If you want a more detailed view of the Climate Battery system we have under the greenhouse, watch this: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/sNhyZ7N2zZnXimQ.html

Thanks for the honest and objective report. It's surprising how many folks can't seem to do that on you tube

You might consider using low tunnels over your vegetables inside the greenhouse for a double layer of insulation. We've used barrels of water for thermal mass and it works pretty good, although if it gets below 0*F I still loose my plants. Thanks for sharing your experience, Nathalie.

Have you thought about using sand batteries? Solar panels power DC heating elements directly [no inverters or batteries required]. The elements are embedded within a large container[s] of sand. The sand will heat up during the day and solar panels will work sufficiently during grey / overcast days too. Use copper rods to help direct the heat to the top surface of the sand. Use a fan over the surface of the sand container to extract the stored heat and help maintain enough temperature in the greenhouse during the night...

I kept a small plastic and metal frame greenhouse in the Spokane, WA area for my lemon and orange trees. I used 3 50-gallon water barrels in 3 of the corners and straw bails along the edges, as temperatures dropped, I hung lanters with candles to help on the really cold nights. No, they were not the happiest trees. They made it, though. The water barrels also help keep the greenhouse from blowing away in the 50+ mile an hour winds. Packing straw, or mulch, leafs around beds, pot, etc. help hold the heat, keeping the roots warm. Watering lightly when the sun is out helps the plants, too.

We have 2 months with little or no sun in Northern BC so we have a wood stove and we did a much deeper hole to put the piping through (8' down for the first layer and 6" deep for the second.) We insulated the sides of the hole so the frost can't move in. I also use some of the foil insulation on the non sun side of the greenhouse as the insulation is a better choice for the colder months. We dig down were the pathways are and put the compost there ( to fit the huge amount of material that is needed to add any real heat to a larger greenhouse). We have an earth berm 4 feet high on the colder side of the greenhouse.

Tomato's are perennials so you can grow them in a pot, in ground, and bring them indoors for a few months, into your house/heated greenhouse so that you don't have to 'start new tomato's' next year. If you care for them and keep them from freezing (peppers too) they will provide food for you for years like they do for people in warmer climates. This is especially useful for hybrids which go off the market when they are not fashionable any longer. If you didn't want to do that you can always take cuttings and bring them into a heated environment and that way you never have to start new tomato's again, but they wont take up as much space. You will save a lot of time and money if you treat them as perennials.

Nice greenhouse. Thanks.

I live in Qc zone 5, I put a 100 feet a heat cable for roof in the first 4 inches in the soil in my small greenhouse with a thermostat set at 4C Keep the soil warm

wow beautiful greenhouse system!!

As @TheOldMayfieldPlace mentioned, you could try using a lower tunnel for your plants, but I might consider lowering the overall head room in the greenhouse during the winter in addition to your idea of using the active compost piles to generate heat. The lowered head room should resuce the space you need to heat.

you could also think about a smaller greenhouse inside the greenhouse for some "special guests" and only heat that. it doesn't have to be insulated just a smaller volume of air that cannot move far (especially not to the wall/ceiling of the large greenhouse). If you combine this idea with the woodchip/compost pile idea you will find some good benefits.

Too bad that not more design principles of passive solar GH design are incorporated. Some suggested tweaks: replace woodchips with pavers along with lots of stored water as thermal mass and if the GH is east west oriented, insulate the nortern wall and roof extra, maybe even some insulating reflective foil on the northern inside. Hope this helps

I am highly impressed by the greenhouse frame. One adjustment I would install is the addition of more twinwall on the interior. Starting with the bottom purlin I would cover the next two purlins with twinwall on the inside. This would not restrict solar gain to any degree. It would give you the additional insulation from the twinwall, and also give you the additional insulation of the airspace between the interior and exterior twinwall. I would install several ceiling fans on thermostats for winter use. These would circulate the higher air temperatures at the top of the greenhouse when you do have sunshine. This would help augment the radiant heat you receive from the sun. Having gone thru multiple winters here in Florida I have much greater respect for how high the heat loss can be in our own greenhouses, even with supplemental heat.

