Brilliant Off-Grid Geodesic Greenhouse Perfect for Homesteading & 4 Season Food Production

[Music] there are a few things that human beings need to survive really you know home water and food and so the ability to grow your own food is just so freeing growing dome is a four-season year-round greenhouse that allows most folks to be able to grow pretty much anything they want in their backyard the idea is the self-reliance is sustainability so they're geodesic domes that's important for a number of reasons primarily being strength and longevity so the domes themselves can withstand up to seven feet of snow on top of them they'll withstand about 180 kilometer an hour wind speeds they're bolted into the ground they don't move anywhere and the idea is that in some of the harshest climates that you can still rely on yourself to grow all your own food so one of the best things about the greenhouse is that it's off-grid so the greenhouses rely on solar passive heating we have a thermal mass of water in the back of the greenhouse in the north wall on top of that there's the solar ventilation and what that does is it allows for anybody anywhere to basically put one up in their backyard and not require electrical service it uses the sun to heat itself cool itself and run all of its internal functions so basically we have the foundation which can be concrete or gravel really depends on on what the environment calls for and then it's constructed out of the strut material which is which is a lumber we prefer to use some beautiful western red cedar especially in the greenhouse it lasts in the humidity we build our own custom hub system which connects all of the struts and helps build our dome structure and then we sheath the entire thing in a polycarbonate material which is a multi-wall but a half inch thick plastic material which is translucent lets the sun in but keeps all the snow the wind and the pest zone the greenhouse panels the polycarbonate panels are really important for a lot of things they have a high r value for their structure at 1.6 which doesn't sound like a lot but for a greenhouse that's huge they also have a really low u-value which means that they don't hold cold so even in the middle of the winter you can touch them they still feel warm to the touch that really helps with the plant life on the on the inside on top of that they're hail resistant unlike glass you can't throw a rock through it the other amazing thing about these guys the polycarbonate panels is that they're 100 recyclable so any scrap that we have from our production or if any client needs these replaced we cut them down into strips and we actually have a polymer recycler that we work well with they take them they chip them they melt them back down into feed pellets and a brand new sheet can be made out of an old sheet this is one of the solar fans that we have basically controlling the internal temperature of the greenhouse this solar panel can be tilted up or down to catch more or less sunlight and it's directly mounted to this intake fan underneath they have thermostats and they have shut off remotes and timers the idea is you don't need to bring in electrical service you don't need to bring in hydro lines and trench them you can if you want to but this option allows anyone to to put one up anywhere in the world and survive off grid we're at a client's location about an hour away from our shop here on this particular build they went with three different domes we're going to take you on a tour of a 42 foot model one of our largest so follow me welcome to the inside of growingdome this is late september here but we're still 35 degrees plus in the greenhouse the plants as you can see still growing like crazy we've got all sorts of goodies growing from fruits to exotics to flowers to vegetables and butterflies so just a beautiful area directly above us we have this shade cloth it's actually made out of aluminum which is really cool so it's really lightweight won't degrade or hold heat which is most important we hang them up basically to create a shaded effect on certain plants so they aren't getting the full intensity of the sun we've come on back to the north side of our greenhouse where we have our reflectec wall on the north wall pointing down to a large pool of water which acts as a giant thermal mass it's pretty straightforward the way that this works is in the summer when the sun is higher in the sky it's getting less direct sunlight and acts as a cooling agent when the sun is lower in the sky in the winter it reflects all of the sunlight down into here to warm it up so we've done the math and it's equivalent to basically running a 40 000 btu heater just using the sun's energy so we capture that we hold it in here and that's what allows us to grow four seasons in year round the best part about all this is that they're actually passive solar pools so this technology functions every day the sun rises on either side of the pool we have pipes coming up going underground and running the inner perimeter of the greenhouse and then coming up again on the other side of the pool this under soil geothermal fan system is again solar powered we include solar panels and everything else so that it runs off grid again what this does in the summertime is it pulls the cool air from the pool underneath your garden and your root beds cooling them down and vice versa in the winter time pulls that heat again and warms everything up for you here's the nuts and bolts so to speak no pun intended of what holds this entire structure together this hub system is made of a marine grade aluminum held together with galvanized bolts and western red cedar struts with the polycarbonate on the outside basically what you're looking at is the strength of the structure itself the angles of the struts coming into the hubs allow for even more weight to support it on top and on top and on top until we finally close that pattern up here's the inside look on the solar fan each greenhouse is sized with a different cfm rating meaning the cubic feet a minute of air exchange required so each greenhouse comes with different amounts of fans on where you are and what you want to do it doesn't have to be raised beds you could do hugo culture you could do mounds you could plant directly into the ground if you build on good soil so it's it's super open to whichever design you're most comfortable with and familiar with you know depending on how you grow your food you can really see different results so if you're your average green thumb you're used to growing