# I love my Aluminet!



## Rick (Jun 5, 2010)

I just changed from traditional black shade cloth to Aluminet, and the difference is totally obvious!

With the black SC I was struggling to stay below 90 on sunny days with ambient temps in the 80's.

Now with ambient temps in the 90's the GH, the fogger is cycling less, and having no problem staying in the mid 80's.

And even with 50% net the GH is brighter now than with the black cloth.


Why did I wait so long:sob:


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## SlipperFan (Jun 5, 2010)

Good to know, Rick.


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## paphreek (Jun 5, 2010)

I'm glad that's what I bought. Is yours outside or inside the greenhouse?


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## Rick (Jun 5, 2010)

paphreek said:


> I'm glad that's what I bought. Is yours outside or inside the greenhouse?



Outside


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## JeanLux (Jun 6, 2010)

Rick this sounds very interesting!!! could you give some details? is it hard to attach, heavy (conc. weight), resistent, easily blown away by strong wind, pricy?
Thanks
Jean


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## goldenrose (Jun 6, 2010)

I've had it for 15 years!
I'd be curious as to when it was they made the scene. I think I was at the right time, right place! I remember seeing an ad in the back of AOS bulletin, I called, spoke to a salesman (no distributors at that time!), told him size of my GH, he had me 'hold' & he checked if any remnants were available. There was! They also had these black plastic snap on gromments, I got a dozen & the aluminet for less than $75! It has no finished edges, I've even thrown it in the washing machine at the end of fall when I remove it, no unraveling, it's great!


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## Rick (Jun 6, 2010)

JeanLux said:


> Rick this sounds very interesting!!! could you give some details? is it hard to attach, heavy (conc. weight), resistent, easily blown away by strong wind, pricy?
> Thanks
> Jean



Rose covered a lot of the details. I paid about $80 for a 12'X14' with finished edges and tie off grommets every two feet. The finishing and grommets probably increase the price by roughly 30% over bulk material cost. It's definitely more expensive than standard SC, but the energy savings are supposed to make it worth it in the long run. It also comes in several % shade densities.

Definitely tough and durable (some others in our society have had theirs in place for several years too).

The downside from my wife's perspective is that the reflection outside the GH is very high (almost blinding). So until I get the taller GH built, the glare looking outside the kitchen window can be pretty substantial.


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## JeanLux (Jun 6, 2010)

Thanks to Rose and Rick!!! 

The reflection is important to know of, because my gh(lean-to with rel. flat roof (unfortunately))'s roof is below a rel. large window of our living-room  , Whereas the neighbor would, maybe, be happy because for me it's south-facing side, for her it's north with few light until now !!

Jean


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## paphreek (Jun 6, 2010)

I was wondering, has anyone used Aluminet inside the greenhouse? I'm considering experimenting with it inside because some of my most intense afternoon sun will come in late February to mid April, before the leaves open on the trees. February is too early to put out shade cloth in the north here because of heavy spring snows.


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## slippertalker (Jun 6, 2010)

I have had Aluminet for a few years now and it was a vast improvement over traditional shade cloth. It seems to refract the light while reflecting the heat, and cooling is much more efficient. Mine is on the exterior so I can't address the effectiveness of interior shading.


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## suss16 (Jun 6, 2010)

I tried aluminet the first summer I built my small greenhouse. Since I live in a 'sort of' city environment, my wife was unhappy with the 'look' (and what the nieghbors might think). She also thought aliens would visit our house first... I now have a biege/white shade cloth sitting 3"-6" above my roof glass. Not as effective as the aluminet, but still able to keep it in the mid 80's even on the hottest days with my oversized swamp cooler. Plus I am still married, my nieghbors still like us and no aliens have visited (at least not that I am aware of).


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## Rick (Jun 6, 2010)

paphreek said:


> I was wondering, has anyone used Aluminet inside the greenhouse? I'm considering experimenting with it inside because some of my most intense afternoon sun will come in late February to mid April, before the leaves open on the trees. February is too early to put out shade cloth in the north here because of heavy spring snows.



