Earth Battery Greenhouse - before you build, watch this video!

Detailed overview of construction and first winter of our Earth Battery Greenhouse at 4400' elevation.

[@janicedagasso5754]

Hello, I like how you describe in detail your project. I can imagine you folk’s spending much time inside there in there during the colder months. Congratulations on your oasis!

[@debbejefford3799]

Wow! The video was well done and well-documented and I enjoyed the tour through it all. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Looking forward to seeing it in person

[@spragueriverfarms]

Thank you Debbe! We enjoyed making the video and look forward to seeing you when you are able. God bless!

[@dansmonjardin_ca]

I learn a few new things about a climate battery. Thx

[@spragueriverfarms]

Glad we could help.

[@holymoly271]

Nice work

[@DrewsBrew79]

Great build. Would love to see an update on the greenhouse.

[@johnnylindsey5808]

Good job guys

[@JohnGuest45]

Ideally, you need twice as much tubing and larger diameter manifolds.The 6" manifolds limit your air flow and 1x 6" fan wont provide enough cfm for the 40 x 21 greenhouse air volume. Rule of thumb is to design the system to put the entire greenhouse air volume underground at least 20x per hour. This will allow you to store excess heat fairly rapidly on sunny winter days. The lions share of the heat stored in the mass comes from cooling so a system that isnt great at cooling wont be great at storing heat either. The last thing you want to do in the dead of winter is dump valuable heat outside to prevent the greenhouse overheating, which will happen if you cant store it fast enough. You have at least 250,000lbs of thermal mass that can be influenced by the tubing. To raise the temperature of the mass by 1 deg F will take around 68,000 btu. If you have air at 80F 50%RH going into the tubing and 50F 50% RH coming out, you`ll need to move around 72,883 cubic feet of air to transfer 68,000 btu. The output of the 6" fan will be limited by the resistance of the tubing layout and the manifolds, leading to very poor cooling performance and therefore less heat stored in the mass being available for heating. These systems can work very effectively if they are designed correctly, there are a lot of systems out there that can only be fixed by digging the tubing back up unfortunately :(

[@justinthrelkeld5152]

Great video!

[@spragueriverfarms]

Thanks!

[@Iz0pen]

I haven’t heard the term kiddie corner in so long I forgot what it means🤣👍

[@edburton5137]

Really like the video. Have never seen the pvc north wall idea before is it working well at generating heat? Also like the black covering on the ground. I intend to build this spring and am going to grow in the ground but covering the areas with a black material will help Thank you for sharing

[@spragueriverfarms]

Thank you for your comments! The black plastic on the ground is very beneficial through the cooler months, It may provide too much additional heat in the summer, but I figure that I can cover the black plastic in the summer if needed. The solar collectors on the north wall are designed to help capture additional heat to store underground during the warmer months. These have a separate 4" fan that is thermostatically controlled to come on when the greenhouse is above 90 degrees. At this point I know that it collects some additional energy but I will know more after we have gone through our first summer.

[@keyur.radiya]

Impressive ! do you have any dark period during winter?

[@bellgrowsak]

Absolutely incredible! I live in alaska and we just put up a hoop house last spring/summer. Much smaller than yours, and no system to use geothermal heat, but watching this is so inspiring! You both did an amazing job :) I'd love to know if you noticed anything unexpected with how things work now that you've got it up and are regularly using it? I'm also excited to see how it performs in the summer. Thanks so much for sharing. Have a great day! - Bell

[@spragueriverfarms]

Thank you Bell for your comment! It is not yet the end of March and the greenhouse is working very well, everything is coming up and growing nicely. We had an infestation of aphids which we knocked out with soapy water but other than that everything is working great. It was just over 100 degrees in the greenhouse yesterday. The earth battery has an ambient temperature of 60 degrees so we no longer have to add any heat at night. We added a covering over the straw bales and a screen door, and we are adding thermostats to control the 3 fans and will be adding 2 large exhaust fans in the next month or so. I will make another video showing our upgrades in the near future. Thank you again!

[@Offgrid.farming]

Thanks

[@spragueriverfarms]

Welcome!

[@danielschulz7073]

Nice video. lots of information. I am currently researching for the construction of a greenhouse at over 12,000 ft in Nepal. If you have any data since this video I would be interested in seeing it.

[@JohnGuest45]

You`ll need to move around 12% more air to transfer the same amount of heat at 12,000ft compared to 4,400ft. Be sure to factor this into the design and the tubing layout..

[@innercompass9510]

What is kiddy corner ?

[@carolinevanwinkle3755]

Would ICF work better on outside of greenhouse insulated concrete forms with 4 in of concrete in between 2 in of foam. Would you want to build wall of that with curved metal on top. If you did that would not need hay on outside maybe ?

[@spragueriverfarms]

Thank you for your comment. That would be a great way to insulate the north wall. The straw was only about $300. I'm not sure what the ICF would cost.

[@butymetree7340]

جميل

[@10tenman10]

Not sure what kitty corner means

[@spragueriverfarms]

Kitty corner means opposite corners ie: NE and SW corners of a square.

[@Wigington24]

❌🎶