In the first part of this article I posted last week, I covered Do-It-Yourself and hobby greenhouses. In this part of the article I want to cover prosumer, cold frame, and full commercial greenhouses.
A Traditional Glass Greenhouse is a great example of a prosumer greenhouse that looks absolutely beautiful!
Professional + Consumer = Prosumer
Most of the greenhouses I will call prosumer are lumped together in our hobby greenhouse category, located here on the Greenhouse Megastore. While technically this is true, the size and cost of these structures really makes them much more than just a hobby. Sizes can run from 12′ x 12 to 20′ x 20′ and above, while costs can begin right around the $5,000 dollar mark and go up beyond $20,000. I call this category prosumer because that is a pretty serious commitment to make for “just” a hobby and because any of these structures would fit right into a retail growing operation as a show house, a research house, a seeding house, etc.
Technically speaking, the source of all knowledge (Wikepedia…or Google) indicates that our cold frame buildings don’t meet their definition of the term “cold frame,” -
In agriculture and gardening, a cold frame is a transparent-roofed enclosure, built low to the ground, used to protect plants from cold weather. The transparent top admits sunlight and relies on the greenhouse effect to reflect back radiant heat that would otherwise escape at night. Essentially, a cold frame functions as a miniature greenhouse season extension device.
Cold frames are a high quality, inexpensive greenhouse structure with commercial capabilities.
- but that’s OK; our buildings are interchangeably called cold frames, hot houses, and hoop houses, among other names.
The important thing to know about them is that they are non-engineered greenhouse structures. This just means that an engineer has not signed off on the structure, but that they are field tested to withstand, typically, 70mph wind and corresponding snow loads. Their non-engineered status and inexpensive materials list makes them a very affordable, similar functioning structure compared to full commercial buildings. Often times they are used for production houses in a commercial growing setting.
These buildings are the most versatile and feature filled structures of all. They are useful in educational, reseach, and commercial applications and can be as inexpensive as $20,000 all the way up to $100,000 and beyond. The main determinate of price will be size and choice of equipment. These buildings can be gutter-connected, partitioned, hundreds of feet long, multiple climate zone behemoths, or, they can be releatively simple 35′ x 48′ teaching greenhouses with just a heater, fans, and shutters.
Gable 7500 buildings can come with vents, as in this picture, and with a whole slew of other options.
They will be structurally engineered to a specific wind and load rating, constructed with load bearing sidewall posts and usually glazed with 8mm twin wall polycarbonate. There are multiple sizes and several styles to choose from, so if you are interested in anything outside the standard sizes and configurations, then you will need to call a sales representative to get a quote for these buildings.
The two buildings of note are the Ranger 2000 Series, a lighter duty, less expensive building, and the Gable 7500 Series, the big boy of our greenhouse family.
These categories are by no means hard and fast, black and white. There certainly is some overlap, and what’s commercial to one person may be hobby to another. But this at lease gives you a peek at what is possible and available to you when you begin to consider your greenhouse structure.
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