We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul

"Pavel314" wrote in message
...
We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul

For the rare occasions that you may need it, the kero heater is probably the
easiest solution. It may burn on home heating oil, but it would be really
dirty, stick with kero

"RBM" wrote in message
...

"Pavel314" wrote in message
...
We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul

For the rare occasions that you may need it, the kero heater is probably
the easiest solution. It may burn on home heating oil, but it would be
really dirty, stick with kero

But if he already has a propane setup, why not use that?
Or just put a bbq grille in there...

Someone recommended a petromax, for home heating oil or kerosene.
petromax.com

Another possibility is to get a backup generator -- might as well power the
house iffin yer going to heat the greenhouse!! More bucks, tho, but also a
more general solution.
--
EA
--

On Dec 28, 6:20*am, Pavel314 wrote:
We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul

Electric here is near 40% more than gas, whats your electric bill. I
have a big greenhouse like yours, uninsulated glass, it costs about as
much to heat as the house, now I keep the plants in the house.
Unvented may cause to much condensation, I have a gas vented heater.
You could test unvented propane to see if condensation is an issue.
For about 40$ you can get an infrared propane heater that goes right
on a 20lb tank,

"Van Chocstraw" wrote in message
...
On 12/28/2009 07:20 AM, Pavel314 wrote:
We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul



Propane would be better (unvented) your plants would do better with the
extra C02.

What about CO levels? I wonder what a digital readout of those would be.

Steve

On Dec 28, 8:03*am, "Existential Angst"
wrote:
"RBM" wrote in message

...







"Pavel314" wrote in message
...
We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul

For the rare occasions that you may need it, the kero heater is probably
the easiest solution. It may burn on home heating oil, but it would be
really dirty, stick with kero

But if he already has a propane setup, why not use that?
Or just put a bbq grille in there...

Someone recommended a petromax, for home heating oil or kerosene.
petromax.com

Another possibility is to get a backup generator -- might as well power the
house iffin yer going to heat the greenhouse!! *More bucks, tho, but also a
more general solution.
--
EA
--



- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

We have a 5,500 watt generator to keep the essentials (water pump,
furnace, refrigerator, etc.) going during an outage. The heater for
the greenhouse is 5,000 watts so we don't have enough to power that,
too.

Paul

On Dec 28, 11:51*am, ransley wrote:
On Dec 28, 6:20*am, Pavel314 wrote:





We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul

Electric here is near 40% more than gas, whats your electric bill. I
have a big greenhouse like yours, uninsulated glass, it costs about as
much to heat as the house, now I keep the plants in the house.
Unvented may cause to much condensation, I have a gas vented heater.
You could test unvented propane to see if condensation is an issue.
For about 40$ you can get an infrared propane heater that goes right
on a 20lb tank,- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Last winter was the first one with this greenhouse. I checked the
electric bills for the last couple of years and did some calculations;
my estimate was $300 to run the greenhouse heater for the heating
season. There's probably some savings in heating oil that I didn't
include as an offset. The back, north wall of the greenhouse is the
outside wall of the laundry room. On a sunny winter day, the
greenhouse heats up to 80 degrees or more so we open the laundry room
windows and let the heat pour into the house.

Never thought about condensation; thanks for mentioning that.

Paul

Van Chocstraw wrote:
On 12/28/2009 07:20 AM, Pavel314 wrote:
We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul



Propane would be better (unvented) your plants would do better with the
extra C02.
Yeah,
Kerosene smells.

On Dec 28, 11:23*am, Tony Hwang wrote:
Van Chocstraw wrote:
On 12/28/2009 07:20 AM, Pavel314 wrote:
We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul

Propane would be better (unvented) your plants would do better with the
extra C02.

Yeah,
Kerosene smells.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

What will the fumes do to the plants?

hr(bob) wrote:
On Dec 28, 11:23 am, Tony wrote:
Van Chocstraw wrote:
On 12/28/2009 07:20 AM, Pavel314 wrote:
We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul

Propane would be better (unvented) your plants would do better with the
extra C02.

Yeah,
Kerosene smells.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

What will the fumes do to the plants?
Hi,
Not the plants. Human noses.
My greenhouse/sunroom is heated by a heat pump when it gets real cold.
Today it is ~20F outside in the sunroom it is ~60F. No need to turn on
the heater.

On Dec 28, 11:15*am, Pavel314 wrote:
On Dec 28, 11:51*am, ransley wrote:





On Dec 28, 6:20*am, Pavel314 wrote:

We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul

Electric here is near 40% more than gas, whats your electric bill. I
have a big greenhouse like yours, uninsulated glass, it costs about as
much to heat as the house, now I keep the plants in the house.
Unvented may cause to much condensation, I have a gas vented heater.
You could test unvented propane to see if condensation is an issue.
For about 40$ you can get an infrared propane heater that goes right
on a 20lb tank,- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Last winter was the first one with this greenhouse. I checked the
electric bills for the last couple of years and did some calculations;
my estimate was $300 to run the greenhouse heater for the heating
season. There's probably some savings in heating oil that I didn't
include as an offset. The back, north wall of the greenhouse is the
outside wall of the laundry room. On a sunny winter day, the
greenhouse heats up to 80 degrees or more so we open the laundry room
windows and let the heat pour into the house.

Never thought about condensation; thanks for mentioning that.

