Cold in the Palm House!

[Paul Ont]

My palm house, designed to be a little 'leaky' as far as air is concerend, dropped to -14C a few days ago. Not sure if brief exposure to 6f is going to brown out a 3 gallon Sabal minor, but, needless to say I was not expecting outside temps of 0f with wind to produce such cold temperatures... I've taken the liberty of placing frost colth on the northern 3/4 of the structure to keep the North wind from blowing the heat away. Hopefully that will keep it warmer for the rest of the season. Oh, and I think the problem was also compunded by the total lackof snow.
Any suggestions to how/whether I should take additional steps? Should I insulate the top? Add c4 lights to the inside?
Oh, it is a box structure with a double layer of (thin) plastic on the sides, a top of plywood (topped with plastic), the inside is heated with 2 heat cables that switch on a 37f and off at 45f. I wonder if maybe the sensors on the cables have fallen into the mulch???
Cheers.

[Alchris]

I would put a quilt over top of the structure and cover it with clear plastic to keep the quilt from getting wet once you get more snow. Once it gets back up to about -10*C outside you can remove the quilt and plastic and keep them dry until it gets cold again.

Last year I used 2 x 30 ft cables inside 3 " of styrofoam and the shelter still dropped to -5 *C when the outside temps reached -30 *C.

I lost the Butia this spring and recut the shelter down to 5 1/2 ft x 4 ft x 4 ft high to protect the Chaemorhops(sp). I only used 1 heat cable this year. Everything was going good until the remote temperature sender failed. I will replace it if the outside temperature reaches + 1 *C(like that's going to happen before spring).

Good Luck.

Allen

[PALMETTOMAN]

Paul..For all its worth, I would add some supplemental heat like a ceramic heater...

Thats just my opinion but we have some really cold temps heading our way so its better to be on the safe side..


PalmettomanZ6-Ajax, On