Greenhouse for Sale

The greenhouse is made from cedar and glass. The windows are traditionally constructed with mullions and muntins. The “frame within a frame” method of construction uses more wood but allows natural wood movement and also makes it possible to remove window frames or to dissemble the greenhouse completely. All horizontal sills are given a 5 degree slope to shed moisture. 8′ sidewalls and 12/12 pitch roof provide sufficient ceiling height to create a chimney effect that keeps the greenhouse air fresh. Good ventilation means that the greenhouse stays cool even during the hottest summer months while the clear glass collects all available solar energy during the shoulder months. Only highest quality screws, glue, and sealant used.

Features:

  • Western Red Cedar frame
  • 10′-7″ x 14′ footprint
  • 8′ sidewalls
  • 12/12 pitch roof
  • 3/16″ and 1/4″ sidewall glass
  • 1/4″ tempered roof glass
  • 4 vents in the roof attached to quality automatic openers
  • 4 opening windows in sidewall
  • High quality GRK fasteners used throughout
  • High quality hot-dipped galvanized and solid brass hardware
  • Four suspension cables in the ceiling for attaching a trellis
  • Two shelves for growing peppers, herbs, etc.

The greenhouse went through a powerful hailstorm west of Innisfail that cracked windows and windshields (on both of my vehicles), broke siding, and destroyed shingles on all of the houses in the area, but the greenhouse was unscathed. This is due in part to the strength of a 1/4″ pane of glass fitted into a wooden frame that absorbs impact. Another advantage of wood is that it does not conduct cold into the greenhouse. Cedar is also naturally rot resistant. The wood is further protected from the elements with two coats of Sashco Capture stain and one coat of Saschco Cascade clear coat.

Price: 16,500 CAD

For inquiries:

Marble Shower Surround

This project required the removal of an old and slippery steel tub and its replacement with a marble tile surround. The shower basin was built up with layers of grout and mesh and an internal membrane to prevent leakage. The back wall incorporates two recessed trays.

Tesla’s Solar Roof

I am skeptical.  Those solar tiles might be a little cheaper than terracotta… and they come with an ‘infinite’ warranty but the power warranty is 30 years and that is the only warranty that matters.  Terracotta will easily last twice that long and a good standing seam zinc roof will last a century.  When longevity is taken into consideration, those solar tiles look a lot more expensive!  Not to mention a resin / glass tile can never compete with the natural beauty of terracotta, metal or slate.

A better comparison is with asphalt.  Frankly, I have a hard time believing that the cost of installing a solar roof is only twice that of asphalt… but even if it is true, what is the advantage of incorporating solar collection into the roof?  You might save some up front costs by combining the roof with solar collection but you lose the ability to scale or upgrade the panels.  And there is always the risk that Tesla disappears.  By contrast, if you install the solar panels separately then you can always expand the array or swap a few of your older panels out when the next generation of solar technology comes along.

Am I missing something?

Medieval Homes

“The hearth excepted, the home of a prosperous peasant lacked these amenities [of the knight’s castle]. Lying at the end of a narrow, muddy lane, his rambling edifice of thatch, wattles, mud, and dirty brown wood was almost obscured by a towering dung heap in what, without it, would have been the front yard.” (William Manchester, A World Lit Only by Fire)

Sounds pretty bad! Actually, William Manchester makes life in medieval Europe sound worse than life in the tribes of New Guinea or the Philippines (with which I am acquainted). I’ve noticed that many historians do their best to make medieval men and women appear as barbarians, along with their religion, of course!  And those were barbaric times but I’ve also come to appreciate the accomplishments of the medieval period. Their illustrated Gospels are beautiful!  So too are their tapestries and, perhaps to a lesser extent, their paintings.  And nothing  compares with the Gothic cathedrals!  And yet all of these great works of art and architecture were achieved anonymously.  Medieval authors, artists, and builders did not usually assign their name to their work.  When medieval writers do speak of themselves, it is beseeching God for favour. (J.A. Burrow, Medieval Writers and their Work) “Rhetoricians forbid a man to speak of himself, except on needful occasions…” said Dante, who introduces his epic poem with this short autobiography:

When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray. Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was, that savage forest, dense and difficult, which even in recall renews my fear: so bitter – death is hardly more severe!

Please, Dante says to a friend, sing me a song “to solace my soul somewhat; for – having journeyed here together with my body – it is weary.” Dante’s friend sings to him a song about the love of God. (Purgatorio – Canto II)  And Dante’s poem is born.

One might argue that these great achievements of medieval culture were only enjoyed by the elite and that the peasants were condemned to toil in the fields like animals. I don’t know.  Perhaps during some periods and in certain places.  But judging by what I have seen of medieval dwellings in Germany, they didn’t live is such dire poverty.  Medieval towns were full of skilled craftsmen and these skills were used not only in the service of the church to carve ornate altarpieces but also to build homes of exceptional quality.  Some of these homes have been preserved at a museum near Detmold.  The homes were of a simple layout. The barn was under the same roof as the living area, just as Manchester describes (disparagingly), but the quality of craftsmanship was superb. Their furniture was fitted together with mortise and tenon and dovetail. Their floors were made of heavy oak, planed smooth and polished. The large hearth at the center of the home made the place glow with warmth on a cold, dark night.

I wonder what a medieval person would think if he came to visit one of our homes? Our simple dress would make us appear like one of his house servants. The thin veneer that covers the pulp and glue core of our furniture would only serve to confirm his suspicions of our poverty. And our medieval guest, accustomed to seeing the wonders of the gospel story illuminated each Sunday morning in the slanting rays of the sun would be appalled at the arid vacuousness of our mega churches.

I know there is not a lot we can change about the circumstances we live in and, to some degree, how we build our houses and churches. But we don’t have to glory in our poverty either or rewrite history to suit a progressive agenda. In all likelihood, when the last history is written, our own soulless age will be declared the dark one. It doesn’t hurt to show a little humility.

T.S. Eliot – Choruses from ‘The Rock’

We build in vain unless the LORD build with us.
Can you keep the City that the LORD keeps not with you?
A thousand policemen directing the traffic
Cannot tell you why you come or where you go.
A colony of cavies or a horde of active marmots
Build better than they that build without the LORD.
Shall we lift up our feet among perpetual ruins?
I have loved the beauty of Thy House, the peace of Thy sanctuary,
I have swept the floors and garnished the altars.
Where there is no Temple there shall be no homes,
Though you have shelters and institutions,
Precarious lodgings while the rent is paid,
Subsiding basements where the rat breeds
Or sanitary dwellings with numbered doors
Or a house a little better than your neighbor’s;
When the Stranger says: ‘What is the meaning of this city?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?’
What will you answer?  ‘We all dwell together
To make money from each other’? or ‘This is a
community’?

And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.
Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.

O weariness of men who turn from GOD
To the grandeur of your mind and the glory of your action,
To arts and inventions and daring enterprises,
To schemes of human greatness thoroughly discredited,
Binding the earth and the water to your service,
Exploiting the seas and developing the mountains,
Dividing the stars into common and preferred,
Engaged in devising the perfect refrigerator,
Engaged in working out a rational morality,
Engaged in printing as many books as possible,
Plotting of happiness and flinging empty bottles,
Turning from your vacancy to fevered enthusiasm
For nation or race or what you call ‘humanity’.

Though you forget the way to the Temple,
There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the Stranger.

T.S. Eliot, Choruses from ‘The Rock’, III