Paul

We used to heat the greenhouse with a woodstove with warm air blower
on it. The warm air was blown into the family room, which was on the
ground level of the tri-level house. The heat of the stove itself
kept the greenhouse warm enough.

Even if the power went out, the greenhouse could be kept warm, and
passive heat flow would help heat your house.

hth.....
Linda H.
Illinois

Linda Hungerford wrote:
On Dec 28, 11:15 am, Pavel314 wrote:
On Dec 28, 11:51 am, ransley wrote:





On Dec 28, 6:20 am, Pavel314 wrote:
We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.
We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.
The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?
I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Paul
Electric here is near 40% more than gas, whats your electric bill. I
have a big greenhouse like yours, uninsulated glass, it costs about as
much to heat as the house, now I keep the plants in the house.
Unvented may cause to much condensation, I have a gas vented heater.
You could test unvented propane to see if condensation is an issue.
For about 40$ you can get an infrared propane heater that goes right
on a 20lb tank,- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
Last winter was the first one with this greenhouse. I checked the
electric bills for the last couple of years and did some calculations;
my estimate was $300 to run the greenhouse heater for the heating
season. There's probably some savings in heating oil that I didn't
include as an offset. The back, north wall of the greenhouse is the
outside wall of the laundry room. On a sunny winter day, the
greenhouse heats up to 80 degrees or more so we open the laundry room
windows and let the heat pour into the house.

Never thought about condensation; thanks for mentioning that.

Paul

We used to heat the greenhouse with a woodstove with warm air blower
on it. The warm air was blown into the family room, which was on the
ground level of the tri-level house. The heat of the stove itself
kept the greenhouse warm enough.

Even if the power went out, the greenhouse could be kept warm, and
passive heat flow would help heat your house.

hth.....
Linda H.
Illinois

Did you let the plants see you burning the dried body parts of other
plants?

TDD

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:23:44 -0700, Tony Hwang
wrote:

Kerosene smells.

HD sells kero in a 5 gallon can -- $35.00, plus tax a couple years
ago. YIKES!

On Dec 28, 7:20*am, Pavel314 wrote:
We have a small greenhouse attached to the south side of our home.
It's 14' X 12' with a shed roof tapering from 10' on the house side to
6'. Roughly 1,400 cubic feet. It's a 2x4 frame with double-walled
polycarbonate sheeting, 10mm for the roof and 6mm for the sides. We're
in Maryland, near Baltimore, so it rarely gets below the mid-teens in
the winter.

We heat it with a 220V electric heater, 5,600 watts and 19,110 BTUh
rating. This generally keeps it at the 50 degrees the plants require
but occasionally my wife puts on a 110V supplimental heater on cold
nights.

The power hasn't failed in the winter since we got the greenhouse but
it's probably only a matter of time. I was thinking of getting a
kerosene heater as back-up to the electrical heaters. Home Depot has a
23,000 BTU heater for $129 which seems to fit our needs. Could I use
home heating oil for this or would it be better to stick with pure
kerosene?

I was wondering about a propane heater; would that be more efficient
than kerosene? We have a propane ball/tank for some other applications
which aren't used in the winter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Paul

The fumes from kerosene would be bad for the plants. I had a lean-to
green house off my workshop and the plants didnt like the kerosene
residue at all. I noticed the leaves had an oily coating on them but
unfortunately not before it was too late.

Jimmie

Oren wrote:
On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:23:44 -0700, Tony Hwang
wrote:

Kerosene smells.

HD sells kero in a 5 gallon can -- $35.00, plus tax a couple years
ago. YIKES!

Some gas stations and fuel oil companies sell kero at sensible prices. I'd
find a good source before investing in a heater for the $35 stuff.

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:12:06 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:

Oren wrote:
On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:23:44 -0700, Tony Hwang
wrote:

Kerosene smells.

HD sells kero in a 5 gallon can -- $35.00, plus tax a couple years
ago. YIKES!

Some gas stations and fuel oil companies sell kero at sensible prices. I'd
find a good source before investing in a heater for the $35 stuff.

I told my friend walking through HD -- "look at that ****" kerosene
was almost free when we were kids.

I see folks on craislist trying to get rid of kerosene heaters. Must
be the price for fuel

Electric heater on a generator will suck a LOT of gasoline.
I think you'd be best served with the kerosene heater you
mentioned. I havn't tried fuel oil, but people tell me that
fuel oil in a kerosene heater will smell very bad. Fuel oil
is desgned to burn and be blown up a chimney, not vented
into the room. Propane is very good, also. Propane has
something like 21,000 BTU per pound. You'd need a wall
heater, or double burner infared on a gas grill tank. A
galon of kerosene, if memory serves, has about 140,000 BTU
of energy. So, a galon would last about six hours at 23K per
hour.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Pavel314" wrote in message
...

We have a 5,500 watt generator to keep the essentials (water
pump,
furnace, refrigerator, etc.) going during an outage. The
heater for
the greenhouse is 5,000 watts so we don't have enough to
power that,
too.

Paul

Been asking in rec.gardens and rec.gardens.edible, and the consensus there
is that electric is good. Propane, also, but be sure the air mix has it so
that the flames are blue tipped instead of yellow to keep CO levels down.
I'd put a digital CO detector in there just to be personally safe, as well
as know exactly what the CO levels are. The screamer models only let you
know if the levels are high. If 300 is high and where it starts screaming,
I'd like to know if it is hanging at 295. They have a memory, so you can
reset. $25 to $50, some more, but you get what you pay for.

Steve