# Service Building > Part of: [Greenhouse Construction](/greenhouse-construction.md) · Provider: [DutchGreenhouses](/) The service building houses everything that serves the greenhouse but does not grow in it: boiler house and climate plant, the dosing unit, water treatment, packing and cold store. Built from insulated sandwich panels and erected first, it doubles as the site store and workshop during construction. ## Facts | Property | Value | |---|---| | Construction sequence position | Built before the greenhouse roof closes sequence position | | Cladding | Insulated sandwich panels material | | Systems typically housed | 5 systems | | Governing design requirement | Insulation and hygiene separation requirement | | Relationship to cultivated area | Sized from throughput, not from hectares relationship | Structure # Service building. The operational heart of the facility. ## The operational heart of the facility A greenhouse is where the crop grows, but the service building is where the operation is run. It is the solid, sandwich-panel structure alongside the glass that houses everything the growing area cannot: the climate installations and boilers, the irrigation and dosing units, the packing lines and cold stores that handle the harvest, and the offices, changing rooms and staff facilities that keep a working business running. In effect it is the machine room, the warehouse and the front office of the facility rolled into one. DutchGreenhouses® almost always builds the service building first, and that sequencing is deliberate. Before the greenhouse itself is weatherproof, the service building already provides secure, covered storage for the materials and components arriving on site, and it gives the specialist contractors — electrical, mechanical, irrigation, climate — a finished, serviced space in which to begin their installations on schedule rather than waiting for the whole structure to close. Building it early takes pressure off the critical path and keeps multiple trades productive in parallel. Its internal layout is a logistics problem as much as an architectural one. Harvested crop has to flow in from the greenhouse, through grading, packing and cooling, and out to dispatch with the shortest, cleanest path and the least internal transport — while people, waste and returning empties move without crossing the product flow. That separation is also a hygiene measure: clean and dirty routes that never cross are how disease pressure is kept out of the growing area. A well-planned service building makes every subsequent day of operation more efficient; a poorly planned one imposes extra handling on every harvest for the life of the facility. Because it ties together climate, irrigation, post-harvest and people, the service building is designed in step with the greenhouse and its systems rather than bolted on afterwards. DutchGreenhouses® engineers the building, its technical rooms and its internal flow around how the facility will actually operate, so the performance the greenhouse is designed for is not lost in handling. Get in touch to design the service building for your project. ceacultivationbusiness-case ### Grow Like a Pro: Starting Smart, Growing Strong How Grow Like a Pro combines smart farming, CEA technology and local partnerships for eco-friendly, profitable, pesticide-free greenhouse pr Read article education ### The Case for a College Greenhouse Why a college greenhouse belongs in the curriculum: teaching science, craftsmanship, business logic and sustainability, and preparing studen Read article education ### The Case for a High School Greenhouse Why every high school greenhouse matters: how it makes STEM tangible, builds responsibility and teamwork, and helps students discover their Read article education ### Greenhouses in Education: The Case for Schools Greenhouses in education reconnect students to reality — the full case for why every school, high school, college and trade program should h Read article historyconstruction ### The Origins of Greenhouse Horticulture: My Backyard A tour through greenhouse horticulture history: from 19th-century Westland fruit walls to the “City of Glass” and today’s international high Read article company ### DutchGreenhouses Rebranded: A New Corporate Identity Announcing our new corporate identity — a visual style reflecting our dedication to advanced, high-quality greenhouse projects and The Futur Read article constructioninnovation ### MetaFit: cutting weeks off greenhouse construction time MetaFit is a weld-free way to connect greenhouse heating pipes — cutting greenhouse construction time and removing welding from the critical Read article case-studyclimatecultivation ### Maryland Cannabis Greenhouse: Year One One year on: how the Maryland cannabis greenhouse, paired with an adjacent indoor facility, cut the energy bill and lifted both yields and q Read article ## FAQ **What goes in a greenhouse service building?** Everything that serves the crop without growing it: the boiler house and climate plant, the fertigation dosing unit, water treatment and storage, packing and grading lines, and cold storage. Keeping them out of the glass frees growing area and gives each system the conditions it needs rather than the crop's conditions. **Why is it built first?** Because it is useful during the build. Once the shell is up it provides covered material storage and a dry place to start installation work while the greenhouse roof is still going on. Building it last would mean storing equipment outside through the most weather-exposed stage of the project. **Why sandwich panels rather than glass?** Because the requirement inverts. In the growing area light transmission governs and insulation is secondary; in the service building insulation and hygiene separation govern and light is almost irrelevant. The same project therefore uses two different cladding logics, chosen by what each space is for. **How large does the service building need to be?** It follows throughput rather than hectares. Packing, grading and cold store capacity are set by harvest volume, the market format the produce is sold in and the labour flow through the building — so two greenhouses of equal area can need very different service buildings. ## Related [Greenhouse Construction](/greenhouse-construction.md) · [Foundation](/greenhouse-construction/foundation.md) · [Rainwater Collection](/greenhouse-construction/rainwater-collection.md) · [Polycarbonate Cladding](/glossary/polycarbonate.md) · [Climate Computer](/glossary/climate-computer.md) · [Hot Water Storage Tank](/glossary/heat-buffer.md)