Greenhouse Frequently Asked Questions

That is a great question – one we answer often – and it deserves a great answer. Here are just some of the benefits of a Solar Gem Greenhouse versus many conventional backyard greenhouses…..
1.) NO ASSEMBLY REQUIRED WHATSOEVER,
2.) NO FOUNDATION OR CONCRETE SLAB OR WOOD DECK REQUIRED,
3.) NO USE OF PLASTICS OR GLASS which are functionally inferior to rigid fiberglass in this application,
4.) NO WOOD in the structure which can eventually rot,
5.) NO MAINTENANCE REQUIRED,
6.) A SOLAR GEM HAS NO STRUCTURAL SEAMS, JOINTS, OR GAPS for heat to escape through, as is so common in greenhouses that rely on panes of glass or some form of plastic,
7.) SUPERIOR HEAT RETENTION in the cooler months,
8.) DIFFUSED SUNLIGHT MEANS NO PLANT BURNING OR THE NEED FOR SHADE CLOTHS in the warmer months, as is so common with glass and plastic greenhouses,
9.) DIFFUSED SUNLIGHT ALSO MEANS FLOOR TO CEILING GROWING which maximizes your interior growing space and ultimately your production,
10.) SUPER HEAVY DUTY MARINE-GRADE GEL COAT on the exterior means long life and it also repels most everything mother nature can throw at it,
11.) AUTOMATIC VENTILATION during the warmer months,
12.) GROW YEAR-ROUND IN PRACTICALLY ANY CLIMATE, including northern Canada and southern Arizona, 13.) NO ELECTRICITY REQUIRED,
14.) MADE IN AMERICA with American parts, American labor, and American ingenuity, 15.) A SOLAR GEM COMES WITH A LIMITED LIFETIME WARRANTY,
16.) WE DELIVER right to your home. We’ve taken all the guesswork out of choosing the best backyard greenhouse. Don’t settle for anything less than a Solar Gem Greenhouse!

All Solar Gem Greenhouses are made of the highest quality rigid fiberglass and resins that money can buy. We spare no expense to acquire the best manufacturing ingredients so that our unique greenhouses can hold up to almost any weather for decades. The exterior of our greenhouses are generously sprayed with a clear, very rugged, marine-grade gel coat that is UV stabilized. It’s designed to allow the good UV to penetrate the exterior but at the same time exclude the bad UV light which can burn plants. This gel coating is an exclusive feature of Solar Gem Greenhouses. Also, the resins that bind the fiberglass together also are treated with UV stabilizers making Solar Gem Greenhouses most capable of repelling the damaging spectrum of rays from the sun, thus greatly extending the useful lifespan of our products…don’t settle for anything less. The end result? A truly ideal gardening environment for year-round gardening and a greenhouse with unsurpassed longevity.

On the contrary. The opaqueness of our fiberglass greenhouses offers benefits and protections that glass panes and plastic sheet-ed greenhouses can only dream of. First, the materials in fiberglass actually enhance and brighten whatever amount of sunlight is present and evenly diffuse and distribute that light from floor to ceiling throughout the interior. Second, this opaqueness which you speak of prevents the scorching of your plants due to overexposure to direct sunlight. And that equals less busy work and less ruined plantings for you.

Something amazing. The sunlight present is enhanced and thoroughly diffused within the interior. It bounces, or refracts, off of the glass fibers in the fiberglass and the light is literally sent in all directions throughout the greenhouse. This creates a super bright atmosphere, where no shadows are cast, greatly enhancing the sun’s benefits. Thus, Solar Gem Greenhouse owners are able to grow from floor to ceiling, which maximizes your interior growing space, and ultimately results in bountiful harvests. And since all sunlight is diffused, you won’t need shade cloths, experience plant burning, and have to toil at turning plants again and again to avoid overexposure to direct sunlight. The days of gardening drudgery are over, and the days of pure gardening joy are here!

Each Solar Gem Greenhouse is equipped with an automatic vent (our medium and large greenhouses have two) that opens and closes though the magic of beeswax! Our vent controller opens and closes by the expanding and contracting of beeswax located within the control arm. When the interior temperature reaches approximately 75 degrees Fahrenheit, the beeswax expands and the pushes the control rod, which opens the vent. When the interior temperature drops below approximately 70 degrees Fahrenheit, the beeswax contracts and the control arm closes the vent. It’s simple, and simply amazing!

