[Otishertz]

Efficient Greenhouse Design

There are some ruins downtown SE Portland from a fire at the Taylor Electric Building at SE 3rd and Clay. I ride my bike by there and appreciate the decrepitude and dilapidation. Always assumed it would become coffee and condos like every other place but thankfully global economic collapse has slowed the homogenization of gentrification...

Since growing things and giving them away is my thing I got wondering about growing food for Portlanders who are hungry and homeless.

I believe we are on the cusp of an indoor agriculture revolution where the confluence of efficient solar, net metering, and new higher efficiency HID lights will change the economics of urban growing. A well planned building and garden design can augment efficiency with rainwater collection and proper orientation for sunlight collection and air flow. A composting operation can recover the mineral value in local scraps and turn it into valuable worm castings for growing plants.

There are tax credits of $5 per foot available from the city of Portland for diverting the rainwater. There are government incentives for solar. Carbon credits and methane offsets are available for composting operations. Maybe this or something similar can be put together.


Design Elements:

Photovoltaic solar panels
Solar water heating panels
Rain water recirculate-reuse hydroponic system
HID supplemental lighting in greenhouse and HID nursery with heat exchange to building
Composting operation of local vegetable scraps with heat exchange to building
Worm castings grown with vermicompost become plant food.
Coconut coir renewable grow techniques


Note: The low end is the South end. It may seem counter-intuitive to put the panels on the low end with the garden behind. The building ruins are set into the hill with the South wall being way above the floor. Floor level is more like a basement along that wall. Neighboring building also shades that wall. The building looks better with the large North atrium and the plants would probably get the same light as the South side. Multi level growing is also possible in the high atrium. The height of the north wall would be about 40' as drawn.

[Otishertz]

Rain fed hydro set up to run Ogrow.

This setup is run-to-reuse or recirculating. The grower can alternate between 7/10, tea, flush, or recirculate by switching valves. The runoff is pumped to a roof garden. Number of trays can be multiplied. Could be reconfigured as gravity fed. Exterior pumps are preferable for maintenance issues but sump pumps would work fine. 7/10 run through coco comes out very clean and is reusable. Using the 7/10 twice greatly increases yield per dollar. It can probably be run through more than twice.

Otishertz Rain Table

For more on Ogrow methods of plant cultivation see my essay here:

http://www.otisgardens.com/forum/index.php?topic=74.0

[Smokeyhot]

Wow this is awesome! Im glad to learn more!

[David J]

It does make a lot of sense to utilize our most abundant resource. Last year Portland got 4 feet of rain, around the average amount.  This year is looking to be even wetter.

The amount of run-off from building roofs downtown must be huge. ( 208 feet 9 inches by 208 feet 9 inches by 1 foot deep is an Acre-Foot or 325,851 gallons of water.) Putting that water to use growing food or whatever before letting it run into the river should be, and apparently is, what a Green city does.

Getting paid by the city just to implement a set-up like this really fascinating. Then there is the crop. Given the skill set our community has and the need for food in the larger community it could be a class operation.

Who knows, it might even turn a decent profit while building a good relationship with the city.

[Sexpot]

These pictures are amazing! Love all the glass and the Google Earth-ing motion  :bubbly:

[Otishertz]

In the sketch:


76 sections of solar panels  Each section is 47.5' by 2' or 95 square feet. Total panel square footage is 7220.

48 raised beds of coco coir in greenhouse. Each bed is 24.25' x 5.9' or 143.08 square feet. Total raised bed square footage 6867.84. Add 1000 square feet for isolated nursery under the roof = 7867.84 total grow area. There is more available square footage visible in the drawing.

The building is 200' x 200' according to Google Earth so total roof area is 40,000 feet.

How much power will this many panels produce?
Will it be enough to power and heat the greenhouse?

[lostenspace]

You add aquaponics to that and you got a fully functional fertilizer making machine.