Costco Easy Grow Greenhouse

[Alchris]

It is up with only a few things to finish. Cost was $700 for the 6' x 8' unit on sale. Wall height was 5' with a peak height of 7'.









You will notice an adjustable wall vent near the front door. It also came with another vent to mount at the back of the greenhouse. I didn't mount the back vent yet because the vent by the door broke the first time I tried to open it.

The greenhouse also comes with cross bracing wires (12) to hold the structure square. Once assembled it is the sturdiest kit that I have seen.

It is only available on line as I am sure that the Costco stores wouldn't be able to keep customer service personnel if they sold it in stores.

It took about 15 hours to assemble excluding cool down time but including time spent reviewing the instructions and disassembly/reassembly time. I had my wife's help for about 2 hours total time spread out over the 15 hours. With proper instructions 2 people should be able to assemble it in about 4 hours.

I rate this unit out of 5 stars as follows;
Fit and Finish ****
Installation instructions
Installation illustrations **
Design ****

The parts list was made up before some minor pre-assembly was done and hardware was repackaged. This made it very difficult to determine if you had everything.
There were no written assembly instructions.
The 28 pages of assembly illustrations were hard to understand, inaccurate as to which of 2 holes to put the screw in, missed some steps etc. The cross bracing wires and shelves were after thoughts. I had to remove and reattach the wires between 2 and 4 times to accomodate later assembly and overlapping hardware.

I have had worse instructions on some kids toys. But these are the worst I have ever seen for a complex assembly.

I am happy with the unit now that it is built and pleased with my self control. No Costco employees, family members, neighbors, pets or property were injured or damaged during the construction.

Now I will have to wait and see how it stands up in the wind and other weather.

Allen

[Knnn]

Nicely done! A good size one too.

Are you planning on heating it during the winter?


Steve

[Alchris]

Right now I don't plan on heating it through the winter. I may heat it in the fall and next spring to maintain the bananas before I bring them in for the winter and after I take them out in the spring.

Allen

[macario]

Nice!! I think I will get one of those for my roof top this winter.

[Alchris]

I have put the greenhouse to work. After taping a silver tarp to the south facing roof and wall to keep most of the sun and heat out, I set up about 30 seed trays to germinate ornamental grasses. The seed trays contain about 1400 cells of Buffalo Grass, Prairie Dropseed, Blue Gramma as well as smaller quantities of Koeleria Glauca, Switch Grass, Pennsylvania Sedge, Blue Fescue and Yucca Glauca.





I have given up on trying to maintain a yard with nothing but shrubs and perennials. The city, as well as most of my neighbors care little about controlling weeds and they get worse every year. I have started working up the worst of the perennial beds to replace them with ornamental grasses(no fertilizing or cutting and little watering). By next year I hope to have about 30% of the yard in grass. Then I will spend almost as much time spraying with Weedex and Wipeout as I will spend weeding.

I started this on a small basis last year buying plants. The oat grass and Koeleria Glauca came through last winter without damage while I lost about 60% of the Carex 'Bronze' and all of 1 of the red switch grass varieties that I put in. This year I have small plantings of Wallis Fescue and Yukon Fescue in place so far and got a good 'catch' on a seed mix that will remain green throughout summer with no fertilizer and little water.

Allen

[lucky1]

Allen,
Nice unit at a reasonable price.
Do you think the framework is strong enough to withstand windstorms?

Thanks for that installation summary...doubt I'd want to tackle the non-instructions.

Barb

[Wes North Van]

It looks pretty solid to me. Nice buy!
I wish I had room for one.
I am sure Allen you will get some good use out of it.

[Alchris]

Barb;
We had 60 Km gusts since I put it up. They were from the west where it is the most protected and didn't even dislodge the roof vent which I had left up. A strong North West wind, once the leaves have fallen from the plum trees, will be a good test.

Wes;
If I get decent germination on the grass seed, the greenhouse will have paid for itself. It was so nice being properly set up for planting seed and repotting plants.

Allen

[Dean W.]

Way to go, Allen! I wish I could afford one right now.

Dean