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I have been thinking of the best way to heat and at the same time water some shelf's in my new greenhouse. I have 10 - 100 foot heating cables and the shelf's are around 9 inches to 12 inches on top of each other. I have been trying to think of a way to lay the heating cables down on the shelf's so that the heat is reflected up and onto the plants. I have thought about putting 1/2 inch Styrofoam type insulation down with the aluminum side up and the wires attached to this.
The the watering I have been thinking of a few different approaches. One to lay plastic or pond liner on top of the insulation and heat cables. The pond liner would then have a capillary mat over it to keep the unleveled areas damp and humidity up. My last thought was to have each shelf with the pond liner holding a small amount of water and in on each end of the shelf's to put a hole so that the water drips down to the lower shelf and then is recycled back to the top from a bottom reservoir.
I am open to any suggestions and if their are draw backs to my original design. One that I have been thinking about is on the flowing water system if it is heated would this be a good thing for the plants or a bad thing. As I have heard in hydroponics that heated water can cause root problems on many plants?
I have also thought about just laying the heat cable on the metal shelfing frames and adding a timer mist system on the under side of each shelf?
Here is a picture of the new greenhouse I just moved and set up. The shelfing is around 30 feet long and each shelf is around 2 feet wide or 4 feet from one side to the other. This was before the move.
Click the image for an enlarged view.
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