Construction Of A Garden Shed Essay

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Construction of a garden shed containing a glass/greenhouse. The weather in Barrington is quite cold during the winter season, therefore, the glass house will provide warmer climatic conditions for edible plants that require such conditions.

A green/glasshouse is a structure that covered with mainly a transparent material like glass or transparent plastic. This structure provides a controlled/regulated weather and climatic conditions for plants/crops that need the regulations. The plants grown in a glasshouse enjoy the benefit of protection from diseases, harsh weather conditions, thus being able to grow in an optimal localized environment. In the long run, the glasshouse provides an all-year-round solution for sustainability and efficiency.

In addition, the garden shed is designed to have a food handling area and a cool room at one of its corners next to the main house’s kitchen where fresh produce from the garden will be cleaned, cut and stored awaiting consumption. Besides, this cool room will also serve as the storage for dry goods and other perishable foods which are purchased from the market. The room will have its walls made of compressed straw bales that will help to reduce heat flow between the room and its surrounding. Straw bales are natural fibre like wheat and rice husks that are dried, glued then compressed together with thin metal cables running through. The fibre forms the matrix while the cables forms the reinforced component. When using straw bales for construction, the bales must be tightly-packed and allowed to dry out sufficiently. Any air gaps or moisture can drastically reduce the insulating effectiveness. Compressed straw bales is preferred to other insulation modes due low cost, good thermal properties, high R-value and availability. Readymade compressed straw panels can be purchased from the local hardware shops.

This property is located in a rural set up whose surrounding is covered by green vegetation. To make the design blend with the surrounding most construction materials will be sourced from the surrounding environment as well as from the remains from the construction of the house like wood. Good finishing will be needed to make the second-hand materials more beautiful.

Aim

• Construction of a garden shed consisting of a glass/greenhouse

Objectives

• To design a garden shed that blends with a rural surrounding.
• To avail all the necessary inputs such as construction materials and labour.
• To do the cost analysis involving the labour requirements
• To do site analysis so as to save cost and time during construction
• To evaluate the cost of the materials involved.

Site locations

The site of the glasshouse should be where it gets light at maximum, that is away from tall trees and any other structure that will block sunlight. The choice of site location if available should be on the south or southeast bearing of the main house and tall trees. This is because locating the glasshouse on the east side gives it an opportunity to receive the morning sunlight which is sufficient for growth of a plant. Similarly, morning sunlight is good in the sense that it allows earlier commencement of plant food production, hence maximizing growth. In the event of this site being unavailable, it is desirable to use the west or southwest of the main house, where plants get sunlight when the sun is setting. The least of desirable site location would be the north side of the main house as it receives the least amount of sunlight (Bainbridge, 2017).

Objectives

Client analysis

  The client clearly outlines the specifications for the proposed garden. The garden shed is designed to have a food handling area and a cool room at one of its corners next to the main house's kitchen where fresh produce from the garden will be cleaned, cut and stored awaiting consumption. Besides, this cool room will also serve as the storage for dry goods and other perishable foods which are purchased from the market.

Site analysis

 We will have a glasshouse with a nook to be placed on a land of 6 * 10m area plan. The site will be leveled flat awaiting construction. Thereafter, four 45cm deep holes will be dug on the four corners of the 6 by 10m land. These holes are where the four wooden pillars will be entrenched and reinforced with concrete. The remaining area of the site will be dug 20cm deep for laying the foundation.

  There are two types of home glasshouses, that is a freestanding glasshouse structure and an attached greenhouse structure (attached to the garage or wall of the main house) (Parece, 2016). For this project, the choice will be the freestanding structure to avoid direct interference with the main house’s aesthetics. The glasshouse will require the following materials: 

• Framing materials,
• Roofing materials, 
• Walling materials, 
• Flooring materials and 
• Doors and windows.

 To complete the construction of the glasshouse shed, building materials will be purchased while some like wood concrete will be sourced from the leftovers of the main and guest houses' construction. A glasshouse is a structure like other houses, therefore it’s important to put the factor of structural strength into consideration. Factors that affect structure include wind load, temperature, type of rock, snow load amongst others (Dong, 2012).