in raised beds a 42 foot model like this is enough to feed 12 people we've had different setups where people are growing vertically and hydroponically and that just increases your output exponentially then you're able to meet you know 100 or 150 people's daily requirement for greens by growing hydroponically this dome what it does is it creates an environment for urine production to occur without lights in the wintertime you're still going to be able to grow a large variety of crops lots of leafy greens and herbs and anything else which doesn't require such intense light to start a fruiting process if you want to have things like tomatoes and cucumbers and all these different energy dense foods grow year round you're probably going to require a lighting system to make that happen but the geodesic dome with the passive thermal is going to create that growing environment so you don't necessarily have to worry about heat as much this dome is a little bit different than the other one this one's focused on veg production same style same setup as the 42 in terms of total square footage but as you can see very different layout in terms of veg production we've got a cantaloupe that's trying to take over we've got tomatoes growing up to the ceiling peas and beans and pods everywhere same pool in the back of the greenhouse this one designed to produce though a lot of folks will grow aquatic veg in them they've started their aquatic journey with growing a number of different plant species back there you can grow aquatic species you could raise fish one of the amazing things about the growing dome utilizing this pool in the back of the greenhouse with three to four hours of sunlight in the winter time we can have about a 30 degree temperature difference inside versus out so if it's negative 15 degrees outside and it's sunny you're seeing 15 to 20 degrees inside no matter what time of year that is that's with zero supplemental heat if you're a little bit further north and you're worried that maybe negative 40 negative 50 is just too much some clients find that it's really beneficial to add a small stock tank heater or add a small wood stove or add solar vacuum tubes there's a ton of different options so the last couple domes we've been looking at are predominantly based on plant life this dome located on the same property has a different focus in mind it's more about zen and yoga so let's take a peek inside the idea of this one is to be able to have a retreat to be able to get away from it all and enjoy kind of this quiet quaint uh earthy place right in your backyard one of the other things that we're offering now which is amazing is skylights so being able to you know lay on your back and meditate and watch the clouds roll by or camp out overnight and watch the milky way go over top of you it's just a great way to feel even closer to nature we have to design greenhouses that perform well in about five different growing zones right here in this growing zone which is 5a we have temperature ranges that go from negative 40 in the winter all the way up to plus 40 in the summer time so as far as a greenhouse goes there's tons of challenges involved with keeping it cool enough and keeping it warm enough this is a spray-on bicarbonate material it's ph neutral which means that when it washes off into the plant beds or anything like that it doesn't affect your soil it doesn't poison your plants or anything it's a natural product but it also allows for 70 percent less sunlight and heat and energy to get into the greenhouses if we were further north say in a 4 or 3a it would be very different you wouldn't require this it naturally washes off with the rain so depending on how wet the season is you might have to apply more than one coating so you mix it together in a in a spray bottle and you can hand apply in the winter when we are dealing with the colder climate this shading agent isn't required and so that's when we would apply the the washing agent to make sure that's all off the greenhouse would perform well through the winter polycarbonate paneling goes on to the struts however the challenge is we need to weather seal it and make sure the water can't get in we use this remarkable tape membrane it's an aircraft tape actually used in the aerospace industry it's 100 clear you can hardly see it on this panel it's uv resistant as well so it's rated for you know up to 10 years and it weather and water seals the greenhouses themselves the polycarbonate paneling also has a uv coat on it as well so the harsh uv rays don't get through you can work all day long in the greenhouse you might be hot but it won't be sunburned [Music] the domes themselves are so powerful and so unique you know we spend our days constantly in square boxes you step into a place like this you realize there really isn't a beginning and an end to it it's kind of this constant flowing circle funny enough i grew up grew up on a farm and couldn't wait to get away and went away to school and took a business degree and first thing i did is ran back home and and started a greenhouse company so food is really really personal to me when you're growing it yourself and you're harvesting and keeping it it's so rewarding and for me to be able to wake up every day and create and make a product like this which allows people to do that it's a dream come true we're called arctic acres we build greenhouses for the canadian climate but we're not alone we have a fantastic partner their name is growing spaces they're in colorado in the united states they've existed for 30 years they're wonderful folks so together we want to bring these geodesic domes across north america please share this video if you liked it also be sure to subscribe to exploring alternatives and check out our playlists for more stories like this thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Exploring Alternatives

Views: 1,126,831

Keywords: off, grid, passive, solar, greenhouse, growing, dome, geodesic, thermal, mass, pond, pool, water, solar panel, fan, ventilation, heating, cooling, shade, cloth, homestead, homesteading, food, production, farming, farm, market, garden, backyard, Arctic Acres, Growing Spaces, Exploring Alternatives, raised, beds, mounds, hugelkultur, hydroponic, tour, interior, geothermal, off the grid, sustainable, self, sufficient, sufficiency, reliant, reliance, gardening, retreat, skylight, temperature, control, reflectix, recyclable, geometric, plastic

Id: 7mt8fxMfGA4

Length: 12min 14sec (734 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 09 2021