I have not heard of this Ross, so I hope someone does chime in.

My guess is that even though your brightest light is in late winter, the day length is still short and temps still low enough to not worry too much about the light level (without any shade cloth). But the advertisements for aluminet claim its great for conserving winter heat by reflecting IR back into the GH as it tries to escape through the roof. If you can effectively evacuate / ventilate the space above the net inside the GH I suspect it will work inside the GH too during the summer.


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## goldenrose (Jun 7, 2010)

paphreek said:


> I was wondering, has anyone used Aluminet inside the greenhouse? I'm considering experimenting with it inside because some of my most intense afternoon sun will come in late February to mid April, before the leaves open on the trees. February is too early to put out shade cloth in the north here because of heavy spring snows.


My thought is with Rick, are you sure the sun will be too intense at those times? I don't put mine on til normally May, this year April was unusually warm so it went up early. All the wood trusses are going to be casting some shade as the day goes as well. Acker's has their shade cloth inside on a roller type system, attached to the highest horizontal rafter, with a push of a button they can shade or not shade. The aluminet is pretty flimsy but I'm sure there's a way it could be done!


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## Bolero (Jun 7, 2010)

How does it compare to white or sandstone coloured shade cloth? I considered it but it's not used very widely in Australia so I couldn't find anyone with an educate opinion on the product.


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## Bob in Albany N.Y. (Jun 7, 2010)

I've been using the white 50% shade cloth on the outside of my greenhouse. The first year I took it down in the fall. By Feb. it was too bright in there. Way to bright. We were out there in the snow trying to put it back on. We only did that once. We now leave it up year round on the outside here in N.Y. The only problem we have run across is that the zip tyes that are holding it in place break down. That plus the snow load will pull down a corner every year. This fall I started just going up there and replacing any broken zip tyes. This year with the snow we didn't have any problems. Remember the snow melts within a couple of days due to the heat within the greenhouse and the sun. I know Hadley has shade cloth both on the outside as well as the inside. He said the inside shade cloth helped cut down on the heating bill. I believe he keeps them both up year round. Remember he leaves in N. Carolina, though. 

I'd like to go with aluminate next time myself, but also don't think the wife will go for it. She let me build the greenhouse, so must keep her happy. Also my shade cloth has to be in 6 pieces. That is due to the fact I can't just pulled it over the greenhouse from side to side. I have vents going the length of the greenhouse on both sides both at the top and where the glass starts at the side walls.


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## Ernie (Jun 7, 2010)

If it reflects heat back up, might not be as good inside, Ross??? Heat would just get bounced back and forth between the Aluminet and glazing eventually raising the temp inside the GH, right? Might be a good thing in Minneapolis during winter, but not so good in August. Moving it in then out again each year might get old quick?


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## paphreek (Jun 7, 2010)

Ernie said:


> If it reflects heat back up, might not be as good inside, Ross??? Heat would just get bounced back and forth between the Aluminet and glazing eventually raising the temp inside the GH, right? Might be a good thing in Minneapolis during winter, but not so good in August. Moving it in then out again each year might get old quick?



It doesn't reflect heat. It reflects light. The heat is produced as objects absorb the lights energy and radiate it out as heat. You are right, though, about possible excess heat in the rafters as the rafters absorb light and radiate heat.


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## cnycharles (Jun 7, 2010)

