UKC

Moving house and getting a new greenhouse. I need a more stable base than my existing one which was just breeze block in a trench. Most advice is for a solid base greenhouse. So two questions:

1. Are solid base (ie no soil) greenhouses the new normal. I prefer to plant in the soil (less stress on the plant), but I see a lot of people prefer the disease avoidance of using bags.

2. If I stick with my current style, I just want a perimeter of either mortared in bricks, or a concrete perimeter. The latter seems easier, but I need slight slope for the guttering to work and not sure how easy this will be with a 10'x8' perimeter.

In reply to Philip:

You could use 2x2 flags or similar for the perimeter, fairly easy to lay those level with each other but on a slight slope overall.

In reply to Ridge:


That will lose too much area, I'm looking for something as thick as a single brick wall.

In reply to Philip:

Single bricks will be fine , and gutters will work fine if level.

In reply to Jacob Ram:
Single bricks is a lot of work, which is why I wanted suggestions. Also, I want the solid base at surface level so I have a flat route into it.

I've found an idea now from a blog, a cast concrete perimeter. It won't have to be that wide or that deep, so I just need some cheap timber for shuttering. I can reuse the timber to build the three bay compost heap.

In reply to Philip:
I have heard of people using the bricks from inside old storage heaters, they can be used to keep the temperature up at night.

In reply to Philip:

We've two greenhouses: one is on a base of 600mm x 600mm concrete slabs, the other I used concrete lintels of 150x100mm cross section. The floor of the latter is gravel. The general ground for both was solid so there's no cement used in either of them, with the lintels it's just their weight holding them down, it was what the greenhouse supplier recommended.

You create the slope for the guttering separate from the level of the greenhouse.

In reply to Philip:

Greenhouses are a bit last century.

I find my loft ,with its strobe lighting and fans ,to be very productive

In reply to Bob:

Thanks. Lintels are a good idea. They'll be much less prone to individual displacement than the breeze blocks. I'll see what size they up to. Worst case I'll just cast concrete to the same dimensions as your lintels. Although that is 9 cubic feet of concrete, which is about half a ton of dry mix.

As for slope, doesn't it depend on how you fit the guttering. The model I'm looking at it's part of the frame so you can't adjust it relative to the greenhouse.

In reply to Philip:

Can't you just build a rough base of breeze blocks layed on their sides 2 deep and cemented together.

Surely this would be adequate for a greenhouse and much cheaper than using lintels (which are more expensive because they are pre stressed and reinforced and have to be load rated) and far easier than mixing tons of concrete.

My father in law has the same size, and he just built 6 pillars from blocks. I could do that, but it won't be as neat a job.

In reply to Philip:

Ah, ours are wood so you fix the guttering with the appropriate slope after you've erected the greenhouse.