The greenhouse power was off for a few hours, from around 11:00 to 3:00, 2 days ago. I was off site and did not find out about it until the next morning. A lot of our material was torched. The spiders were were roasted. My controller is malfunctioning and I can't pull the temperature report. Does it even seem possible that this could happen in such a short amount of time? I know we've lost power at our site before for a couple hours here and there and have never had any issues like this. It wasn't even particularly hot that day, around 80°. What fail safe can we put in place to prevent this happening in the future?
by flylittleflew
2 Comments
Yeah, that seems possible. Likely even, based on my experience when the power goes out. Luckily we have a backup generator that we test every month. If you don’t have a backup, it just seems like a matter of time until this happens again. You can get environmental controls with temperature alarms that will send a message to your phone if you ever go over a set threshold.
Get yourself some roof vents for long term solution if possible. There are vents that open using heat to push them out so if no one is around at least those will ventilate for you. I’m so sorry this happened, but yes it can happen. Even at 80 outside it can still reach over 100 in the greenhouse. It was at the hottest point of the day and likely getting direct sunlight.
What I used to do was I’d leave both doors at each end open, and put a large commercial fan in the middle (making sure plugs are GFCI). This pushed hot air out and kept it ventilated keeping the temps down, but animals had access. For me it was a cheap and quick solution but maybe not the best. Best of luck to you.