A climate battery is a ground-to-air heating system made up of a series of underground tubing that circulates air several feet below the earth’s surface. The circulating air helps regulate temperature and moisture by transferring heat between the ground and the air.
Every Growing Dome greenhouse kit comes with a mini climate battery of sorts that we refer to as the Undersoil Ventilation System, previously known as the central air system or undersoil heating and cooling system. It uses tubing under the perimeter soil beds to regulate temperature between the soil in the raised beds and the air behind the above-ground pond.
But what if you want to go a step further and put a full-sized climate battery under the entire footprint of a Growing Dome? That is precisely what Dome Owners Gary Mass and his wife Cindy did with their 26’ greenhouse in Longmont, Colorado.
Why construct a climate battery?
Gary and Cindy have always been committed to the “grow your own lifestyle.” When they relocated to their forever home they planted a backyard full of food and native plants. Their food forest has everything from strawberries and greens to Gayfeather, but Gary wanted a tropical environment to grow the things that you just can’t grow outside in Colorado. Thus began the long and rewarding process of planning and building a climate battery to sustain their tropical oasis.
How to Build a Greenhouse Climate Battery
Gary combined lots of different technologies on his quest to build a tropical environment. The process was fairly time consuming but simple if you are willing to put in the effort. He was kind enough to break down the process for us and describe it in detail.
He began his project officially on June 22, 2017 by breaking ground and digging a very large hole using a rented backhoe. The hole was 4.5 ft deep and 32 ft in diameter that made A LOT of dirt. He then poured a 15 sided footer to build the ICF (Insulated Concrete Form) wall on top of. This wall is eventually what the 26’ Growing Dome is anchored to.
After digging and leveling the giant hole in the backyard, Gary did even more digging. This time it was for a trench from the house to the Dome so that he could have water and electricity in the greenhouse. (This is not a necessary step, but we highly recommend doing it if you can. It makes watering and filling the pond a lot easier!)
After moving all of the dirt, it was time to install the ICF. Although we typically recommend cement piers for a typical Growing Dome installation, an ICF is essential for a climate battery. The purpose of the ICF is to insulate the earth under the Dome, which will help provide greater temperature regulation during all seasons. It also has the added benefit of preventing rodents from burrowing under and into the Dome.
Your local building department will be able to provide you with information on your local frost depth, which will dictate how deep your ICF will need to be. Gary and Cindy used an ICF product from Nudura and hired a local concrete contractor to help with this part of the project.
There are both ‘at grade’ and ‘above-grade’ ICF options. The option you choose will help to further insulate your interior perimeter raised beds. Above grade ICF is great for customers in cold climates that will not be installing beds around the outside perimeter of the Dome. If you do plan on installing outside perimeter beds, then the at grade option will work just as well. The soil inside of the beds on the exterior of the Dome provides great insulation for the interior. If you choose to only place exterior beds on one side of the Dome, we recommend the south side.
Next came installing the climate battery itself. Gary used a Ground Air Heat Transfer system (GAHT®) design from Ceres Greenhouse Solutions. We also recommend Michael Thompson and Jerome Osentowski with Eco Systems Design. After installing the climate battery system under their greenhouse, they backfilled using the dirt that was removed from the hole. Gary had lots of help from neighbors, friends, and the local high school football team because like we said it was A LOT of dirt. He finished up this part of the project on September 12th, taking around three months to complete it.
Installing the Greenhouse & other systems
The project did not end there. Installing the GAHT® system was step one, and was followed up by installing a 26’ Growing Dome, building raised beds, and bringing in living soil to fill the beds. Fast forward to a few other awesome additions that Gary has made to his greenhouse, including adding an inline tank heater to his pond (that acts as the greenhouse’s main source of thermal mass) for breeding Tilapia and keeping his Koi fish happy.
In addition to the pond heater, Gary also added a climate monitoring system that tracks his average highs and lows for temperature and humidity in the greenhouse as well as an advanced pond filtrations sytem. Over the past several years of tracking temperatures Gary realized that due to climate change and rising temperatures his Dome is getting much hotter than originally anticipated. To create more stable temperatures, Gary recently ordered a swamp cooler to cool the greenhouse. He has not yet installed it but we look forward to telling you more about his experience when he does.
Enjoying the Fruits of their Labor
After all that work, Gary and Cindy are finally enjoying the fruits of their labor. We mean fruits quite literally. Gary has grown all kinds of amazing tropical, and exotic fruits like bananas, papayas, passion fruit, star fruit, dragon fruit, and a tree from West Africa called the moringa. It is known to have seven times as much vitamin C as oranges, nine times the protein of yogurt, and seventeen times the calcium of milk!
We had the opportunity to visit Gary’s greenhouse this spring for the annual Festival of Flowers garden tour held by the CSU Extension office and the Longmont Symphony. It was truly an amazing sight to see. If you are interested in touring Gary and Cindy’s climate battery greenhouse we would be happy to connect you. Simply email us at grow@growingspace.com or give us a call 970-731-2120.
You can find all of our Featured Growing Domes highlighted in our monthly newsletter “The Happy Grower,” on our social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram), and in our blog. At the end of the year, we create an annual calendar that includes every Dome of the Month. We send them to all Featured Dome participants, along with a gift of Growing Spaces gardening goodies! Apply here.
3 Comments
Not many people can afford a 6 figure green house like Gary’s! But hey, if you can, awesome! Would love to know the exact turn-key price of this puppy!
There are six different size kits and you can find the prices and specifications on our website! https://shop.growingspaces.com/collections/growing-domes
I can’t speak for this dome; however, we built a similar system for our 33′ dome here in Montana. You can see many pictures and details of our build on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/groups/growing.dome.enthusiasts/ Search our last name Wiseman and you can find our posts. We did all the work ourselves, so there was no labor involved. The price of all materials came to $50k. So, if you had to pay for labor, I am guessing the total cost could easily hit $75k.