A permanent foundation will be needed for the glasshouse. This will give the glasshouse its foundational stability and firmness. For this reason, the foundation should be made of poured concrete (Whelan, 2014).

  The materials that will be needed for the construction include wooden poles, timber, horticultural fibreglass, wooden doors, arch-shaped hollow metal rods, nails, bolts and nuts, steel rod amongst others.

Cost implications

Item                                                        Amount

Labor                                                       $300

Wood                                                        $150

Concrete                                                   $100

Fibreglass                                                 $150

Doors  and windows                                 $220

Paint                                                           $100

Nails                                                           $30

Nuts and bolts                                            $50

Straw bales.                                                $10

Total                                                          $1110

Frame

 Various framing materials exist. These materials are made from wood, aluminium, plastic or galvanized steel. Plastic framing materials lack the strength to withstand wind load and snow conditions (Park, 2015). This project, wooden framing materials would be appropriate due to less cost and good tensile strength to withstand wind load and snow since Barrington is located in cold region (Wickenden et al., 2016). 

Site locations

Walls

  Walls can be made from bricks, concrete, compact soil or wood/timber. However, for this project, the walls will be realized by wood/timber. Using timber walls is desirable as it will perfectly blend with the rural neighborhood. Besides, wood has poor thermal conduction properties, hence a lot of heat will be retained in the shed, keeping the shed warm even at night (Sulpice et al., 2017). To increase the thermal benefits of the wall, its exterior will be painted in a dull-color to absorb as much heat as possible from the sun and the surrounding while the interior will be painted white or silver to reflect the heat back into the shed (Henig, 2017).

Roof

  The roof covers the glasshouse and its shape is determined by the shape of the roofing frame. Roofing materials include dual-layer rigid plastic sheet, fibreglass or glass (Pandey, 2017). All these materials have their advantages and disadvantages. Owing to that, for this project, a transparent rigid fibreglass roof will be suitable, for the purposes of aesthetic beauty and modernity. The entire roof of the shed will be covered with the transparent material to ensure maximum entry of sunlight during the day (Dower, 2016).

Flooring

 A permanent foundation will be constructed for the glasshouse. This will give firm support to the walls, frame and the roof of the glasshouse. To achieve a firm permanent foundation, poured concrete foundation similar to that of residential buildings will be used (Zhao et al., 2017)

Doors and windows

  Two doors will be needed for this shed, placed in the opposite direction to one another, giving ease of access to the shed. Transparent rigid fibreglass doors are the most desirable for this job due to cost and illumination. The transparent doors will offer extra lighting to the glasshouse. The two doors will be identical measuring 0.75 by 1m. In addition, there will be four windows made of transparent rigid fibreglass measuring 0.75 by 0.75.

Vents

   Successful glasshouse will require ventilation. Lack of proper ventilation comes with problems that may affect both the plants and the glasshouse itself. Ventilation helps in temperature regulation, humidity regulation as well as maintaining vapour pressure deficit to optimum levels (Romo, 2017). In addition, ventilation facilitates circulation of air, allowing entry of fresh air into the glasshouse, hence preventing the survival of pathogens that thrive in still air. Availability of fresh air supply also supports respiration in plants, photosynthesis process and giving pollinators access into the glasshouse (Adams, 2012).

Client analysis

Heating

 Barrington is located in a region of cold climate, thus some heating may be needed sometime. Heating, especially electric heating can be expensive; however, there are other methods of heating known as passive methods which gain heat from low input sources. Capturing of solar heat during summer when there is an abundance of heat and releasing it during cold winter seasons for boosting temperature or heating a glasshouse with waste heat from domestic animals like putting a chicken coop in the glasshouse to recover the heat from the chicken. A heat that would otherwise be wasted (Min & Chen, 2001).

Enrichment of carbon (iv) oxide

Carbon (iv) oxide enrichment is an idea that has existed for more than a century. Carbon (iv) oxide is an essential ingredient in plant photosynthesis, a process known as carbon (iv) fixation. Periodical boosting of carbon (iv) oxide level in the glasshouse may increase the yields. The chimney vent from the main house may be directed to the glasshouse at times to boost carbon (iv) oxide (Campbell, 2006).

