Greenhouse Foundation

Let's look at making a floor for a greenhouse. Normally you would think why not build it out of wood or pour a concrete slab. This is going to outdo wood or concrete. It is simply amazing.

You'll need to cut 3 1/2" wide pieces that will act as our joists under the floor we’ll put in of this same material.

This cuts just as easily as lumber, but that’s where the similarity ends. What you have to do is cut them to length so we can make a perfect square that is 8'. Seven of the nine pieces are going to be joists under the floor, and they have got to be 93". The reason is because the material is 1 1/2" thick, and the two end caps will make up three inches there so we will end up with a perfect 8' square.

Mark that and then cut it. There’s one. Now six more to go. The end caps are eight feet long, and what you'll need to do now is measure for 16" centers on the joists.

16... 32... 48... and all the way down. Every 16". Do the same the same thing on the other end cap, and then we’ll be ready to move all this stuff, lay it out on the floor and start putting it together. This material is very special. It’s made out of fiberglass and urethane. It’s lightweight but a lot stronger than lumber is. And as a matter of fact, nothing can happen to it. It doesn’t warp. It doesn’t take on moisture. It can’t rot. Insects don’t attack it. It’s just a great piece of material.

The framework for our base is all done. All we need is to put the flooring over there. Incidentally, we mentioned early on that this was going to be for a greenhouse. Teresa is going to be putting the greenhouse together; it is really going to look great. We also learned something in the course of doing this. You can get drywall screws with fine threads or coarse threads. We found that the course threads were much better for this kind of material. Now let’s go get the floorboards and go to work.

This material for the flooring is the same as what we have under here only it is a thinner sheet. Put screws in all along the perimeter and into the joists. The next step is to start drilling the holes for the countersink.

This project takes a couple of hours and was well worth it. If you had a concrete base under your greenhouse, there is no way you could move it, but with Penske Xtreme Composite it’s lightweight enough that you can.