Long comment ahead: For those wondering about whether this can be made to work in cold climates, it can. It's an engineering and physics problem. The greenhouse is going to have a certain amount of volume you want to keep filled with air at or above a certain temperature. That air will be separated only by the plastic sheet or sheets from the outside air. So you need to calculate for the minimum outside temperature, adjust for expected losses from the contact with the plastic, air leaks etc, and then build the pipe network underground at a size large enough to accommodate the heat transfer you'll need for the volume of the greenhouse above. You may need to move a huge amount of air to keep it warmed to the ground temperature, but if your underground pipe/heat exchangers were designed correctly for the soil type, it'll work and your greenhouse will remain the same temperature as underground. You also need to determine the depth of the tubes carefully - not only does it change how much warmth you have access to (maximum soil temperature at depth) but it also changes when you have access to the warmest air. The deeper you go the more out of phase the ground temperature gets with the current seasonal air temperatures. the ideal depth gets you the maximum heating for the season you need it in the most. A final thought is that if you have a well developed solar energy system on your property, you could lay traditional geothermal pipes (liquid) and use a heat pump in your greenhouse. Heat pumps do really well in cold weather when their heat source is the ground rather than the air. with the solar, you'd have greenhouse heat for very minimal expense after the up front costs. Geothermal makes a lot of sense if you're doing the work to install it yourself or it's being subsidized and not costing you anything. It's got very high initial costs otherwise; financing it can be a difficult decision

It’s kinda motivating to see people who are not geothermal engineers give this a go. Seems decent and I’m sure you will work the kinks out and build a better one eventually

Very informative video. To help with storing more thermal mass for longer, and given your rather shallow depth at which the pipes were run, foam insulation around the perimeter of the hole and pool liner filled with rounded gravel mixed with sand (other than sand, gravel retains much heat too) and then filled with water would have helped sustain the heat for longer. This is what a geothermal engineer from Alaska shared with me. I've lived in Buffalo, NY. I know how biting the cold (and more importantly, the wind) can be. Three feet is a bit too shallow, so I'd do anything to help insulate against heat loss (foam board to line the walls and entire bottom surface), and water is an even better store of energy. David Poz (name of KZfaq creator, possibly also name of his channel) created a similar set up but heated it using solar thermal. The "battery" was above ground under his house, inside a crawl space, but the results were quite respectable. Hope this helps.

Make biochar in the winter. Geothermal heat pumps are also cool.

Thanks for sharing your trials and tribulations with this greenhouse. This past winter in southern Ontario was the darkest most dreary in my memory. I think we went two months without sunshine! Plus that intense blizzard with hurricane force winds that lasted two days. I have no memory of ever experiencing such an event. These are all things that must be thought about when deciding to build a greenhouse in our part of the world where sunshine in winter can be all too infrequent for passive solar design to work to its maximum potential. Add to that the frequent power outages that occur these days due to more frequent wind events and there's more to consider for geothermal design which depends on electricity to function.

Wow. Would have liked to seen more of the thermal battery system. We have several large high tunnel here in NW Iowa but I'm going to experiment on a smaller unit first. Sorry to hear it didn't work out last season.

Direction - north side is kind of useless through the year and dissipates too much heat. It is a good idea to insulate that one. Thicker polycarbonate (16 mm if possible) makes huge difference. Internal double layer insulation (e.g. plastic sheet or bubble sheets with larger bubbles) helps a lot. Insulation of ground around the greenhouse helps as well either on ground or inside the ground (to below freezing depth). Cold frames around/above sensitive plants. Maybe even double-layer ones. Find any air leaks and fix them well. Pay attention to ammonium release when establishing large(r) compost heaps in greenhouse, it may be possible to get rid of all the plants in the greenhouse.

Have you considered an air lock section of each end of your tunnel? This could/should minimize the cold getting in from there. Thanks for this update. Good to hear what you have experienced.

Good update. Have you checked out Edible Acres? They are close to you in NY and use low tunnels and compost systems in simple polytunnels to keep plants going.

