Can you Heat a Greenhouse with a Wood Stove?

[Tim]

Hello, I'm looking into building a greenhouse and I've been scoping out all of the different aspects of such an undertaking.

Being in zone 5, heating seems to be the biggest set back. Natural gas is possible, but I was wondering if anyone has experience with or uses a wood stove to heat their greenhouse? Does this form of combustion produce substantial heat? Would it be a worth using in combination with natural gas?

If anyone has any advice or suggestions, they are very welcome! :

Thanks, Tim.

[Gin]

I use an outside wood burner we built, it's a barrel with a metal shell that traps the heat which is ducted into the green house it has a thermostat that turns on a blower, being outside there is no smoke in the green house . There is a gas heater on a mechanical thermostat set to come on if the wood burns out ,the wood burner is mainly supplemental .
Problem is regulating the Temps. with a wood burner that is used alone..

[Tim]

Hey Gin thanks for the info. Yeah I can see the fluctuations being a problem, hmmm. Do you think it puts out a substantial amount of heat? I mean, does it put a good dent into the greenhouse, so you don't have to use your gas heater as much?

[cowboy51278]

Hey Tim. I'm just south of Rochester. I put up a 14x24' greenhouse last summer. The greenhouse itself is a double wall polycarbonate and I put an inflatable poly bubble over that to reduce the heat loss. I heat with natural gas and as cold as it got here in western NY last summer I only spent about $500 on heating costs for last winter. Let me know if you would like to visit my set up or chat about ways to save yourself some money on heating and cooling............Paul

[johnblagg]

many commercial green houses are heated with wood ...a good wood stove desinged for oudoor placement can be fired once or twice a day and has thermostatic controll as well

[Gin]

Cowboy can you explain the inflatable poly bubble ? is it like what they use on inflatable greenhouses ?

Tim it helps reduce the load on the propane heater .

If I remember right the greenhouse down the highway has or had a wood burner in the greenhouse .

[Tim]

Yeah is it sealed to the polycarbonate or something? It sounds like combining gas and wood is the way to go

Thanks Paul, I'd love to visit sometime, although I don't know when b/c of school. I've been wanting to join a local society, do you attend the Genesee Meetings aften? Are they informative?

[cowboy51278]

Hey Tim, I not only attend the Genesee Region meetings, I'm the President of the Society. You should come out to one of our meetings. Next month we are having Bill Thoms come up from Fl. to talk on Bulbos. There are also a number of fantastic local greenhouses to visit out here if you want to make a day of it. I reccomend to learn as much as you can from other gh growers before you take on your gh.

Gin, its simple. My greenhouse has the double wall polycarbonate. I set a track used for the polyethelene down the sides and up the eves of both ends. I layed out one layer of the poly and hooked up an inflation motor and then topped that off with a second layer of the poly. Locked both layers down into the channels using wiggle wire and turned on the motor. Very simple and VERY effective in reducing heat loss. I can take some pictures for you if you want.

[Gin]

Thanks You Paul , think I get it now, good idea , my greenhouse is a wood frame guess it would still work? .. Thanks again ..

[johnblagg]

One question here do you use air directly from outside to inflate?