Training & Operating

Greenhouse structure: covering your valuable crops

The primary function of a greenhouse it to protect valuable crops from outside conditions, while maintaining transparency to allow crucial sunlight to reach the crops. The greenhouse structure protects crops from the weather and benefits from the well-known "greenhouse-effect".

From their humble beginnings as a protection from external factors, Dutch greenhouses have developed into high tech cultivation facilities. Technological advancements have made it possible to cultivate out-of-season and provide food & flowers to markets around the world, every day of the year. With improvements in climate-, cultivation-, irrigation- and automation systems, the greenhouse construction itself has also improved greatly to facilitate them, to protect them and to make these systems even more efficient.

A complete greenhouse, from the foundation up

Similar to most buildings, the greenhouse structure consists out of five high-level components: foundations, structural frames, cladding, ventilation windows and drainage systems.

As greenhouses are designed to be as cost-effective as possible, the Dutch greenhouse construction has numerous multi-function elements. The best example for the structures' multi-purpose function, is the way the roof is designed. It's typical V-shape directly serves as a rainwater discharge system and is therefore completely integrated into the greenhouse structure. Cladding, whether it is glass, polycarbonate or sandwich panels, therefore also serves its function as part of a gutter.

Greenhouse Construction

From the bottom up, the greenhouse construction is comprised out of the below structural elements, all with numerous options and variations:

Foundation (Concrete, reinforcement steel)
Sub- & Superstructure (respectively steel & aluminium frame)
Roof & side cladding (glass, polycarbonate, dibond or sandwich)
Ventilation (glass panels that can open, with or without insect netting)
Rainwater discharge (through the steel structure or with downpipes)

Learn more about greenhouse structures and construction?

Construction Sequence

With so many components, what comes first and how is it built? We've made an overview of the construction sequence of the greenhouse structure.

Step 1: Greenhouse Foundation

Every structure starts with a foundation. In some case piling is required, but in most cases a lightweight foundation suffices. A typical foundation consists out of boreholes and a perimeter wall (non-structural tie-beam) filled with concrete and pre-fabricated steel foundation posts.

Step 2: Steel Structure + Aluminium Gutter + Ventilation Mechanism

Before erecting the steel structure, the ventilation mechanism and other future provisions are mounted to the trusses. The aluminium gutter between trusses is a critical structural element and erected together with the steel structure.

Step 3: Rainwater collection

During construction weather must anticipated on, ensuring rainwater is managed properly before installation of the roof, can prevent a lot of construction problems.

Step 4: Service Building

At DutchGreenhouses we always start with the construction of the sandwich-panel covered service building. This allows for proper material storage and allows third-parties to start on-time with placement of specific installations or equipment.

Step 5: Glass covering + Ventilation windows

After the service-area is covered with sandwich panels, glass roof-covering works commence and ventilation windows are installed simultaneously. Sidewall covering is done after the roof is finished.

Step 6: Insect Netting

The installation of insect netting is at the very end of the actual greenhouse construction. Depending on the brand and the project-based workflow, these can be installed from the roof or from inside the greenhouse. If the latter is the case, it is a critical that this is finished before screening works commence.

Insect Netting Screening for greenhouses