we have several smaller and and some of the larger greenhouses at work are shaded with aluminet or some cheaper version of it. all shading is inside, a motor opens and closes the curtain material. some of the houses have aluminet on one side and black cloth on the other (for controlling the time duration of light at certain times of year) and others have just black cloth (installed before aluminet or aluminet/black cloth was made). the houses that have shading cloth or black cloth are much hotter than the houses with aluminet. the curtains are pulled open and closed between two sets of plastic line which hold the curtain in place, and are fixed on one side to each rafter. for the smaller greenhouses that have a triangular roof shape the curtain follows a triangular shape (resting on the curtain strings) while the larger houses with opening roofs rest flat on curtain strings. you can get hand cranks to manually open and close the curtains, but even if you have a small house it's a lot easier if you have a curtain motor. if air is drawn up through the roof for convective or forced air cooling, you need to leave the curtain open around 20% so that the air can vent out properly. aluminet reflects the light and you will get some upper rafter heating, but you would have that with the light coming in anyhow and if you didn't have air movement way up in the roof then heat would pool; it's much better to have the heat up on top than heating your benches, floor and plants because they all have more mass to collect and store that heat; a few rafters above aluminet cover does get very hot but doesn't have alot of mass to hold very much total warmth. greenhouse can be fairly 'bright' using aluminet than shade, so that generally light is getting through; but important thing to consider is that if your plants were so warm from very bright light, then photosynthesis has already stopped long ago, so having the shading from aluminet isn't really going to hurt plant growth. the aluminum strands will 'rust' a little over time, so they won't be quite so shiny, so that may help keep your neighbors and the aliens flying above from being quite so bothered 

I can't say which would be better for outside shading: aluminet or % shading since the shading cloth would be outside and the heat probably wouldn't collect and bother things inside to a great degree but if I had a greenhouse that I needed to shade/cool I'd be looking long and hard to find a way to use aluminet over anything else (it's also lightweight material so not heavy for the structure to hold or to manipulate by hand, which is why you need strings on bottom and top to keep it from wafting around between the rafters in a breeze)


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## JeanLux (Jun 8, 2010)

thanks for the very useful infos Charles!!! Jean


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## Jim Toomey (Jun 8, 2010)

I use aluminet @ 50% outside:
http://www.polysack.com/index.php?page_id=76

and 50% red inside under the rafters:
http://www.polysack.com/index.php?page_id=251

You may want to read their research on why the red is purported to be beneficial.

I had talked to Frank Giglia from polysack and he recommended this combination when using the opaque GE lexan. If I had used the clear lexan he said to use the grey shade-cloth on the interior.

My plants seem to really like it, though I can't say if the red has made any significant difference since the GH was fairly new when I had it installed. So I can't compare before and after.
The studies that they did overseas seem pretty interesting and if you have a few minutes it may be worth your time to read.

http://www.polysack.com/index.php?page_id=746

This one for Phal:
http://www.polysack.com/files/e9f9f2aca300c62ae62d46141f287901.pdf

Jim T


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## goldenrose (Jun 9, 2010)

Thanks Jim, very informative & interesting. 
If one doesn't live in the same part of the world where these tests were conducted, would it give the same results?


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## Jim Toomey (Jun 9, 2010)

Great question... I know East coast light is different from west coast light.
So I imagine there are differences, but I think the basic principle is the same.

Frank Giglia said that some growers in South Florida will use the blue shade cloth to keep the plants growth compact and it delays the blooming, the buds will form but are reluctant to bloom while under the blue cloth.

Then after they receive an order, they put the plants under red shade cloth to initiate blooming. If the order is delayed they put it back under the blue cloth to stall the blooming process.

He said they can produce multiple "batches" of blooming plants from the same crop so the retailers have a constant supply of plants that are in fresh bloom.

I would love to see a university do a study of this over here in the states.

JT


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## cnycharles (Jun 12, 2010)

Jim Toomey said:


> Frank Giglia said that some growers in South Florida will use the blue shade cloth to keep the plants growth compact and it delays the blooming, the buds will form but are reluctant to bloom while under the blue cloth.
> 
> Then after they receive an order, they put the plants under red shade cloth to initiate blooming. If the order is delayed they put it back under the blue cloth to stall the blooming process.
> 
> ...


interesting, to say the least. would be very helpful commercially if you have a crop of flowering annuals and it's approaching flowering too early, and you need to hang on to the plants for a while. on the other hand, it would be nice to try and coax some plants to flower under red cloth, if it worked that way. only problem is when we receive an order it means it's heading out the door right away (hopefully)


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