Green Houses and Wooden Eaves-troughs

Planting isn't the only thing happening. An extension for the green house is taking shape, 8' X 15' in size. This makes the green house look like an Ontario house. Same basic pattern as our home. Main frame is mostly done and the door is rough framed. That leaves the roof tree and rafters, windows for walls, plastic for the roof and sand on the floor. Shelves, dirt tub and water barrel inside, fed from the eaves-trough (Margaret's brilliant idea).

I made the base out of rail road ties and half lapped the joints which were tarred to protect against the rain and damp.

The eaves-trough will be made of wood and sealed against leaks, down-spouts are old metal ones. There is already one on the old part of the green house and I watched it today during our downpour. Water was coming out of the spout in a three finger wide stream at one point. The rain barrel was 80 - 90% full after wards. I was amazed at the collection rate. This bodes well for the rest of the green house roof. We'll need more barrels to catch it in.

I want to experiment with wooden down-spouts as well, something I have yet to do to my satisfaction. I have made two different eaves-troughs, one with a square cross section and one with a triangular cross section. The triangular one uses less material and has just one seam to seal whilst the square one has two seams and uses 33% more material.

I like the triangular one better, mostly because I can vary the size I need more readily that the square type. I was just thinking aloud and asked Margaret what she thought of the idea of making our own eaves-troughs for the house as well. That's my girl, she's game if I am. Love her to bits I do.

That's all for now, until next time take care

Margaret and Ken