Our customers use a number of different ways to keep plants warm inside their Solar Gem Greenhouse, and it won’t require a great deal of cost or effort. First, your Solar Gem Greenhouse is going to make the most out of whatever sunlight you have and generate a very surprising amount of heat even in the dead of winter, AND KEEPS THAT WARMTH IN because there are no seams, no joints, and no gaps that are inherent to all the do-it-yourself, built-it-yourself kit greenhouses on the market. But at night, or on very cold winter days, many of our Solar Gem owners use a small ceramic space heater, heat lamps, or propagation pads (kind of like heating pads that you place your plants atop) plugged in a Thermo Cube (see our online store for details) for needed extra warmth. Another trick to keep plants warm is to locate a few barrels (or Rubbermaid-like plastic trash cans) filled with water inside your greenhouse during the winter months. The presence of water in this quantity keeps the interior notably warmer than without, and lowers the temperature needed for the air inside to freeze. And freezing air is the enemy of plants. One of the other bonuses you get with a Solar Gem is the vastly superior insulation value that 1/8 inch rigid fiberglass offers you versus other glass or plastic materials that many other greenhouse products are made with. Better heat retention = warmer interior! In sum, there is no other greenhouse made anywhere that naturally generates as much heat as ours do in the cooler months and keep that heat in than a Solar Gem. Period.

Each of our backyard greenhouses stands approximately 8’3″ tall, when you measure from the ground to the top of the roof vent(s). However, when they are placed into a 3″ trench in your backyard (see our photo gallery and consult your new owners package for more details), they lose three inches in height. So, once in place, they stand a total of approximately 8′ high.

Our smallest unit, affectionately known as the “LIL’ DEBI” (8×4’7″), weighs approximately 175 lbs. The “SMALL” greenhouse (8×7.5′) weighs about 225 lbs.; our “MEDIUM” greenhouse (8×12′) weighs in at near 320 lbs.; which makes our “LARGE” unit (8×15′) weigh all of approximately 375 lbs. Considering their dimensions, they are quite light and relatively easy to handle and move around now, and in the future, should you need to move it in the years ahead. Three to four able-bodied people can move a Small unit into place – or move it to a new home and backyard in the future – with ease.

Decades is a real good guess. See, we’ve been making these beauties since 1991 and we know of many of our original units that are still going strong and churning out amazing flowers, plants, and vegetables throughout the year. We’ve yet to hear of one wearing out, so who knows?! And that’s no surprise…the top-notch materials and exacting building process we employ are superior in every regard, and make great longevity a reality. And think about some of the natural hazards that can shorten the lifespan of a greenhouse… heavy snow, high winds, hail, and more. Any of these can mean a fast and certain death to greenhouses made with glass or PVC or sheets of plastic. Solar Gems have been subjected to the worst that Mother Nature can throw at them, and they have proven themselves rugged, resilient, and strong. Ours are built to last a very long time.

The best in the business, bar none. Our Limited Lifetime Warranty is a non-transferable, iron-clad promise from us that your greenhouse will last and last. We guarantee that it will be free from flaws in materials or workmanship that inhibits plant growth, for the life of the original owner/purchaser. No other greenhouse or greenhouse product comes close! See our written warranty for all details. When you make the best backyard greenhouses, you back them like we do!

No, not with a Solar Gem. Building a greenhouse is what other manufacturers require you to do. Our greenhouses are a molded, one-piece fiberglass unit, ready to start gardening in the moment one is placed in your backyard. That means there is NOTHING for you to build, NOTHING for you to assemble, and NOTHING that requires you to put it together! Even the optional cedar work benches come pre-built from the factory. Just grow, harvest, and enjoy. Solar Gem makes gardening super easy, highly productive, and hassle-free. Building a greenhouse is old fashioned and complicated. Who has the time and patience? And who can follow the instructions that were printed overseas by their manufacturers? Building a greenhouse is indeed tough, it’s an arduous process, often very time consuming….and it’s completely unnecessary if you buy a Solar Gem Greenhouse! The benefits of owning a Solar Gem Greenhouse FAR outweigh any benefits of a “kit” greenhouse – made of some kind of glass or plastic – that were popular in yesteryear. Finally, want to know how long a build-it-yourself greenhouse will last? COMPARE WARRANTIES! Solar Gem Greenhouses come with a Limited LIFETIME Warranty. Nobody else even comes close.

Yes, there are a few simple preparations to make, first among them is where in your yard you wish for your greenhouse to reside. Then you must prepare that area for the greenhouse to be placed in by digging a 3 inch deep by 10 inch wide trench for the perimeter of the greenhouse to be seated into, based upon which size you have chosen. A trenching diagram, with measurements, are in each New Owner Package that each Solar Gem Greenhouse comes with. But if you’d care to see a visual, make a visit to our “Gallery” tab on this website and you’ll see at least two photos of this easy-to-do trench. If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to call us.

