Adding to the heat wall in the greenhouse

Hi dere, and welcome to da greenhouse, eh! It's still cold out here so I hope you're wearing your parka and your tuke!

If you saw my previous post, you'll know that I got my little cast iron wood stove installed in the greenhouse. I've had a couple of fires in it since that time to see how well the stove would work to warm up the greenhouse. When it's 5-10 degrees F outside, the little stove can only do so much inside the greenhouse. With the frozen ground, and no insulation, the heat doesn't stay in the greenhouse for very long. The tin roof on the back half probably acts like a radiator to the outside.

I hung some packing blankets on the walls in the back half where the stove is, and that helps a little bit, I also hung one packing blanket from some poles in the rafters to act as a bit of a lower ceiling. Those things all help a bit with slowing down the heat loss, but I would need to do a lot more to actually be effective at stopping heat loss.

Another thing that I've found to be helpful is the half wall of concrete blocks that I stacked in the middle of the greenhouse last fall. I painted all of the south facing part of the wall black to help the blocks absorb heat when the sun is shining on them. That actually does make a difference on a sunny day.

I have the wood stove set up about a foot away from the back side of that half wall, and once I get the stove hot, it starts warming up those blocks that are close to it. The longer I burn the fire, the more the blocks warm up, and the heat spreads out in the wall. The wall is not as efficient as it could be because the blocks are hollow, and there's nothing inside them except air. I have been thinking about filling them with sand to help hold more heat, but that's a subject for another time.

Because of the way the blocks heat up when I have a fire in the stove, I decided that I should add a few more blocks to the wall, mostly in front of the stove pipe, to take advantage of the heat radiating off the pipe. I went to the local big box store a few days ago and picked up 5 whole blocks, 2 half blocks, and a couple of 4 inch thick blocks for cap blocks. I must be getting old or decrepid or something, because those 8 inch concrete blocks have become rather heavy, and my back really doesn't like them anymore.

This is what the wall looked like before I started adding to it. You can see part of the packing blankets hanging on the back wall in the far corner.

I hauled the blocks with my old Explorer, or exploder, as I like to call it. I had already hauled some of them to the greenhouse before I thought to take pictures.

I hauled the blocks with my old flatbed wheelbarrow.

I got the blocks up on the wall and arranged the way I wanted them. I used 4 blocks on the main wall, and used the other block to raise one of the support wall on the backside so I would have a bit more support for the wood pile. I did all of this a couple of days ago.

I went out to the greenhouse this afternoon to see if the sun warmed it up any, and decided to start a fire just for the heck of it. I also decided to put the 5th block up on the main wall to see if it would help catch a bit more heat from the pipe. So, now it looks like this. Not a big change, but it could be helpful for picking up more heat from the sun.

Here's what it looks like from the back.

Eventually, I'll get more blocks to bring the rest of the wall up 2 blocks, and I might get 4 inch solid blocks for cap blocks. Those solid blocks are probably as heavy, if not more so than the 8 inch hollow blocks, so I don't know if I'm going to want to lift those up to the top of the wall. It's hard enough to get the hollow 8 inch blocks up there.

So, this is where I'm at with the heat wall in the greenhouse right now. It will be interesting to see if it helps any with heat retention. I think it will work a lot better when spring comes and the ground thaws out inside the greenhouse.

Well, that's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my post, eh!

Here's the link to my last greenhouse post, in case you'd like to read it.
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@amberyooper/the-greenhouse-in-winter

As always, feel free to leave a comment or a question if you would like.

May the Steem nuggets ever be in your favor!