"Small rectangular storage tanks like shown in the video are okay, but it’s small and won’t hold much volume or heat. Larger tanks are much easier to build if round - the walls can be much thinner. I did a lot of backpacking hot tubs by joining 2-foot wide panels of 1-inch plywood and then lining it all with 10-mil poly sheeting. The decagon or dodecagon of panels was close enough to a circle that there wasn’t much blowing-out of the panels. But at some point, just purchase a new or used 1000-gallon HDPE tank and spend your time and effort on the piping, pumps and heat exchanger. The very cheapest large tanks I’ve ever done requires a back hoe or excavator. Dig a hole in the ground, place poly-iso “blueboard” down as insulation, than your 50-mil poly lining (like my 14,000-gallon garden pond), your HX coils and pump intakes, and then backfill with pea gravel. You only get 35%-40% of that volume as water storage, but you do get the mass of the rocks as part of your thermal storage and you can use the space on top of it as parking, lawn, playground, or even a structure (if an engineer buys into it or you’re outside of code enforcement areas). When you create 10,000 to 100,000 gallons of water storage, you now have enough thermal storage to shift seasonally from fall into winter (or to carry cold storage from winter into summer)." - David Thomas, an engineer from Alaska on Quora HX = heat exchanger The video does not refer to your video but to the David Poz video I mentioned in my other comment.

Thanks

Sadly, I've seen more abandoned greenhouse efforts, in Canada, than successful ones. Victoria would be an exception. 👍😎🇨🇦

Hi Adrian here from the not-so-sunny UK lol I have made big Hot beds With fresh Horse manure In my polytunnel for keeping plants Warm through the winter one thing I can say its a lot of work if you have to do it by hand and it Gifts off a lot of moisture That may not be a good thing in winter. I found your Video as I am thinking of doing something under my small glass greenhouse 8f by 8 feet where I plan to add some heat in the spring and late winter for starting cuttings or seedlings in some sand Heated beds. We don't get winter's like you do here in the UK but seeing all the plants you still had Growing in your greenhouse with no heat I think that's Still impressive. You Will Never Grow tomatoes in winter Unless you have loads of heat. The fresh Horse manure works but only for the plants on top the rest of the polytunnel still gets cold just not as cold as it is outside. Another thing to add Having some air movement in winter is a good thing in a polytunnel as cold Sit down close to the floor so Moving the air can still be beneficial Even in Winter.

You need a double wall with air gap in between for insulation and also a thermal blanket for the night. This blanket is on a motor actuated roller and operates within the double wall. China sells this system. They use these to produce veggies in Northern China where the climate is similar to Alberta Canada. Short growing season and extreme freezing temps during the long winters.

Rather than setting up a compost bin at each end of the greenhouse, how about placing each bin a quarter of the length from either end? Secondly, some battery electric vehicles employ heat pumps. These put out more heat than the energy required to run them. Would such a system work in your part of the world? I'm thinking more in terms of shaping the temperature curve on the colder nights, rather than heating all through the winter.

"30% Federal renewable energy (ITC) tax credits have been around for years. The recent IRA reaffirmed them. Then the USDA increased its grant level from 25% to 40-50% of total cost for documented rural locations - clear for rural farms, businesses and non-profits, harder but possible for residences. USDA are additive to the 30% credits. so up to 80% of total cost paid via incentives. In addition to AC, Geothermal also heats water, another $600/year expense. For digable rural addresses, hard to beat." - a comment on Quora.

Watch LDS prepper. Great videos. The more successful users seem to utilize rock underground, not soil.

thermal battery and geo thermal are different in that thermal battery is capturing thermal mass to store and release where as geo thermal is tapping into the natural static heat content of the Earth. So in climates up north where not enough sunlight is available to heat the thermal battery Geothermal would work better. Shouldn't need anything more than running the pipes deeper but you will not get anymore than 55 degrees unless using a heatpump to harvest and concentrate the heat content which would require running water loops in the ground and buying the equipment. If it didn't get more than 55 degrees in the GH it sounds like it was doing fine and perhaps turning off the fans caused those plants nearest the edge to freeze.

