Keeping your greenhouse cool on hot days.......

Friday was a typical Melbourne hot day - a forecast of 41C with strong northerly winds proved to be correct and it was pretty uncomfortable to be outside away from the air conditioning.

So if it is going to be 41C outside, how hot would you expect it to be inside a greenhouse? 

Probably even hotter, and the plants inside the greenhouse would be experiencing some real water stress issues and ultimately some tissue damage.

You may be surprised to learn that on average it was actually some 6 - 7 degrees cooler inside our greenhouse today than it was outside.


                                

The graph shown above was created on our Priva Integro climate control computer on the 4th of January, 2013, and shows both the inside greenhouse temperature (purple line) and the outside temperature (green line) achieved during the day. Sunlight ,and heating and ventilation strategy values are also shown. 
  
At the time of writing this post, the inside temperature was a staggering 12 degrees cooler than the outside temperature.

So how is this being achieved? The simple answer is by the use of a fogging system. Water is injected in to the roof area as fine particle fog, which evaporates and produces a cooling effect within the greenhouse climate.

However, the fine level of control is achieved by utilising the various factors and settings within the Priva system to ensure correct application of the fog, and successful evaporation.

So can I make this happen in my greenhouse? Yes you can as long as you have a fogging system that can be controlled in terms of fogging intensity and duration. 

If you would like to find out how to make your greenhouse climate maintain such cool levels, our Priva climate management expert, Tony Bundock, is on hand to provide this advice either at your location or via remote access.

Tony can be contacted via e mail at tony.bundock@chisholm.edu.au