During the cold weather, you have to defend the plants in your greenhouse from frost damage and one of the most overlooked pieces of kit is a decent greenhouse heater. For a relatively cheap price, you can get your hands on a fairly decent greenhouse heater.
Of course, 'relatively cheaply' is different for us all and dependent upon your needs. For instance, you can pick up a 2ft Tubular Hylite 80 Watt Heater for just over £20 if you shop around if you're only looking to put a bit of warmth into a small greenhouse. Though, for a larger and more powerful heater, such as a Bio Green Phoenix, you could be looking close to £200. So you have to make sure you pinpoint the needs of your greenhouse and what you're growing to make sure you get the right heater.
Without doubt, with the heat loss from a plastic covered greenhouse being so high due to the low insulation value, you'll need to spend a bit of hard cash to replace what is lost to the outside air. The use of either an electrical heating system, or paraffin heater, are in my belief the best choice when looking to replace any heat loss. It’s a good idea to try and find a greenhouse heater with a thermostat as part of the package as correctly controlling the temperature in your greenhouse is just as important as replacing the lost heat.
For myself, I wouldn't advise a propane heater as the start-up costs can be excessive - easily in the £200 area for a decent model. That's purely my own personal opinion and I wouldn't avoid a propane greenhouse heater on cost alone, indeed, some of the better models are the best option all round.
The running costs of your greenhouse heater are an essential consideration. At the time of writing, the average electricity cost per unit is in the region of 16p which means a 1000w heater will cost about 16p a hour (32p for a 2000w etc). A paraffin heater could cost round double that for the same time. However, the advantage of a paraffin heater is that it holds its heat for a while after being switched off whereas an electrical heater loses its heat as soon as the off button is pressed.
Myself? I tend to go with oil heaters as I like the idea of free heat when you switch them off - I never had much money available when I started off and this appealed (when shouldn't free appeal!) and since then I've just stuck with them - but I'm certainly not ruling out the extra options that are available.
Of course, 'relatively cheaply' is different for us all and dependent upon your needs. For instance, you can pick up a 2ft Tubular Hylite 80 Watt Heater for just over £20 if you shop around if you're only looking to put a bit of warmth into a small greenhouse. Though, for a larger and more powerful heater, such as a Bio Green Phoenix, you could be looking close to £200. So you have to make sure you pinpoint the needs of your greenhouse and what you're growing to make sure you get the right heater.
Without doubt, with the heat loss from a plastic covered greenhouse being so high due to the low insulation value, you'll need to spend a bit of hard cash to replace what is lost to the outside air. The use of either an electrical heating system, or paraffin heater, are in my belief the best choice when looking to replace any heat loss. It’s a good idea to try and find a greenhouse heater with a thermostat as part of the package as correctly controlling the temperature in your greenhouse is just as important as replacing the lost heat.
For myself, I wouldn't advise a propane heater as the start-up costs can be excessive - easily in the £200 area for a decent model. That's purely my own personal opinion and I wouldn't avoid a propane greenhouse heater on cost alone, indeed, some of the better models are the best option all round.
The running costs of your greenhouse heater are an essential consideration. At the time of writing, the average electricity cost per unit is in the region of 16p which means a 1000w heater will cost about 16p a hour (32p for a 2000w etc). A paraffin heater could cost round double that for the same time. However, the advantage of a paraffin heater is that it holds its heat for a while after being switched off whereas an electrical heater loses its heat as soon as the off button is pressed.
Myself? I tend to go with oil heaters as I like the idea of free heat when you switch them off - I never had much money available when I started off and this appealed (when shouldn't free appeal!) and since then I've just stuck with them - but I'm certainly not ruling out the extra options that are available.