I haven't yet had the opportunity to make something like this happen... but I've been doing a lot of research because I live in Alaska and our season is so very short as well! So take this for what it's worth.... simple research with no practical application... yet 😉 It's entirely possible I missed it... but I didn't hear what direction your greenhouse is. If you have the length of the greenhouse facing the south side, that is best. Also If you get thermal mass on the north side, that would help as well. Obviously with a curved greenhouse... burying the north side might not be an option you really want to do... although there would be ways to do it. Another way to retain heat... I'm not seeing evidence of or hearing mention of curtains being used to retain the heat. I've seen people use curtains at night after the sun goes down to hold in the heat. Here is a video of a guy using Solex... or something like that for his roof. I think this disperses the sunlight better than other materials commonly used for greenhouses. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/b9CSf72p3L3ZlJ8.htmlsi=AUnZWdIDati1pCas He is also doing what you are trying to do. The other idea I had was for a rocket mass stove. It's a rocket heater that feeds into a piping system within a wall or a floor. You could create a coupe of benches attached to the rocket mass heater... and that would then release warmth into the greenhouse overnight. This would take up less space than compost. Also... I was considering compost for heating an area... but when I realized I would have to go out and turn it every other day or so ... at least once a week, to keep the heat happening... I decided it was too much maintenance. The rocket mass heater is also some maintenance ... but quite a bit less. It also provides a place where seeds that like warmth can germinate in the prep for spring starts... at least I would guess so... because the benches would radiate warmth. Good luck in your adventure! Keep reaching! Keep learning! Love the idea about the compost in there!

I have seen some people put chickens into the greenhouse for the winter.

An Earth battery works by pumping the heated air from June thru August deep into the ground under your greenhouse. This, heat then slowly migrates back to the surface over a 6 month period. You can't rely on December sun to provide heat for the following months.

So make a greenhouse in your green house ?? Keep all of your frost hardy plants at the cold ends of the green house ? Now all of your frost hardy plants need to be put into clutches that's them safe for the winter with no extra heat needed ? Next add a temporary frame to each end to stop the cold air coming in ?use a blanket for the door in this frame ? putting the less sturdy but not winter safe plants in the middle ? t Then build another frame to engulf them ? Ths cuts down on the need to heat the whole space ? Then direct any heat into this area only ? This is as simple as making a square frame to fit well bellow the top of your dome,but high enough to walk through and hen one foot from the outside tunnel walls on both sides to add more insulation from the cold outside air ? Now the air temperature in this inner greenhouse should be much easier to keep hot and much cheaper if you do need a small frost thermostat heater in it ? but by doing just this and making it easy to put in and take out it should stop any frost cold laden air from getting in ? Could be made with inch and a half plastic waste pues with custom fit 90% bends and three way junctions ? don't glue all the 90 % bends at both ends so easy to pull apart ?glue only the cross end peaces the down peaces go onto the upright poles so each section is an upside down u ? to stabilise put the three way connectors about a foot to six inches down to join the u shapes together and make the form safer ? If the roof poles are not strong enough zip tye two together but fix only one to the down pole if you want to make it even more sturdy about one foot up repeat the connections for the top with the three way connectors or use a rope to loop the pole bases together ? et

A friend of mine was involved in building all season green houses for grow operations and they would do a double tunnel with there being a 4 ft Air gap between the Inner and outer tunnel. That allowed year round growing capability.

A Pit Greenhouse will stay warmer. Bury the frame a meter or four feet.

That greenhouse is a beast! Did you build/design it yourselves, or is this something you can buy from a company?

Interesting information. I always was concerned about climate battery growing mold inside the tube. Have you a method to protect from that happening.

Do you have a second layer of plastic? I've seen video's of this with great results in extreme conditions.

I am new on this, didn't built my own yet, still studying the matter. And Correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn't be running 24/7 the fans on the climate battery? During the summer to cool down the air and during the winter to get the heat from underground.

Insulate the north, east and west walls. Is your poly double with a fan?

Bio digeter would be a good idea

I am building a micro geothermal in Vancouver where frost line is 18" I get 14c ground temp at 5 feet down. Full of citrus. A diesel heater can run on vegi oil mix. What depth are your hoses at? ground temp?

