Today, a greenhouse or a greenhouse can be found in almost any suburban and personal plot, and this is not homemade from window frames, but quite worthy products from manufacturers made of polycarbonate.
Most often, such structures are advised to be installed on the foundation, which causes some bewilderment by summer residents. Why is this needed? Isn’t it easier to just collect a greenhouse on bare ground without bothering yourself with extra work? Still, in order to make a foundation for a greenhouse with your own hands, you will have to spend some time and money.
Is it necessary to make a foundation for a greenhouse?
Polycarbonate greenhouses have a fairly tangible weight, so their installation requires the mandatory manufacture of the foundation. The fact is that a structure installed directly on the ground is not only subject to corrosion, at least its metal parts, it can also be washed with groundwater or spring floods. And this leads to a warp of the greenhouse and its subsequent destruction.
Another option does not save when the frame of the greenhouse is dug into the ground. Winters in Russia are cold, which leads to deep freezing of the soil, which under the influence of heaving forces simply squeezes the supports of the structure from the ground. Therefore, for a durable and reliable installation of a greenhouse, it is simply necessary to make a foundation for the greenhouse with your own hands, which will firmly fix the structure in a stable position.
What foundation is used for a polycarbonate greenhouse?
How to make a foundation for a greenhouse with your own hands depends, firstly, on the type of soil on which you plan to install a greenhouse. Secondly, on the size, and to a greater extent - on the weight of the greenhouse.
Therefore, first of all, it is worth considering what fundamentals are used in principle for polycarbonate greenhouses, and then choose one of them. For all its dimensions, the greenhouse is not considered to be a particularly heavy and large construction, so it’s still not worth making a solid foundation for a greenhouse with your own hands such as a monolithic one. Although in some cases they use it, but more on that later. Basically, the following types of base are made :
- Point foundation.
- Of prefabricated concrete blocks.
- From a brick.
- From a bar.
- Monolithic base.
These are the most common foundations, which are most often performed as a foundation under the greenhouse with your own hands. Under polycarbonate, a stable and even support is necessary, since this material begins to become cracked during distortions and becomes unusable, and the above bases completely provide the necessary static.
Point foundation
You cannot even call this type of foundation a full-fledged foundation; rather, it is a support for the frame of the greenhouse, but it has every right to use.
The main goal - to give stability to the frame - it performs. Moreover, the material used for the manufacture of columns is selected depending on the weight of the greenhouse: the larger it is, the stronger the material should be. For small greenhouses, scraps of timber are used, for larger overall greenhouses it is better to put concrete blocks.
Such a foundation for a polycarbonate greenhouse with their own hands is made only for use in the summer, as it does not retain heat. Another drawback is that insects, especially pests, do not encounter any obstacle in their path to cultivated plants.
But to make such a foundation can be very simple and fast: blocks or timber, from which low stumps are cut, set in the corners of the greenhouse and along the perimeter every meter. This type of foundation refers to the temporary foundation and when moving the greenhouse is easy to dismantle.
The foundation of wooden beams
The base of the timber is another type of mobile foundation that is easy to disassemble, as a result of which the structure is easy to rearrange to another site. Therefore, they make a foundation from a timber under a polycarbonate greenhouse with their own hands if a permanent place for the structure has not yet been selected, and it will most likely be transferred. In addition, the base is very inexpensive, and installation takes no more than one day.
In addition, the tree provides the right microclimate in the greenhouse due to its ability to well absorb excess moisture from the air, and, if necessary, to give it away.
One of the disadvantages of using such a base is its fragility, since even a tree treated with an antiseptic and a water-repellent agent is destroyed. For the manufacture of such a base, as a rule, a bar 10x10 cm in size is used.
How to make a frame from a wooden bar?
Before installing the foundation under the greenhouse with your own hands, under the polycarbonate, you must carefully level the surface of the site. To do this, remove the topsoil, level the site and break a small ditch 10 cm deep and 20 cm wide around the perimeter. It’s good if the greenhouse is already acquired and you know its size, otherwise it's time to determine the appearance of the greenhouse.
At the bottom of the trench, a pillow of crushed stone is poured, which will drain excess water, or lay a layer of waterproofing. They knock together a frame from a bar, be sure to check the perpendicularity of the corners and the horizontal surface. Corners reinforce with a building corner.
The fabricated frame is treated with an antiseptic and lowered into a trench, the free space is covered with soil.
A similar foundation for a greenhouse made of timber with your own hands can be made of a smaller material, for example, bars 50x50 mm or boards 50x150 mm, if the structure has not very large dimensions.
Concrete block base
This type of foundation is more thorough and provides good waterproofing of the structure, which is very important to maintain optimal humidity in the greenhouse.
Therefore, the best option would be to make such a foundation for a greenhouse with your own hands on damp areas of land, on peat or marshy soils.
