Another Installment on the Fruit Tree Hoophouse

We spent part of the weekend working on the heat box for the fruit tree hoophouse. Only a couple of days left till they get here! We had rescued an old solar heater--it's been sitting on the rescue pile out there for about three years. (Hope it's not another three years before the rest of that stuff gets repurposed!)

So Wink has been deconstructing this very well made behemoth--taking out all the bracing and rivets--that was the time consuming part. Got the casing opened up, and we ran 2" pvc schedule 40 inside against the insulation. Put the halves back together with foam insulation, and then sheet metal screwed it together, and put the braces back on. 

The pvc gets filled with antifreeze. The heated antifreeze gets pumped through the pipe under the trees--et voila, warm soil, warm roots--growth! Wink used his math skills to calculate the volume inside the pipe. We found some special anti-freeze online--pure glycerine--but pricy so wanted to get only what we needed.

Next step--get the heater hooked up to the panel.

(Yes, I am blogging during the super bowl. Wink and Bel are watching, but I'm only interested in the commercials!)