I was so excited when I first got my greenhouse, and I still am but I have been automating my greenhouse so that I have a better control over the environment at all times – even when I can’t be there. When the spring season is turning to summer, I add my shade cloth to the roof of my greenhouse. I am very confident when I use both my shade cloth and my automatic vents when the temperature begins to rise in the summer season. I wanted to explain here a little more about how my automatic vent works so that you could also consider using one if you live in a hot summer zone!
Because it is impossible to know exactly when it is going to reach the high temperatures in your greenhouse, it is a good idea to use automatic vent openers so that your greenhouse interior will remain cooler or at very least, it will be circulating the air so that the temperature does not continue to rise. Automatic vents can be used anywhere and you don’t even have to have electricity in your greenhouse. Self contained automatic vents work with a sort of thermostat that will tell itself when to expand and open up. This thermostat is a little different that one you are used to seeing, it is a liquid that expands as the temperature raises, which in turn then opens the vents on the greenhouse. Neat trick huh? But get this – when the temperature begins to get cooler towards evening, the liquid in this ‘thermostat’ will shrink, and the vent will close itself as well! This is a foolproof measure that you can monitor the greenhouse while not actually being there at all. I really like mine because sometimes I may be away for eight to ten hours at a time and my plants were really starting to suffer by wilting and burning off. The main benefits of this type of automatic vent is that even when the winter months are approaching and I am less apt to think about how hot it is in my greenhouse, the temperature gauge (in the form of the liquid vent opener) will always be remembering for me.