My lovely bride has expressed displeasure at our back porch being filled with green cherry, black walnut, ash, and locust covered in those ugly blue tarps is how she puts it. I told her that I didn't have anywhere else to put it. I think she is missing her chats with lady friends out there.
Well, that might have changed. My buddy Josh, a retired veteran too, He collects scrap for extra money, found a polycarbonate green house that someone was throwing away because one of the lower sidewalls got smashed. He thought that I might be able use it and/or repair it. He has heard my wife say that she wants a green house. I think I might be able to turn it into a solar kiln for use now and later the wife can use it as a greenhouse in the early spring. Then I can turn it back into a kiln for the summer and fall. Kind of double duty and I can say that it is a greenhouse for her.
My plan is to attach it on the South side of my reffer shipping container. We have all the frame pieces of the greenhouse and they measure about 18 feet long by 8 feet wide when I put the two halves side by side or is it end to end. It is about 7' at the roof peak, With planned floor it will line up with the top of the shipping container. It is 24" between all the frame pieces except the door pieces. There is a 30" door in each end. The frames are made from steel painted black.
I was thinking of a 2x4 24":OC frame attached to the side of the shipping container then some sheet material for the back wall. I was going to insulate this with the pink stuff. Then attach the two greenhouse halves at each stud with a screw thru the frame. I have some deck piers blocks leftover from placing the shipping container so we can build a 2x6 floor 12" OC to get the lumber up off the ground. I would like to do 24"OC but don't think that the span would support the wood pile. I was thinking just laying down shipping pallets over the floor frame for the floor I was going to put a sheet of 6mil plastic over the frame as a moisture barrier. I have quite a pile of AC2 pressure treated lumber from dumpster retrieval at construction sites.
Josh pointed out that I don't need more material to cover the busted out part I can use the material from the two inside ends to fill in the missing poly. That way we can get through the whole structure not just the small door in the middle.
It has two solar powered fans, one on each end. I was going to remove them and fill in the openings. I figure if I put them on the frame pieces in the center of the greenhouse in the sun that they would move the air around inside the kiln.
To help hold the heat in we are going to cover the back wall with foil backed rigid foam to reflect the heat back at the lumber stack that I want to dry not transferring the heat to the lumber stored in the shipping container. This insulation had been on the walls of my shop but they took it out when they filled the blocks with foam. It 4" thick and is R-26. I was going to cover the floor frame with 6 mil plastic under the pallets to keep moisture from coming in from the ground. I don't think that I need any vents that enough air will get in and out by my sloppy construction. I do have some leftover black interior trim paint that I could paint the floor black with it or is the black plastic sheeting enough.
It was a pretty nicely built green house. Even after being tossed into the bed of a pickup and hauled around the door works just fine. All the panels are double layered polycarbonate and sealed. It has roof windows but I don't plan on using them.
So now the question that I have are these...
Will a solar kiln work over the winter in IL or should I wait until spring to set it up?
How much of a air gap do I need to leave around the lumber stack?
Is there a limit on how high we stack the lumber? I plan on using 1" stick to space the lumber in two separate piles in one in each green house half. The longer lumber will have to go into both halves. I don't know if it is today's rainy weather or what but when I checked with the moisture meter the green stuff was 38-46%.
I have more umber on the back porch than will fit, is there a way of condensing it? My stack on the back porch is 13'x36-38'x6-8'. It is about half cherry, a quarter black walnut, and the rest locust, ash, and maple. The pieces are about 9/4 to some 12/4 with the bark still on them.
Also anyone ever painted a shipping container? I am told that we are painting it TARDIS blue. I thought that I could powerwash it then attack it with the Wagner Power Sprayer. Sound doable or think again?
Josh wants to trade for me putting a SSD drive into his old laptop. I told him that I would put the drive in for nothing. The drive is a 40GB that I had been using for LAN gaming. He has also offered to help with greenhouse/kiln if I feed him, He said that it would be more fun than channel surfing.
IF I can figure the details out, we will start on Thursday. Today is my birthday and I have a parade to march in.
I also posted this over at wood talk sorry if double post...
Thank you for your advice,,,,