I've gathered supplies to make a couple hoop houses this fall, and spent a bit of time this evening setting up things to bend the hoops and get everything "dialed In".


I purchased a harbor freight tubing roller a few weeks back, and played around with rolling the tubing to make sure it would work out. Its not as easy as I had expected, but works pretty good once things are set up well. I had problems with the tubing "corkscrewing" pretty badly at first, but after getting supports laid out I've been able to resolve that.



I rolled more tubes tonight, dialing in the curve I need to meet my goals of a 14' wide hoop. The 14' wide width should take about 22' of tubing, so, 2 full 10'(+6") pieces and then I will cut 2' sections from a full tube to finish out. I plan on elevating as little as possible from the ground posts- maybe 12"- 18" from the ground, adding a bit of head clearance to aid in fitting 80" tall storm doors. Overall size will be 14'x24'.

CAD model of my plan




Going with 36" spacing to help with the wind. The model shows 18" of in-ground pipes above surface, looks like this will give me much more head room.

I have 2 - 24" motorized shutters for the front wall, and a 20" shutter fan for the back wall. Since I will have to run conduit for the wiring to the fan, I will probably add a few outlets as well.

Excited to get these together!

Looks good, @binfordw

Keep us updated with your progress.

Looks nice keep it up.

Finally, finally broke ground on this project today.

Next is cutting the corner posts down to size, and screwing in the boards to hold everything in place. I think between now and early spring I'll be able to work on finishing the hoops, wall ends, etc.

Glad you got started, @binfordw

I'll bet you will get a lot of wind in that open area. Build it well!

Keep us updated!

Definitely a lot of wind here!
One of the hardest parts on transplanting and hardening off plants for me here is not the temperature, but the winds.

I cut the hoop spacing down to 3' centers in an attempt to combat the winds. I also plan on 2 purlins, I have material for 3 if it seems needed. The corner posts were driven 3' deep, and I'll probably bury some anchors for at least the western facing wall.

Spent a bit of time seeing how the hoops I bent so far fit, seems like it should work out pretty easy. 2 full 10'6" tubes, and 1 24" tube per hoop. with 18" of tube out of the ground, this gets me right at 100" of headspace in the center.

This seems to have refueled my interest in finishing these up a bit! Maybe this weekend I'll see what I can accomplish.

Finished the hoops today, hung a center purlin just to aid in leveling the hoops and trying to get everything leveled out.

Its not perfect, but its not looking bad to me so far. I need to figure out my end hoop bracing and the best way to get them squared up. I cut 5' lengths of 3/4"x1/4" steel I had and drilled holes in each end, I think these might work ok to brace the end hoops, from the bottom of the 2nd brace to up on the end braces.

I'll have to think about what the next steps will be, I will probably work on it more tommorrow!

Coming along nicely! Looking forward to your next update.

I measured out the door today and cut/ installed the framework for it. I wasn't sure how I'd handle the threshold, think I'll just build up dirt to it?.

I'll have to measure the exhaust vents next to frame spaces for those on each side of the door.

Pretty much finished the front wall this evening.

Framed in the 2 - 24" motorized intake shutters. I also worked on purlin clamps today. I'm not paying $2.50+ a piece for them, I made a fixture and bent a few in 16ga steel to get measurements right, looks like they will be pretty easy to make. I'm having a local shop shear me a bunch of 3/4" wide 16ga galvanized strips out of scrap/off all, then I'll cut them to 8" long, drill the holes and bend them up.

I finished the back wall a few days ago, and added the strips to attach the film to tonight.

Now I need my purlin clamps, still waiting on the material. As soon as I get them installed I believe I'll be ready to cover it.

You're doing a fantastic job on it!

plantmanager said:You're doing a fantastic job on it!

Hey thanks!

I'm pretty excited to have a (more) controlled growing environment this season, fingers crossed its an easy learning curve and things go well!

I got the 16ga galvanized strips today to make my purlin clamps with!

I cut a bunch of them to 8" long, the used a simple wood fixture to get the holes drilled 1/2" from each end. Before bending, I mark them from each end- 1.5", 3" and the center at 4". Then I stick them in a vise at the mark, and use the other mark to bend 90deg with a crescent wrench.

Then I center the middle mark and bend them over a piece of tube in a vise.

For about $25 including the zinc hardware, I should be able to make 60+ finished clamps

I installed the purlins a few days ago, the clamps worked out pretty well-





I finished the end braces this weekend, I wound up just cutting 4 of the 10'6" fence rails I had leftover down to 8'6", and rolling a slight bend in them. Then I had to flatten the ends to match the angles they attached and drill holes.

I used the same galvanized strips I had from the purlin clamps to make regular tube clamps to attach them to the hoops.


Everything seems surprisingly rigid now!




I"m basically ready for the plastic now. I have some sharp edges I need to do something about, where the ground tubes meet the hoops, and the edges of the purlin clamps. Would be nice to just wrap these edges with a tape, but It'd have to be safe for UV I guess. I can buff the edges of the clamps easy enough (Should have done that to begin with ), but the ground to hoop area is a bit different.

Started on the film this evening. I still need to cover the back end, and trim/secure the bottom edges.

The shadow looks a little bad, but this is about as much as it gets blocked (from the peak of our nearby barn), about an hour or so before sunset. By march I don't believe there will be any shadows at all.

You're doing a fantastic job.

Well the weather didn't really cooperate today, but I really wanted to finish as much as I could. Mainly so I wasn't leaving any "loose ends" incase high winds occur before I had a chance to finish things up.


So while getting pelted by snow, I finished the back wall, tacked down the sides, and installed the front door.

So now I just need to figure out tables before its time to move plants in. I'll probably go ahead and mount the exhaust fan and vents before then as well, but I'll wait for a nicer day to do that!