I'm thinking of putting up a hoophouse at my place in western Maine.
Looking at the literature, it looks like they all need to be heated in
order not to collapse under snow loads.

Are there any hoophouses able to take snow loads without needing heat?

Thanks.

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 11:31:49 -0400, WCD
wrote:


I'm thinking of putting up a hoophouse at my place in western Maine.
Looking at the literature, it looks like they all need to be heated in
order not to collapse under snow loads.

Are there any hoophouses able to take snow loads without needing heat?


I know people who actually LIVE in a hoophouse in upstate
New York. They've lived in it for 3 or 4 years. (They
don't plan on living in it forever.) It's heated of course,
they're living in it.

Upstate New York will not have your amount of snow, but the
snow there is certainly not trivial.

The one they have is he

http://www.hoophouse.com

I don't know which model they have. Maybe they've
reinforced it, I don't know that either.

We're planning on building one, and reinforcing it, and
hoping it stands up under the snow load we have here in
northern Pennsylvania.

Pat
--
"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of
supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to
live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 11:31:49 -0400, WCD wrote:

I'm thinking of putting up a hoophouse at my place in western Maine.
Looking at the literature, it looks like they all need to be heated in
order not to collapse under snow loads.

Are there any hoophouses able to take snow loads without needing heat?

I would guess a steep enough angle would make the entire mass slide
off. From what I hear the best angle to catch sunlight in winter
months is around 23.5 degrees, but it's a little easier to use 25
degrees when using saws that are only adjustable to 5-degree
increments.

Dan

If you do not use it during the winter you don't need to heat but if you
have a large snow storm you would need to sweep most of the snow off the
plastic. I do not have a hoophouse yet as of now it is in the planning
stage. Plan to build before winter. But when researching before building I
found allot of people sweep them off to keep them up. And some who didn't
that lost them due to heavy snow loads.
Harold
"WCD" wrote in message
...

I'm thinking of putting up a hoophouse at my place in western Maine.
Looking at the literature, it looks like they all need to be heated in
order not to collapse under snow loads.

Are there any hoophouses able to take snow loads without needing heat?

Thanks.

harold steig wrote:

But when researching before building I
found allot of people sweep them off to keep them up. And some who didn't
that lost them due to heavy snow loads.


That's my concern. I'm building this at a second home. We aren't always
there to sweep things off in the event of a big storm.