Review a Palram Greenhouse please

There's a company called J.A. Kays Horticultural supplies and they sell a terrific modular tpc green house. You can buy the modules to build whatever size you want, or buy a purpose designed kit. Cheap it is not, but I've had mine for five years now and not a moment's trouble. It's all tough moulded plastic, really easy to build, no nuts and bolts, it just clips together and is secured with push-in pegs through the frame. They provide a special tool to do it with. I built mine on my own. Great fun. Took me two days.The only help I needed was from a neighbour to lift the roof onto the uprights and that only took two of us!
I'm sorry this isn't about Palram but I've not heard of them. All the best. I hope you enjoy your greenhouse as much as I do.

I have a polycarbonate greenhouse, it does what it needs to do, although fairly flimsy and the panels pop out with strong winds, have been given tips on using silicone sealant to keep them in. The polycarbonate i have is not clear on mine (bought that way) so I can pop in without being disturbed by neighbours as they cant see me.
BUT if I had the choice again, would I get one similar.... not sure I would!

x x x

Hi bigbumblebee

Had a quick look on the internet for the company you mentioned - is it N.A. Kays Horticultural in Cumbria - got no results when searched for J.A. Kays.

I'm aware that polycarbonate is flimsy but with children, I thought that glass wasn't appropriate.

Palram is stocked by B&Q.

Many thanks for your replies.

thats the main reason i bought mine as I have kids

x x x

Sorry Carrowkeale; dyslexic fingers. That's the one. Twinwall pc is quite sturdy, but a lot of cheaper brands use single which tends to bend alot.

just taken several days to erect a Paltram polycarbonate 8x6 greenhouse. What a nightmare. Some sealing strips glided in, others buckled under the pressure and are now unusable. The roof vent doesn't want to sit in its place, I'm dreading the windy weather! My husband has bought some sealant and we will put that round the plastic panels.I now wish I had bought a 'proper' greenhouse.

Further to my comments on the Paltram p/c greenhouse and the problems with the sealing strips..we visited a greenhouse company today and purchased some metal clips from them to hold the 'glass' to the frame. They have gone in so easily and feel very firm and secure. It would have been so much better if Paltram had supplied these in the first place.Greenhouse now looks good.

We purchased the Palram polycarbonate greenhouse and it was quite difficult to erect it as some of the panels just would not fit properly. We glued them in with sealant and we also cemented the base in concrete, just to make it more stable. That was all done last July.

Over the winter, we had one stormy night and my greenhouse was totally destroyed. Many of the panels were blown away and then the winds caused the frame itself to rock wildly in the wind. It was an absolute nightmare as I had to go outside about 4.a.m. in the morning in the height of the storm to try to tie down parts of the metal frame as I was so worried the house would get damaged. I don't know how I didn't get hurt with flying metal parts! So that's the end of my greenhouse and I won't buy another. Our site is quite exposed so a greenhouse would probably always be at risk.

I've since purchased a small (2 ft. x 4 ft. x 5 ft) plastic greenhouse which is outside my back door and I can move it very quickly if necessary. It serves its purpose - mainly seed growing.

Thanks for all your comments on my query.

In May 2013 I put a hot tub in the yard for my wife. Come October she said she wanted an enclosure around it for the winter. After much research I selected the Palram Silver 8x8-foot Snap and Grow Greenhouse. Shipment was quick and the package arrived in good shape. but note that it is heavy for one person. You may need help moving it around.

I rated the quality as good. There was no lack or defect but you get what you pay for. There are much more expensive models out there that may be of a higher quality but at a much higher price. I rated value as excellent, judging it based on price and quality for the price. This is not a real cheapie piece of junk. This is a well designed product for the price.

I made a base for the greenhouse out of 4" X 6" X10 foot pressure treated ties cut to the 96.5 X 96.5 inch specs in the plans. It is square and level, sits on my concrete block patio, and should provide a solid base for the greenhouse. I would not consider buying this greenhouse unless you plan to put it on a solid, rigid, square and level base. It is too light to just sit on the ground.

Because we were building this around an existing hot tub it complicated the build just a little and may have taken us a bit longer. I would say allocate 8 hours and two people and you should have no trouble finishing the job in that time. If you have any experience with building stuff, two people can probably finish it in 4 hours.

I am quite impressed with the design and engineering of the kit. Things go together well and the structure, is quite strong and rigid. Mine has only been up for a few days but we are getting 15 mph winds today and the building is not visibly flexing at all. The plastic panels flex and rattle a bit but that is to be expected.