I haven't seen the (full) video of the installation of the climate battery, nor have I built one myself, but 3 feet doesn't seem very deep - are you sure you are below the frost depth (is that what's it called in English? I.e the depth of the soil that will be frozen in winter) Also curious whether you have measured the temperature on the air coming from the climate battery when the air inside the Greenhouse froze? If the air coming from the battery is close to freezing then you wouldn't be able to heat much with it :( I fear you're right about the amount of sunshine & being too far north, which might mean that you have to rely (more) on the "default" temperature of the soil and not so much of the (added) climate battery (i.e it is not the heat from the summer sun, nor the heat from the winter sun, that will help, but the "default" heat from the ground - hope that made sense). Most (all?) of the climate batteries I have seen on youtube are further south

I have a dream to one day have a geothermal heat battery greenhouse that has a large aquaponics system that is also heated with a "solar thermodynamic hot water system". I want to grow exotic tropical fruit trees in the Pacific Northwest. A "solar thermodynamic hot water system" continues to work 24/7 even at temperatures as low as -10 degrees Celsius.

I wonder what would happen if you made a concrete trough adjacent to the greenhouse and filled it full of manure and other organic matter and ran pipes through the center of it. The heat generated by the compost would surely heat the greenhouse as well at night. We have sheep and every spring there is a huge pile of manure and straw that would fill a large trough.

Arkopia youtube channel is up in Canalda and grows bananas. His greenhouse is built differently but maybe you could get some ideas from him.

The metal structure of the green house looks great. Where did you buy that? Also be careful bringing the compost pile into the greenhouse. It attracts rats and they will eat your garden. I saw a guy that put the compost pile outside but ran black pipe in circles in the compost . He connected the line into green house with tiny fans. When the pile heats up it heats the plumbing and you got heat. cool idea.

Love the greenhouse frame, it has to be very expensive

Maybe an extra layer of plastic film would serve as better insulation. I've seen videos which claim that painting things black increases heat absorbsion. An infrared camera might help air leaks.

I notice other than the greenhouse structure itself, I don't see any type of solar heat collection. Just off the cuff I'm thinking maybe running several lengths of ductwork lengthwise of the greenhouse, like 6" or 8" painted black and pipe the heat underground like you're doing. This doesn't need to interfere with the light normally passing through exterior, ductwork could be a foot or so from exterior. Anyway, just my thoughts, hope this helps.

I’ve been wondering if anyone has used a rocket stove thermal mass stove through a four foot wide three foot high garden bed inside a greenhouse.

would be helpful to know the actual temperatures inside

Have you noticed how the 'hundred year storms' happen every year now?

Interesting video. I'm just wondering why you're not using any passive solar techniques? I mean it's too late to build a full passive solar greenhouse (where the north wall is insulated and the greenhouse is just an arc coming off it. But you could do what most people do, which is to put some large black barrels of water. So they are heated by the sun in the day, and then they stabilize the temperature at nights. I am in Italy though, so I've no real experience with super cold temperatures, but I know in China they use solar heating for almost all their large scale industrial greenhouses.

Build green house inside green house

obviously wrap frame in plastic sheet ? i forgot to write that lol !

If you have a Compost Heap of any size going, you can run water though some Copper (or other) tubing in the pile to collect the heat of decomposition. It's surprising how much heat even a small heap can generate.

You did not use the geothermal correctly. You can’t “store” warm air like that. The air will always become the same as the ground temperature. Bury the pipes deep in the ground and trench it out far away from the greenhouse. The outside air gets pulled underground where it absorbs some of the heat from the underground stable temperature. The idea about the water storing heat can also work.

Sand battery, and stack black trash cans on northern wall filled with water or sand.

A deizel heater would help.

Would love to see a geothermal greenhouse operator actually record indoor, outdoor and thermal battery temperatures continuously over at least a couple of months to actually measure real world performance. I have noticed that it is always anecdotal reporting but not at all scientifically precise. Makes me skeptical. And then there are the freeze ups and the crop losses.

I would put in a wood burning stove.

Maybe an airlock for the door into the greenhouse?

If it’s to cold go deeper.

The cost of that greenhouse and the plants you are growing in it, more money than sense...

Which type of greenhouse or brand? Really like it.