Long story from Berrak

[Berrak]

Hi my name is Bertil and I am born 1953.
I have grown orchids since 1998.
Me and my wife lived in a pretty big house where I had good space
for my orchids. 2006 we moved to a smaller house and my orchids had to suffer for som time. I gave away some big cattleyas which I did not have room for.

Last year in April we decided to build a new winter garden and it has been a heavy jobb.


We started to take down the old room which was not insulated.

It was a lot of digging but then a neighbour borrowed a small digging machine which I also could use.

Then refilling with small stones.

I digged away 10 cubic meter sand and had to order a lot of stone.

The ground had to be insulated and reinforcment before casting concrete.

So that was 10 pics that was the maximim amount in one post.
Will be continued another day.

 

[Heather]

Wow! Looks like a great project - I can't wait to see more.

I love the "varning" label.
I know a tiny (TINY) bit of the Norwegian language that I learned in high school. I love though how some words just translate well across continents.

 

[Candace]

I think I need to borrow that machine to do trenching as soon as it stops raining here! Thanks for the photos.

 

[likespaphs]

neat!

 

[Berrak]

I have some more time tonight. Have a glass of red wine right next to me and can go on with the story Part II

I got concrete to a very good price and one day came the pump truck.

The truck had a high lift and was placed in the right position.

After 5 hours came another truck with the concrete. Luck for me I had a fixed price. A pump truck is very expensive per hour. The delay was due to lack of trucks this day.

The pump truck driver was very professional when pumping the concrete.

A few friends came and helped me.

This was the result.

To be continued...................................its in July 2007 now:wink:

 

[NYEric]

Are you building a room for your orchids? If so I hope you sloped the concrete floors to a drain point.

 

[Berrak]

Sure I have a sloop and good drainage. But its not only for the orchids.

Part III

Building of the new room started

The doors was extermly heavy and it was a tuff jobb to install them.

Gluing 200 m heat cable was not fun.

A good friend put out the floor filler above the heat floor.

The result was excellent

Time for the clinker floor

Its now September 2007 and my orchids was standing everywhere inside.
It was extremely important to have the heat installed before November.

To be continued........

 

[GuRu]

Bertil,
Hello and welcome from Germany. I'm just sitting laid back in front of my computer screen and am watching how you were hard working last year.
As you might also know it's always easier to see other people work hard than to work by your own!! :rollhappy:
BTW are all Swedish tilers as pretty as yours??
Best regards from Germany, GuRu

 

[Ayreon]

Nice to see the full story finally. Would love to see it "live" one day

/Mattias

 

[goldenrose]

Great job & friends!

 

[Berrak]

Golden yeah its great to have friends

GuRu - the tiles are probably imported from mid or south Europe.
From April until middle of November I had only 3 weekends not working with the project. I calculated I saved about 10.000 USD by doing most of the jobb myself with help of my wife.

It was lucky that we could take 2 weeks of beteween 16 of November and 2 of December when we went to Thailand.

Mattias - whenever you are in Stockholm you are welcome/ and of course also your family.

Part IV - We thought about the walls and decided to put up stone.
That took several weekends.

We choose one wall with dark stone and two with sand coloured stone.

After that I put up lighting.

50 Watt halogen bulbs.

150 Watt Metal halide

and two 125 W Mercury bulbs.

Now we are close to Christmas - still there are much left to do.

 

[Heather]

Wow! It's beautiful! I love the waterfall in the last photo.
Gosh, a ton of work for a fabulous growing area. Color me jealous!

I would never want a greenhouse because, here where it is cold in New England it would cost too much for me to run, but I have always thought a "glass house" attached to my house would be ideal. Yours is wonderful. Keep the photos coming, please!

 

[GuRu]

GuRu - the tiles are probably imported from mid or south Europe.

I didn't mean the tiles I meant the pretty tiler (seams to be your wife). She did a fairly extraordinary job as a woman - that commands respect!! :clap:
Best regards from Germany, GuRu

 

[Corbin]

Great growing room.

One thing, as a construction superintendent, that interested me was the heavy equipment. It was interesting to see how different it was built in comparison to the equipment here in the states.

 

[NYEric]

Looks pretty good. Well done.

 

[SlipperFan]

This is very interesting and full of good ideas. With your system, can you get the floor wet when you water, like you could in a greenhouse?

 

[JeanLux]

Congratulations! Very good job. The room seems to have lots of space yet! Pay attention, not to get it crowded too soon!! Jean

 

[Berrak]

I am not going to wet the floor. I carry the plants inside when I water them.
I have now 14 deg C at night and 22 max at day.

Humidity is to low 35-50% depending on temperature but I spray the plants every morning and evening.

I have a centrifugal humidifier but I have not had any time to install it yet.

I must also install a cooling system so I can keep the temp below 28 dec C during from spring until autumn.

Jean it will not be owercrowded.

By the way it is 18 square meters.

 

[goldenrose]

I am not going to wet the floor. I carry the plants inside when I water them. I have now 14 deg C at night and 22 max at day.

Humidity is to low 35-50% depending on temperature but I spray the plants every morning and evening.

I'm curious - why would you carry them inside to water them? That's an easy instant humidity!

 

[Berrak]

The floor i warm an nice. We walk there without shoes. We often eat dinner there. We dont want a wet floor. Thats the reason.