No, not really. The only greenhouse maintenance to perform, that most Solar Gem owners do from time to time, is to rinse the exterior with a garden hose to remove dust, dirt, or bird droppings, to keep it looking clean year-round. However, some of our tidiest owners like to go one step further. Once per year they will get out a bucket, fill it with warm water, and add some automotive wash & wax liquid to the water. Then, using a soft bristled brush, they wash it and rinse it off. That’s it! Some people have asked if it’s ok to use a “power washer” on the exterior to clean it. The answer is, NO. That’s completely unnecessary and can only serve to shorten the life of the rugged marine-grade gel coat that we generously cover the exterior with. We designed our greenhouses to need minimal care and to last a very long time. The greenhouse maintenance procedures described above are more than enough to keep your Solar Gem Greenhouse looking shiny new for many, many years to come.

Yes, indeed. We’ve heard a lot of ingenious uses for our greenhouses over the years, but one really stands out and is worth mentioning here. Several owners who have purchased our large (8×15′) greenhouse have ordered theirs with a door on both ends (a $300 special upgrade). Then, these owners create a barrier, or separator, right in the middle of the interior. One end becomes an amazing year-round greenhouse, and the other end becomes a chicken coop! And since chickens possess a high body temperature (120 degrees) they also act as a natural plant warmer in the cooler months. Oh, and did we mention the abundant natural fertilizer available for use on the plants and veggies on the greenhouse side? Amazing, huh? Fresh veggies and eggs all year long.

Of course, some of our owners utilize a portion of their greenhouses for storage of rakes, mowers, gardening tools, sprinkler parts, etc….you can never have too much storage, you know! And, as opposed to most sheds, you can see inside a Solar Gem without adding lighting and the temperature is usually much warmer than in traditional storage places.

How you utilize your Solar Gem Greenhouse is limited only by your imagination. So, if you find a new and creative way to use yours, we want to hear from you too.

When you grow your own edibles in your Solar Gem Greenhouse, you’ll soon find less and less need to go to the grocery store to buy vegetables, spices, and fruits. We’ve heard stories from our customers about their grocery bills being cut by as much as $300 per month by aggressively growing their own food. Also, some Solar Gem Greenhouse owners actually sell what they grow. Whether that is vegetables at a Farmer’s Market, or flowers and orchids at a garden show, there are many ways to make a Solar Gem Greenhouse pay for itself. Now think about the non-monetary benefits as well… you can grow organic, eat healthier and fresher foods, and insure that the foods you do prepare for your family are not laced with caustic pesticides. What price can you place on that?

We will ship your Solar Gem Greenhouse to wherever you call home. That means across America, Canada, Mexico, and yes, even overseas. We’ve recently received serious sales inquiries from Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, and China, which says much about the great reputation our backyard greenhouses have and the global interest they have generated. Please keep in mind that shipping times and charges can vary widely, depending on distance, mode of transportation, and even passing through foreign customs processes. So, if you reside outside of North America, plan ahead and give us a call if you have any questions. We’re ready to ship your Solar Gem….no matter where you are.

But if you live in North America, first things first. If you reside in the United States or Canada, but outside the states of Washington and Oregon, please check our “Find a Dealer” tab on the landing page to see if we have a Stocking Dealer close to you. They are trained, eager, ready, and properly stocked to deliver your new Solar Gem Greenhouse to you without delay. If there is no Stocking Dealer near your locale, the factory in Tacoma will service you directly. We’re waiting to hear from you!

Our factory is located in Tacoma, Washington, which is about 25 miles south of Seattle. It’s here, since 1991, that we have perfected our design and manufacturing processes to produce the finest, most productive greenhouses you can find anywhere. American parts, American labor, and American know-how… that’s the Solar Gem way.

Yes, we do. Solar Gem Greenhouses is proud to honor those who serve(d) in the United States (or Canadian) Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or Coast Guard by offering a $100 discount off of the purchase of any of our amazing greenhouses. If you, or your spouse, have ever served in a branch of the military, please let us know so that we can apply this well deserved discount to your purchase. And many thanks for your service, and safeguarding our freedoms.

The best way to connect with other Solar Gem owners is to join our Facebook page. It’s there that Solar Gem Greenhouse owners gather and share their tips, ideas, questions, success stories, and photos. Just click on the Facebook icon found in the upper right hand corner of this page, and you’ll be chatting with other owners in no time. Let’s grow!!