate on the sheet metal that you have the chimneys going through on the roof. Are they custom made? What kind of material are they made from?

I’m contemplating a Williams direct vent propane wall mounted heater. My greenhouse is all glass so I’ll have to find something to replace the glass.
Jeremy

Post by Jeremy »

If you have 2 generators, in an emergency, you can count on 1.

In our 1st greenhouse, we have a propane heater (radiant for when we want to be in there on really cold days), electric oil heaters, and we can draft air from our house system by opening the windows. In the house we have a wood stove and full electric heat pump system.

And we vent our dryer into our greenhouse.

I don’t think that’s overkill, but consider the source;)
Judith

Post by Judith »

A big, dense pile of covered leaves outside, on the north side of the GH will create heat in the pile. If you leave a wire mesh opening into the GH, the heat will transfer into the GH. There are videos on this technique. It is quite effective. Then, next spring, you can start turning the pile to make potting soil.
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