Disaster-proofing

It shouldn’t have happened. It could have been avoided. But an employee forgot one simple thing — to open a heat-retention curtain — so as the snow piled up, the heat couldn’t melt the snow, and the greenhouse collapsed.

Sadly, stories like this aren’t uncommon in the industry, and disasters like this happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s simple human error like this particular case, but sometimes it’s a result of failing to properly maintain your greenhouse.

“It’s just like tuning up your car,” says Jeff Warschauer, vice president of sales for Nexus Greenhouse Systems. You have to perform check ups regularly.

When you avoid the maintenance, that’s when problems arise — and potentially disasters.

While you can’t control Mother Nature, you can make sure you’re doing as much as you can to ensure your greenhouse is able to withstand her fury when it unleashes.

So as your greenhouses start to empty out, here are some ways to create a maintenance plan and disaster-proof your greenhouse.

Create a plan
With the down economy of the past few years, grower-retailers have had to rethink their approach to operations. It’s not enough to be just a good grower anymore; you also have to be a good business person and find a balance between taking risks and staying put.

The way to find that balance is to create a plan for maintenance and long-term improvements. Ask yourself what you’re trying to accomplish and evaluate every aspect of your greenhouse.

Start by creating a list of all the routine maintenance that needs to be done in regular intervals. You may be busy and not have the time to make sure everything is in working order on your structure, but you can’t make excuses for not tending to maintenance. If you can’t carry out the maintenance yourself, hire someone who can, or find somebody in your organization who can handle it.
If you don’t immediately recognize someone with these inclinations, you should train an employee or employ an outside company to assist you in keeping everything up to par.
The next step is make a list of the work that needs completed annually and plan for how to handle unexpected disasters. Know who to call in case of emergencies, especially during non-business hours, and make sure you allocate money each year toward maintenance and repairs.
Once you’ve done those first two things, identify the larger items that will need to be replaced or completed in the long-term, say three, five or 10 years out. Also, make a wish list of projects or upgrades you’d like to complete. Having these parts of a plan identified helps you do long-term planning, budget better each year, and prioritize projects should extra money become available.

Prepare for disasters
Two years ago, Connecticut experienced the 100-year snowfall, and Goldsher saw the effects when five feet of snow landed on his company building’s roof.

“My office doors were rubbing on the floor,” he says. “The roof deflected so much that the door wouldn’t close or open.”

It took a crew of employees four days to shovel it all off to avoid catastrophe. The bowling alley down the street wasn’t so lucky — it collapsed.

If weather can wreak such havoc on traditional buildings, it’s clear to see what it can do to your greenhouse. While it’s impossible to plan for everything, it’s important to prepare your structure for any potentially damaging weather. Here are some of the most common disasters.

Fire
Fire is one of the disasters that is not completely preventable but has a lower likelihood of happening if you tend to your structure.

It’s important to make sure your motors are all running properly and not over-heating, so be sure to have all of your equipment serviced and inspected. If equipment isn’t working right or keeps shutting off, don’t force it. Instead, have someone out to look at it.

Another way to avoid fires is to make sure you haven’t taken short-cuts by using extension cords as a permanent wiring source or daisy-chaining electrical cords together.

“For fire protection in the greenhouse operation, it really starts with installing all the electrical equipment, the lighting, the electric motors, the fans and the heaters according to the national electric code,” Goldsher says. “The equipment should be installed by a licensed electrician in the state and should be inspected for a certificate of occupancy.”

It’s also important to have a good alarm system in place that has a high-temperature alarm that will ring to an operator to alert that the temperature is higher than normal so you can check on the cause and potentially keep a small fire from becoming huge.

“Oxygen is the No. 1 thing that fuels the fire to spread, and it becomes an inferno,” Goldsher says. “So immediately, if a small fire starts, the equipment needs to shut down immediately. You’re bringing all that oxygen in, and it just blows up and becomes an inferno.”

Lastly, tend to the area outside your greenhouse. You’ll also want to inspect any wiring outside of your structure on a regular basis.

“A lot of greenhouses have rodents, and they like to chew electrical wires and could expose live wires,” Goldsher says.

Beyond that, you need to have good housekeeping, so no papers, trash, cardboard or other unnecessary items should be stored in or around the greenhouse.

“The area around the greenhouse should be free of debris,” Goldsher says. “The grass should be cut low or have an apron of stone, gravel, concrete or asphalt.”

And lastly, you may want to invest in a chain-link fence around your greenhouse.

“You should be able to lock your greenhouse up at night in case of arson,” Goldsher says. “There are all kinds of crazy things going on — it could be a disgruntled employee or someone who gets off on lighting fires. It could be a kid’s prank. You never know. You need very high security.”

Wind
In areas where hurricanes and tornados can produce mighty winds, you want to make sure your structure is prepared for it. Tornados don’t usually give you much warning and can often be unavoidable, but hurricanes usually have a three- to five-day warning for you to prepare.

Even less dramatic sources of wind can cause big problems. Warschauer says wind is the No. 1 cause of greenhouse damage.

Sometimes doors can be a weak link, so it’s important to shut and secure the doors.

“[You need to] potentially apply plywood over the door area or another layer of polycarbonate or possibly even chain it closed from the inside.” Goldsher says. “[You need] something very secure because a lot of greenhouse doors, the latching mechanism is not strong enough to prevent it from blowing it open.”

Also look at your vents. If they aren’t closing properly, it could catch on an edge and lead to further damage. Check for loose panels; the wind can grab hold of the corners and pull coverings off.

If you have a film-covered greenhouse, you may have to take a different approach.
“Let the wind blow through the frame,” Goldsher says. “None of the film-covered greenhouses can withstand winds sustained over 75 mph.”

Snow
With snow you first need to know how strong your greenhouse is, especially when huge snowstorms are approaching.

“If you have a greenhouse that’s built 20 years ago when the building codes were very lax, then the structure is probably not heavy-duty enough to handle a storm like that,” Goldsher says.

And you need to know what kind of weather it was built for.

“You want to make sure you buy a greenhouse that’s engineered for your location,” Warschauer says. “If you buy a used greenhouse from somebody in Florida and you put it in Boston and get two feet of snow [don’t] wonder why [your] greenhouse collapsed.”

Even if it is strong, it’s important to keep snow off of the roof. Start a day or two ahead of a storm because it may take that long to heat the structure. The greenhouse is designed to be heated.

If it’s snowing so heavily that it’s not melting or not melting fast enough, then you have to be more drastic and go up there to shovel it off.

Goldsher says you can also add additional vertical framing members, such as 2 by 6’s or 4 by 4’s in the center of the greenhouse or left and right of the gable.

It’s also important that snow has ways of escaping the greenhouse. Make sure that the gutters are clean so snow doesn’t create an ice dam. Also be sure to shovel around your greenhouse.

Taking the time upfront can save you from a total or partial disaster later.