One side of my family made their living with commercial greenhouses. Eventually economics caused them all to close and fall into disuse. One time when I was visiting back in Indiana, I was able to get several crates of 16” X 24” greenhouse glass that had come from the deteriorating greenhouses. I drove them back with me when we returned to BC, and used them to build my greenhouse.
I also had some big old picture-window glass and I designed the greenhouse so that I could utilize both. The greenhouse I built turned out really well.
In 2018, I was falling a tree close to the greenhouse and it fell right across the greenhouse, breaking 23 panes of glass. Fortunately I had just enough extra greenhouse glass to replace all of those broken ones, but that wiped out of my extra glass supply.
Over the winter, I had 4 panes of glass broken. I am not sure why they broke, maybe the wind blew them off or blew something onto them, causing them to break. You might be alb e to see the holes in the roof. Anyway, It left some holes in my greenhouse and I didn’t have any glass left over to fix it. I called up to a glass store in Prince George to buy some replacement glass and was shocked.
I ordered 5 panes and it will cost me $100. Yikes.
I hadn’t realized what an expensive greenhouse I had. If glass costs $20/pane, then the accident I had with the tree would have cost me $460, and if I had to replace all of the glass it would cost me around $2,000. I was shocked after getting all of the original glass for free, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that nothing more happens to my greenhouse.
I didn’t realize what a prize I had in getting all of that 100 year old glass from my family’s greenhouses. My uncle finally had to hire a machine to tear down his greenhouse because he couldn’t find any one to dismantle it for the glass and pipe. I am sure glad I got some of the glass before those greenhouses were destroyed.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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