Polytunnel Build

After watching the YouTube videos and looking at the manual over a cup of tea, It was time for me to break ground on the big build. Let me first say the tutorials and manual from Northern Polytunnels is very helpful. What I have learnt most from watching and reading, is that the simplicity of the design is what makes this kit look like any DIYer can put up the frame.

The first job for me and the little man was to clear the area of all rubbish and start to mark out where the poles will go. Turns out my school Maths teacher was correct and that one day I would use trigonometry, I didn't see that coming. Firstly,we lined up what would be the front door and measured using good old trusted trigonometry. I worked out an all but perfect 90 degree angle for lining up the rest of the hoops.

To make sure that all my hoops were spaced at every 5m I made a jig out of a piece of timber and a 32mm drill bit.

As you can see in the photograph, by having the drilled holes I could place the jig on the pole already in place and be certain the gap was 5m centres.

The system we were using was the screw anchors. Northern Polytunnels state this system outperforms all other methods in most types of soil. All I can say is this system is so easy to install and involves no digging. Which made our lives easier as our soil is majority clay and it can be back breaking to move.

As you can see in this photograph, my son was able to get the screw anchor into the ground. Granted, he gave up as soon as it got hard, but it was nice to have some help.

Remember to make sure your poles are straight, this just makes life easier as you move on with the build. Once they’re all in, it's time to complete the hoop work, add the struts and also add the fittings for the base rail.

What makes these hoops stand out compared to others and what I really looked for in a polytunnel is that they are a good 32mm in diameter and are only made up of two parts. Less joints to fail it bad weather.

The last part of the frame build was to make the front and rear door frames. To do this I first used a plumb line to mark the centre of the tunnel on the floor. This was to help get the door framed lined up perfectly. I made a simple plumb line using some string and a weighted object and hung it from the centre of the end tubes, it's as simple as that. The door frame work went up as simply as the rest of the build. To start with, I made the frame up on the floor, then held it in place and marked where the two sides touched the ground. What I do like about this frame is that you have to place about a foot of the frame into the ground, which in my mind gives strength to the structure.

Now it's the scary part. Building the frame was a piece of cake and I wasn't worried at all about that stage, but putting the cover makes me nervous. The night before tackling this part I binged watched as many YouTube videos as I could, also the videos provided by Northern tunnels were amazing and helped a lot to get me ready.

We had to wait a couple of days for the weather to change before we attempted to cover the tunnel as it was windy and wet. It was only me and my wife putting the cover on, so the last thing we needed was wind problems.

I started out by first of all putting the protective tape on to the frame, This tape protects the material from direct contact with the tubes. The next step was to roll out the material and get it lined up. We both then got an end and started to lift the material over the frame trying to keep even amounts of material on all sides.

With the sheet on and centred the next step was to start securing it to the base rails. This is the part that I was most worried about. Along with securing the cover this is the part when you tension the cover to drum tight. This polytunnel system has a brilliant and simple way to help tighten the cover once it's in place. Once it's all in place you can lift the hoops up to tighten it.

We started in the middle and worked our way to the sides, I was on securing duties and the wife was pulling the cover as tight as she could. I found the securing system to be quick and easy, the wire used is very tough and can take a little work to get into place but once you get into a rhythm it takes no time. The sides were straight forward, it was the ends that got tricky. We tried our hardest to get the tension on the cover as we worked around the side. I will be honest, I forgot the instruction manual so i didn't get the front and pack as tight as i would have liked but i am not going to mess with it and end up ripping or breaking something.

The final part was to build and fit the door and frame. We have gone with a sliding front single door and nothing to the rear bar mesh. I think in the future I am going to build a rear door with the leftover plastic sheeting we have. This will be for the colder days.

The main frame is already in place all i had to do once the door was built is construct the rails to hold the sliding door.

Conclusion

All in all this polytunnel by northern tunnels is very simple to build. I mainly built it on my own and didn't have any issues at all. All the parts are strong and robust and I have no worries at all about them failing in the future. I am not the smallest of people, so I love the high and space this tunnel has, also with the poles being straight at the edges I can move about and quite easily work on all parts of the bed.

Our next step of the build is to finalise the layout of the raised beds and start planting. I think the beds will be made in stages as we will need a lot of compost to fill them so we will fill them as and when we can.