Plastic barrels to provide thermal mass in the greenhouse

[TFOGGER]

I'm looking for 2 or maybe 3 plastic barrels to fill with water to act as thermal mass in the new greenhouse I'm building (pics to follow in another thread), preferably in black. The basic idea is to store the heat generated during the day and allow the barrels to radiate heat at night in the winter to reduce the amount of heating required. We currently have 2x55 gallon steel barrels that are pretty much at the end of their service life (rusting through), and want to replace them with similar, only more rust resistant. These do not need to be food grade, but do need to be clean and non-hazardous. Does anyone have a good source?

[RCCrawler]

Could you fit a 235gallon schutz tote?

[Irving]

Could you full them with rocks instead of water so you don't have to fight 110 gallons of frozen water every morning when the house is warming up?

[TFOGGER]

Could you fit a 235gallon schutz tote?

We could, but it would eat into the growing space, as the greenhouse is rather small (7'x8')

Could you full them with rocks instead of water so you don't have to fight 110 gallons of frozen water every morning when the house is warming up?

The water never gets that cold. Currently, the 55 gal drums we're using sit in the corners of the greenhouse and act as supports for one of the shelves for the plants. On a sunny day, they might get up to 80 degrees or so (keeping the greenhouse from overheating), and we never let the temperature in the greenhouse get below 48 degrees at night (the tropical houseplants and tomatoes don't like it). We've been using electric oil radiators for heat, and the barrels cut our peak winter electric bill significantly.

[izzy]

I've actually used stones before as well as water to do this. Darker the stone the better. I lined the pathways of my garden with the stones and used smaller amounts of water. I had good luck with partially buried 5 gallon buckets. There is also a thing called wall-o-water that you can put around individual plants.

[Great-Kazoo]

http://www.homedepot.com/b/Building-...tialmax&NCNI-5

We used the smoked tinted units. You make wall - frame around the structure at an angle /I . Have a few places to allow open & closing to adjust temp. It's utilizing sunlight to keep the area heated. If you consider small (5gal) water buckets against the structure with the smoked fiberglass panels built around those. You might stay freeze free in the winter. What's nice about the 5gal buckets. IF one freezes it's easy to replace AND thaw out vs a 55 gal unit.

[Lurch]

I can get you 30 gal plastic drums in white

[Great-Kazoo]

I can get you 30 gal plastic drums in white

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[TFOGGER]

http://www.homedepot.com/b/Building-...tialmax&NCNI-5

We used the smoked tinted units. You make wall - frame around the structure at an angle /I . Have a few places to allow open & closing to adjust temp. It's utilizing sunlight to keep the area heated. If you consider small (5gal) water buckets against the structure with the smoked fiberglass panels built around those. You might stay freeze free in the winter. What's nice about the 5gal buckets. IF one freezes it's easy to replace AND thaw out vs a 55 gal unit.

The walls on the new one are going to be 8mm twin wall polycarbonate, the roof is 10mm triple wall. It should give us an average R rating of 1.9, a huge improvement. The old greenhouse was single wall polycarbonate (Lexan) about .75 mm.

[Great-Kazoo]

The walls on the new one are going to be 8mm twin wall polycarbonate, the roof is 10mm triple wall. It should give us an average R rating of 1.9, a huge improvement. The old greenhouse was single wall polycarbonate (Lexan) about .75 mm.

I'm talking about doing polycarbonate along the base , like a flower box. This provides more heat / solar.