Before you worry and think, how to protect greenhouse from wind, remember three possible solutions. Anchors, reinforcements, and strategic location should help you maintain a sturdy polytunnel amidst challenging outdoor and weather conditions in the UK. You must always be one step ahead of possible problems to protect your plants in the long run.
While the greenhouse protects your crops from the harsh climate in some parts of the UK, you also have to safeguard the structure itself. Safeguarding is especially crucial if your county in the United Kingdom is one of those that experience severe storms as Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana. This article will explain three strategies to protect your greenhouse, as well as bonus tips to keep the damaging wind out of your structure.
How To Protect Greenhouse From Wind Successfully
Anchors, reinforcements, and strategic location should protect your polytunnel from harsh winds and storms. It’s better to apply all three in preparation for upcoming lousy weather and then inspect the whole structure for parts that might be missing or in need of replacement. And more than protecting against wind, you should also keep the wind from getting inside, which this article will discuss later.
Anchors
When building a greenhouse, make it mandatory to fix and secure it into place. However, please do not make the mistake of settling with fixing pegs as they are only helpful to hold small and lighter plastic greenhouses. Therefore, using something more sturdy like ground anchors is safer against strong winds.
You can anchor your polytunnel down to a metal base to keep it from moving when the weather is unpleasant. If you have a polytunnel with polycarbonate glazing, you are at higher risk, so don’t forget the anchors after placing the greenhouse.
It’s fair to say that having an anchoring system for any polytunnel should always be part of the construction. Among the three solutions, one can say that using anchors should be mandatory, even if you think your UK area doesn’t experience harsh winds. A strong foundation will never fail your greenhouse, as long as you choose the appropriate system for your soil conditions.
Reinforcements
Once you have a strong polytunnel foundation using anchors, you can step it up by adding reinforcements. After all, the best way to protect the polytunnel from wind is by being prepared. Remember that the polytunnel profile is not as massive as a typical farm building, so it’s up to you to anchor it and add reinforcements.
Did you know that you can bury the greenhouse’s extra cover material, such as the PVC glazing in trenches? This method secures the structure against winds, but remember to dig the trenches 7 to 8 inches deep before burying the glazing with sand. You can even attach patches inside and outside the polytunnel and use them to secure the cover onto the structure’s frame joints.
You want to add reinforcement patches because when the wind gets inside the greenhouse, it will eventually damage the frame and glazing, trying to escape. It’s a good idea to block all the gaps you see in the frame so that no wind can get inside. Lastly, did you know that you can further strengthen the polytunnel foundation after you added anchors?
Paving slabs around the base and bottom shelf will help weigh down the greenhouse. Additionally, some owners tie or screw the polytunnel to a more stable structure, such as a fence, if they see a storm coming up.
Strategic location
The final solution to protect your polytunnel from wind is by planning the location for it. You want the polytunnel area to be open so that nothing will get loose and possibly fly towards the glazing. You can secure any potential objects that the wind can pick up and also inspect the location for another time when a storm is coming.
This way, you can remove debris such as tree limbs and other potential parts flying towards the greenhouse. You can also relocate more miniature greenhouses to another secured location until the weather gets calmer. If this isn’t possible, build a wooden fence or add wind netting to protect the greenhouse.
Can You Keep Wind Out Of The Greenhouse?
As discussed earlier, allowing wind to get inside the polytunnel is also problematic. So, in addition to securing the structure itself, there should be no opportunity for wind to get inside your greenhouse. Start by inspecting the doors, vents, and louvres and close them before the winds come.
Your glass panes might also have damages, so replace the cracked ones immediately. It’s always good to check the panes as glass tends to get brittle as time goes on. And while you’re at it, you might have some missing glazing clips or some of the glazing splices, and bar caps may need replacement as well.
Conclusion
The polytunnel protects the plants from the damages of storms, but do note that greenhouses need care. So how to protect greenhouse from wind? Anchors, reinforcements, and strategic location are three solutions that should maintain the stable structure of the polytunnel amidst the UK weather and climate changes.
Start by strengthening the polytunnel foundation using anchors and then adding reinforcements to feel more confident amidst the upcoming strong winds. You can then plan the best location for the polytunnel to be safe from other storm damages. Lastly, don’t forget to check up throughout the polytunnel as any gap can have wind enter inside and cause destruction.