First of all, it is necessary to mark the plot of land on which the greenhouse will be installed. To do this, we level the selected territory and mark the perimeter of the structure with pegs and a rope.
Block Installation
After marking, it is necessary to dig a ditch 25 cm wide and 30-40 cm deep under the future foundation so that the marking cord runs exactly in the middle. At the bottom of the trench lay a drainage bed of crushed stone and sand 10 cm high, which is carefully tamped. To do this, the top layer of sand is spilled with water, and tamping takes place in a natural way.
Concrete mortar is started and half poured into a ditch. Concrete blocks are laid around the perimeter, which are necessarily leveled. Separate blocks are placed strictly in the corners. The remaining concrete is poured on top and smoothed with a spatula.
It’s quite possible to make such a strip foundation under the greenhouse with your own hands in a few hours, and you can install a greenhouse in 2-3 days.
Concrete Tape Base
Another option for how to make a foundation for a greenhouse with your own hands in the form of a tape is to make it from concrete. At the same time, reinforcement in the form of metal rods is laid to reinforce the structure during casting.
If the soil is dense and not prone to shedding, concrete mortar can be poured directly into the ditch. In the case of loose and loose soil in the prepared trench, it is necessary to install the formwork from the boards. It is not difficult to assemble the device, the main thing is to observe the verticality of the walls. The size of the formwork depends on the height of the planned foundation: if it is planned to be raised above the surface of the earth, then the walls of the formwork must also be mounted at this height.
Concrete is poured into the formwork. If the prepared solution is not enough for simultaneous pouring, it is poured in layers. At the same time, try to lay concrete as evenly as possible, as this will extend the life of the foundation. The last layer must be aligned with a spatula.
Concrete-brick foundation
With proper manufacture, this type of foundation in terms of strength characteristics is second only to a reinforced concrete base. At the same time, brick has the same properties as wood, it absorbs moisture well, and this guarantees an optimal microclimate for plants.
On the other hand, this material is quite expensive and it is advisable to make a foundation of fired brick only if it is possible to purchase such products inexpensively.
To do this, make a concrete tape flush with the surface of the earth, as discussed above. When pouring, they put anchors or pieces of metal reinforcement around the entire perimeter and wait for the concrete to set. After about a week, a brick can be laid on the tape, while the reinforcement should be inside the masonry joints.
Monolithic foundation
Another type of foundation can be poured from concrete, which, as a rule, is used to install large greenhouses, glass greenhouses or if the soil on the site has increased heaving. This option is used only in exceptional cases, since making a foundation for a polycarbonate greenhouse with your own hands in the form of a monolithic base is a rather expensive undertaking both in time and in money.
Preparation of the site for pouring is the same as for any other base. It is cleaned of the upper fertile soil layer, after which a foundation pit is excavated under the foundation at a depth of 30-40 cm, which is covered with geotextiles or any other waterproofing. If the soil contains a lot of water, you can make a small drainage system from trenches covered with pieces of roofing material, or lay out the drain pipes.
Pouring concrete
Formwork is made of boards and a layer of crushed stone and sand is poured into the pit with a total height of 10 cm with mandatory pouring for tamping. A reinforcing sheaf is laid into the formwork and poured with concrete. If necessary, reinforcing bars or anchors are inserted to secure the frame to the base.
To establish a greenhouse on such a foundation is possible only after the concrete has completely dried up, which can last 21-28 days. Moreover, all the time, while the solution sets, its surface must be periodically wetted to avoid the appearance of cracks and violation of the integrity of the base.
Although such a foundation requires a lot of labor and considerable cash costs, its service life, which is about 50 years, more than compensates for everything.
In addition to these basic types of foundations, several more types of bases are used, for example, from a metal profile or on screw piles. Some craftsmen combine the above installation methods, and particularly inventive individuals can make a foundation for a greenhouse with their own hands from improvised material, for example, from glass bottles.
What foundation to use for a glass greenhouse?
Separately, it is worth mentioning the glasshouse made of glass, which is also often used in summer cottages. Due to its characteristics, this building is much more demanding both in terms of stability and protection against damage. Therefore, the foundation for a greenhouse of glass with their own hands is made mainly in the form of a concrete monolithic or strip base. Unlike the foundation for a polycarbonate greenhouse, the base for a glass structure needs to be deepened to the level of freezing of the earth.
If the greenhouse is small, it is permissible to use a metal or spot foundation. However, such a base will not provide sufficient thermal insulation, so the heat consumption in the greenhouse will increase. At the same time, it is not worth making a base from a wooden beam, and even more so planks, for a glass greenhouse, since a tree will not provide sufficient immobility of a structure.
From all of the above, we can conclude: how long it will last will depend on how much you make the right choice of foundation for your greenhouse.