 This technical report has proven to offer a constructive solution to a garden glasshouse shed project. The aim which is to construct a garden glasshouse shed in a rural home set up has been met. This can be defined by the fact that the individual objectives were fulfilled in the following manner.

The first objective was to design a garden glasshouse shed that blends with a rural setup while maintaining quality and aesthetic value. It is evident that this goal has been met since the design and choice of material perfectly meet the criteria. A structure whose frame and wall dominantly made of wood better blends with a rural set up than any choice of material (Ingram, 2015).

Secondly, the report avails all the necessary inputs such as construction materials and labour. The report technically enlists all the inputs from materials to labour and their sources. Outlining all the materials required makes it easy to estimate cost, identify risks, errors and mitigate them earlier, thus reducing the overall cost that would have otherwise been wasted.

 With everything perfectly done on paper, I strongly recommend the implementation of this technical report. Once the shed is constructed, Rosemary will keep her favourite plants and crops in the shed throughout the year without worrying about weather and seasonal changes. With structural strength prioritized, the structure will withstand wind loads and snow pressure, making it stand for several years, thus giving the owner a value for his money.

References 

Adams, C. R. (2012). Principles of horticulture. Routledge.

Bainbridge, A. (2017). Married life in a New Zealand garden. Australian Garden History, 28(3), 15.

Campbell, S. (2006). Walled kitchen gardens (Vol. 339). Osprey Publishing.

Campbell, S., Musgrave, T., & Wilson, C. A. (2005). A History of the Kitchen Garden. Frances Lincoln.

Dong, S. (2018). THERMAL ENVIRONMENT MODELLING OF THE MONO-SLOPE SOLAR GREENHOUSE FOR COLD REGIONS (Doctoral dissertation, University of Saskatchewan).

Dower, R. (2016). Conservation of a rare nineteenth-century iron-framed curvilinear glasshouse. Journal of Architectural Conservation, 22(3), 199-221.

Dugon, M. M., Dunbar, J. P., Afoullouss, S., Schulte, J., McEvoy, A., English, M. J., ... & Sulpice, R. (2017, January). Occurrence, reproductive rate and identification of the non-native

Henig, R. M. (2017). The monk in the garden: the lost and found genius of Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Ingram, D. S., Vince-Prue, D., & Gregory, P. J. (Eds.). (2015). Science and the garden: the scientific basis of horticultural practice. John Wiley & Sons.

Min, L. I., & Chen, M. E. N. G. (2001). Measurement and control system for greenhouse and big shed [J]. Computer and Agriculture, 6.

Pandey Sharma, J. (2017). Glass in the garden: building the glass house in British India. Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, 1-19.

Parece, T. E., Lumpkin, M., & Campbell, J. B. (2016). Irrigating urban agriculture with harvested rainwater: Case study in Roanoke, Virginia, USA. In Sustainable Water Management in Urban Environments (pp. 235-263). Springer, Cham.

Park, J. K. (2015). A New Approach to the Development of a Korean Gardening Education Programme.

Romo, S. P. (2017). Identity Behind Glass: The Second Gore Place Greenhouse (Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts Boston).

Smith, R. M., Gaston, K. J., Warren, P. H., & Thompson, K. (2005). Urban domestic gardens (V): relationships between landcover composition, housing and landscape. Landscape ecology, 20(2), 235-253.

Whelan, D. (2014). Heritage impact assessment of the SANBI KZN Herbarium, Durban Botanic Gardens, 4 Problem Mkhize Road.f

Wickenden, D. S., Townsend, A., Nicholson, J., & Jones, C. (2016). All members were present. Connétable J. Gallichan of St. Mary, Chairman Connétable PB Le Sueur of Trinity, Vice-Chairman (not present for items A6 and A7) Deputy JM Maçon of St Saviour (not present for items A10-A12).

Zhao, M., Xu, P., Duan, X., Cao, Z., & PawÅ‚owski, L. (2017). Status and trends of PV agriculture in China. In Advances in Renewable Energy Research (pp. 57-68). CRC Press.