If you live in a cold weather location, snow load on a greenhouse is a definite something to be watched closely. If you are using a rounded roof greenhouse with a flat top, you will see a heavy snow load build up there. The extra weight on the roof of the greenhouse may cause it to collapse.

When there is a heavy blizzard followed by a late winter rain followed by a freezing night, there could easily have several tons of snow and ice on the greenhouse. This is the time you have to do some maintenance.

How do you take care of the snow load on the greenhouse? There are several ways you can go about.

1) Use a support post and wedge it under the center purlin.

You can use a sturdy wooden post and wedge it under the spine of the roof. This will provide a lot of support from below. This option will handle light snow load but doesn’t work so well with heavier ones.

2) Watching the weather forecast.

The best approach is to be prepared. Watch the weather forecast on the news and don’t go away when a blizzard is predicted.

You can use a specialized roof rake to clear the snow built up. Make sure the tool is long enough so you can reach way up and be able to bring the snow down.

The snow will tend to slide off like an avalanche in large sheets. All you have to do is catch it at the right angle. Sometime you’ll be able to clear the whole section of the greenhouse roof with one clean sweep. It’s kind of dramatic and also nice to know your greenhouse won’t be collapsing.

If you’ve put all your energy and time in constructing a greenhouse, you don’t want it to collapse because of snow load. Build it stout and be prepared to sweep the snow off the greenhouse in the middle of the night. I know it is a hassle, but this simple effort will make sure your greenhouse last for a long time.

Easy To Install Greenhouse Kits

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After you’ve done making the Do It Yourself (DIY) solar panel, the next step is to mount it on the roof. There are a couple of ways to do this. The simplest way is to mount the solar panel on metal rails attached to the roof.

But what happens when you mount the metal rail to the roof?

In the process, a screw will be used to penetrate the shingles. The screw from the rail will go inside a stud in the roof cavity to hold the entire thing sturdy. A hole in the shingle is a potential for leakage when it rains.

To seal the hole on the roof shingle, it is best to use an asphalt based caulking that goes into a standard caulking gun.

If you have never done this before, don’t worry, the caulking gun is quite easy to use. You’ll get a hang of it after a few trail runs.

Use the caulking gun to fill the hole made by the screw of the metal rail. That will prevent rain water from getting into your house once the solar panel is mounted.

This method of securing the holes on the roof is one of the simplest approach. Another better method to prevent water leakage when installing the solar panel is roof flashing. This is done by using a metal sheet barrier at the base of the mount.

Roof flashing is normally done by professional contractor because it involves more work. Flashing provides better protection from water leakages. It is aesthetically more pleasing but costs more.

Homemade Solar Power Guide

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The manual comes with step by step High Definition (HD) instructional videos showing you how to make a DIY solar panel with minimal cost. For more information, check out the Earth 4 Energy review on this blog.

One of the key components of a home solar power system is the battery bank. All the power generated by the solar panel will go to the charge controller and end up in the battery.

The kind of battery used for a residential solar power system is the deep cycle type or marine boat batteries. The number of battery needed will depend on your energy requirement.

Since you are going to spend substantial amount of money on the battery bank, it makes sense to take good care of them. One way of doing so is to regularly check the fluid in the battery. In order to do this, you will need to learn how to use a battery hydrometer.

How do you use the hydrometer?

The battery hydrometer is a glass tube with a suction bulb that draws the electrolyte from the battery into the tube. When that happens, the float inside the tube begins to rise.

On the float, you will see some markings on it. You can see a long red strip, a narrow white strip and then a little wider green strip.

How do the markings work?

Well, if it floats off and it’s in the green marking, that means the battery is in pretty good shape. When more of the float sticks out of the electrolyte in the glass tube, meaning the stronger the battery is.

If it floats up until the white strip, that means the battery is only in a fair shape. If the electrolyte goes up into the red strip marking, the battery really needs to be reconditioned.

When that happens, the charge controller may not be able to charge the battery to its full potential with the energy from the solar panel. You may have to pull out the battery and send it for servicing and to get a full recharge.

What will happen if you were leave the battery there?

If you were to do so, the battery will reached a critical level of discharge and it may damage the battery permanently. As a good practice, a battery should not be discharged beyond the 50% mark before recharge.

Although a deep cycle battery can handle deep level discharge, doing it too often will reduce its efficiency.

If you are looking for a battery hydrometer for your home solar system

battery bank, check out the Imperial 5991 Battery Test Hydrometer. You can get it cheaply from Amazon.com.

Related web pages:

1) Michael Harvey Earth 4 Energy Review – Reviewing top selling DIY home solar power system guide on the web.