The fit of the doors is not quite right yet, but that may be due to a need for some adjustments. I think we will be able to improve it.

While the assembly is not hard, I would not recommend it to a first timer to assembling a kit. At least one person needs to have some basic understanding of construction of kits and how things go together. My daughter helped me and we both characterize this as building Ikea furniture but on a bigger scale. If that sounds too hard for you, then get some help.

Assembly requires a minimum of two people as there are times when one has to hold while the other places parts in place or puts them together. Or one needs to be up high and the other needs to hand parts. Definitely use silicone spray as recommended in the instructions as some parts are very tight fitting, which is good. On a few occasions we found a rubber mallet helpful to get that last little bit to go in and seat properly. And be sure to follow the sequence exactly as presented in the manual. All parts are well marked so you should have no trouble matching up pieces to the instructions.

While not absolutely necessary I would recommend having a sheet metal seamer tool such as the Wiss-WS6-6 hand seamer. Some of the parts have thin edges and can get slightly dinged or slightly bent during shipping. Or, if you drop something, you can bend the edges making assembly nearly impossible. With this tool this was not a problem at all as this straightens them out quickly and easily.

We did the build over two days of about 3 hours each, not including the building of the base. We stopped on the first day because the wind hit 22 mph and it started to rain. We got the frame up and the front and rear "glass". On the second day we got the rest of the panels in and finished the structure. Again, nothing hard if you have any building skills at all and you can follow the pictorial directions.

As a greenhouse this should be an excellent product. However, because I am using at a hot tub enclosure I was not able to put in two braces that support the roof. Normally this would not be a problem but if I get a snow load on there the roof may be over stressed. I installed three 40" pieces of angle aluminum between the three center roof beams. Has worked well. That was not due to a product defect or design defect. It is because I am using it for a purpose for which it was not intended. In areas where snow is not likely this might not even be an issue.

I can't say how this will hold up over the years but based on my initial impressions I think it will do just fine. The plastic panels are quite tough and should hold up well to minor impacts like small branches or stuff being blown around by wind. We have already used the hot tub inside the greenhouse and it seems it is going to work very well.

My first concern was how it was going to handle wind. Seems this will not be an issue. Since putting this up we have had winds of 25 to 30 mph with gusts to 50 with no problems at all. The greenhouse is doing just fine. I will note that it is up next to, but not actually touching the house. This may be influencing the wind impact a little, but even during high gusts I see no evidence of any strain on the building. As long as you have it solidly anchored I think it will handle wind just fine.

I contacted Palram as I wanted to get some additional T nuts for things I wanted to do inside the greenhouse. The directed me to their US Distributor. I spoke to Stephanie and she could not have been more helpful. I ordered the T nuts. Delightful experience, but accessories are better priced at Amazon.

She asked if everything had gone well on the set-up. I said the door doesn't quite hang right. She stepped away, spoke to someone and came back with a few tips to adjust the doors. Great! And they have a full catalogue of spare parts and other items. So I wanted to share this should anyone need parts or accessories that you can't find elsewhere.

For anyone who is thinking of using this as a cover for an outdoor hot-tub, which is how I am using it, it works great. This is one of the coldest and snowiest winters we have ever had on Long Island. For example one day it was 26 degrees outside. Inside the greenhouse (with the hot tub closed) is was about 30 as the morning sun helped warm it a bit. After 30 minutes having the hot tub open the inside temperature was about 50 degrees making it much more comfortable to get out and dry off. Just an FYI.

My other main concern had been snow, especially since I could not install the included center roof support. As noted above I designed a alternate roof support. We have come through one of the worst winters I can recall. Our typical snow fall is a total of 25 inches. We are over 55" this winter. We had two snow falls in excess of 14 inches. One Snow fall was very wet and heavy. But, due to the slant of the roof very little stayed on the roof. I think during the wet fall we might have had 2" on the roof before is slid off. We have had winds in excess of 50 mph on several occasions with no problems at all. I added a shelf kit. All seems fine.

As of now everything seems fine. I am no longer concerned about snow or gusty winds, at least to 50 mph and I am sure it will take more than that. Hope you find this helpful.

Palram Harmony 6' x l 0' - Clear Glazing never lasted 9 months. Not suitable for Newfoundland weather; don't know why Walmart continues to carry and sell them.