Solomon,

That Trachy looks great. Does your enclosure have light or allow light in? Are you pulling in the basement air from the basement window in the pic? How do you allow the air out? I'l like to know more about how you are doing it if you'd care to share.

Thanks Mark

Mark,
The enclosure is a 3 sided leanto which I can assemble in 20 minutes and secure it to the deck for support. The sides are waferboard and have 2 inch styrofoam glued to them inside. The front has a small single glazed window 18 x 30 ins. The basement window I use is under the deck and the air is drawn out using a 20 inch box fan and ducted out through the square opening that's visible on the right side of the picture. I used to use a small fan venting through dryer aluminum ducting, but it ran almost all the time when the outside temp dropped to -15C. The box fan only runs for a few minutes at a time in the coldest weather. I use a standard wall mount type baseboard heater thermostat which I have altered to work at lower temps than normal. It's mounted on the inside of one of the enclosure's side walls about 4 feet above the ground. I don't do anything to allow air to escape the enclosure, it seems to vent ok along the brick joints on the wall. I do nothing special to care for the Trachy except feed it from now until late summer with MiracleGro
Sol.

Hi Solomon,
sounds like a great system...got any pics?

Northeast exposure would prevent damage from overheating on sunny winter days, and also semi-protect the enclosure and the trachy from winter's cold blasts out of the northwest.

If you have no pictures, please remember to do step-by-step photos when you erect it this fall.
We're all interested in this.

Barb

My enclosure is dismantled and stored away now but I will photograph its assembly in November and post.
Sol.

He grew quite a bit this summer and I've just assembled the shelter. Again no special care. My old Agave Americana also squeezes in for the winter.

Solomon, I'm impressed with the simplicity and effectiveness of your design (and your electrical "tweaking" ability of the thermostat). And as you say, venting is accomplished as air tends to leak out between the brick joints, which prevents overheating on mild sunny days in winter.

Is the piece on the left secured to the ground (probably not screwed into the brick!)

Your Trachy has indeed grown this year...great size.

So it's winter, is it? 😥

Thanks for the great pics and explanation.
Barb

Very ingenious!
I like the design.
I should try that design on some washies or even a bizzie here in Vancouver.

Agreed, Very nice design! Where exactly is Wllington County anyway? Are you in the zone 6?
Check out the thread that I started on winter protection, I'm in zone 4b/5a near Kingston. I've got a few different desings I'm toying with, but I think the 'palm house' box design should be fine for the species I'm working with.
Thanks for sharing!

Solomon great system. Seems to be fool proof protection.

John

Thanks folks,

Lucky 1....The left side is secured to the wall with one lag bolt. The whole thing used to be larger and was secured to the wall more securely. That was before the balcony was built. After that I had to reduce the size of the enclosure and now it's held in place to the balcony with several deck screws. This invention has been great..our basement is much fresher now that it gets some automatic venting in the winter. I keep the window bug screen on to keep out mice and bugs. The fan is set for lowest speed and the window is only partially opened. It's from a basement bathroom and although the air can be humid it causes no problem for the enclosure's inhabitants.

My cold store at the other end of the house has been musty for years and last month I put a 4 inch hole through to the outside and used a quiet DC fan to vent it. I'm currently directing the air which is around 16C into a smaller enclosure on my sunny front deck. This is just an experiment to see if I could use it to overwinter some agaves etc. I've stashed my oleanders in the cold store under cool lights this year instead of keeping them in a warmer room on the main floor where they grew leggy all winter and kept blooming. Problem was after they were pruned back it took until late July to develop more flowers outdoors. Photos coming soon of sunny experiment.....

Paul Ont.....Wellington County is 80 Km West of Toronto.

Solomon.

Solomon,
Innovative and effective ideas.
Nicely done.

Looking forward to your other pics.
Barb

Nice! 😀

Here's a couple of photos of the experimental cactus shelter. If it's succesful, I'll construct a larger one for next winter. I used 3 sheets of glass from the time I had old sliding windows replaced and a 4 ft length of flexible 4 inch duct. I can quickly adjust the internal temperature by moving the tapered piece of wood up and down. So far the results have been good with an inch opening. The exhaust fan is rated at 24 volts DC and at the moment I only have it running on 12 volts, drawing only 5 watts and running 24/7. The air coming into the shelter from the cold store is around 15 degrees C which appears to moderate the internal temperature to about 21C on sunny mild days and still keep it at 11C when it's around freezing at night. I'll leave a couple of agaves in it this winter, they don't mind the scorching sun unlike my windmill palm.

Solomon.

Solomon,
Well done again! 😀

Maybe wrap the vent hose with insulation, overwrapping with plastic?
Barb