Tuesday was a poor day weather wise. We did have a few sunny intervals but it was windy with plenty of short showers. Wednesday was much better with some sunny spells, a bit breezy but dry. It was time to repair our greenhouse windows.
All winter our home greenhouse has needed some replacement glass. Some glass was damaged by winter gales, some by last summer’s apples falling through the glass and some well it just sort of fell out through old age. That was the case with the glass in this window which has had a temporary piece of plywood over for many months now.
Once all the temporary pieces of timber had been removed it revealed areas of the greenhouse which had escaped last week’s “red cedaring” job. Touching up these areas was my first job but it didn't get off to a good start as I inadvertently touched up the greenhouse path.
Getting into an awkward position to reach a difficult to get to timber section I sent my pot of red cedar tumbling into the greenhouse. It made a bit of a mess. Fortunately most of it missed me but I do now have a nice jumper with red cedar staining down the front. A bit of tidying up was needed before any further progress could be made. At this stage I think it would be fair to say things weren't going according to plan. Still no windows replaced and the greenhouse path and dwarf walls stained cedar red for good. Well that’s what I thought.
Sue did a brilliant job of cleaning up the mess I left behind and the greenhouse isn't going to bare the scars for ever. At least it didn't go over our onion crop which was sitting close by. We could have had far more red onions than we bargained for.
Once all the mess was sorted it was back to fitting our new polycarbonate sheeting. As it’s tricky reaching parts of the greenhouse such as the window some careful thought has to go into making sure things are done in a suitable order. That meant the opening vent had to be repaired first and a suitably sized piece of polycarbonate cut from one of the old broken pieces being replaced.
I always expect polycarbonate to crack or split when cutting. It’s not a hard material but I'm never too sure I'm going to make a successful cut until the job’s done. There were no more mishaps and the window vent soon had a new pane of polycarbonate and a coating of red cedar. That just left the two extremely large panels to be replaced.
Our greenhouse now has some extra glazing bars positioned inside and outside the greenhouse to hopefully stop the sheeting from flexing during stormy weather and making a bid for freedom. Only time will tell. It will cut down on the light inside the greenhouse but that will be a price worth paying if the new panels are prevented from blowing out in windy weather.
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Excellant work. Spilling the paint would be exactly the sort of thing I'd do - well done sue for getting it so well cleaned up.
ReplyDeleteMy long handled brush has more touching up to do so still chance of another accident.
DeleteA good job. You and Sue are an excellent team I think! She's done a top job at removing the cedar stain.
ReplyDeleteCleaned with water and a cloth only. I'm wondering if the stain will stay on the greenhouse!
DeleteThat's excellent job!
ReplyDeleteThanks Malar
DeleteWell done to you both, I can still remember what it was like handling the glass when we built our greenhouse and I don't envy you the task of man(woman) handling such large sheets, even if they were polycarbonate.
ReplyDeleteLots of new greenhouse have these large panes. Very difficult to transport and manhandle.
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