Project: garden
What worked:
The size is perfect for what we wanted.
The Aluminium extrusion and corrugated polycarbonate panels are much more substantial. than the standard cheap steel tube with plastic fittings and plastic film greenhouses that are now common. It should last much longer, stand up to the wind better and the polycarbonate shouldn't be too expensive to replace when it eventually succumbs to UV degradation.
The opening window is a nice addition too. One of the problems we've previously found the the tent like greenhouses is that you need to keep the door open on hot days. This means that if you go away either you leave the door open and run the risk with cool nights or leave it closed and risk the green house overheating on hot days. We are planning to fit an 'automatic' window opener to remove both risks.
The cost wasn't too bad. given the limitations I think I paid too much (£150 from Argos) but if I'd bought it on Ebay for ~£90 I wouldn't feel so bad.
What didn't work
The instructions were particularly bad. some of the images where incorrect but the most annoying part was the last instruction was to push the plastic end caps onto the ends of the aluminium extrusion. This is impossible once assembled but could have been done first, making the difficult assemble process safer.
The clips for holding the polycarbonate panels are not too bad, but they need to fit into grooves which are only present on two sides for most of the panels. We decided to add double sided tape so that the panels won't get blown off.
The basic door design is ok with rollers at the top and guide 'nubs' at the bottom. the assemble tolerances are so low though that the nubs easily fall out of their track, so the door freely swings around. the door end stop is also insubstantial (its just the plastic end cap weakly push into the end of the aluminium extrusion) I will be adding my own, bolted on, door stop..
The included spanners were often unsuitable for the job. They were weak and ill fitting yet oversize so couldn't fit into many of the gaps they needed to.
what next
fill with plants
add automatic vent
add door stop
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