Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Frozen Greenhouse Large & Very Old Brugs, 1 by bettydee

bettydee wrote:
Cocobid,

Wow, your damage is far worse than mine! You have my deepest sympathy. ERCOT and the rolling brownout they required without notifying their customers is responsible for my greenhouse disaster.

I really don't understand what your set-up is like. Are your two heaters electric? If they are, were they connected to the same outlet? May I ask why a GFI was attached to the end of an extension cord? Would you mind explaining your set-up in a bit more detail?

I've lost track of the number of times my DH has warned me not to exceed 15 amps total for the greenhouse outlet. I have 2 greenhouses, too. The small 8' x 8' x8' is for my orchid collection. In years past, I heated that greenhouse with a portable electric 1500 watt 2 speed space heater. I could only use the low 1350 watt setting because my Modine propane heater in the larger greenhouse has an electric ignition. The GFI outlet is in one of the bathrooms. My greenhouse outlet is connected to the same circuit. If my set-up (I was pushing it a bit.) exceeded 15 amps, it would trigger the GFI in the bathroom. I had that happen several times last winter when both the space heater and the propane heater came on at the same time. So this year, I increased the size of the larger greenhouse and moved the contents of the small greenhouse in to avoid losing power to the greenhouse. I even convinced my DH to let me have a 250 gallon propane tank installed so I wouldn't have to go out in the middle of a freezing night to change out the smaller propane tanks I was using in years past. In previous years when the last tank ran out of gas in the middle of the night (... and it always happens in the middle of the night), I've had to turn on the sprinklers and leave them on all night long to keep my plants from freezing. Then get someone to go fill the tanks first thing in the morning. This year, I thought I had taken care of all potential problems. Wrong. I didn't think ERCOT would be so stupid and allow 2 power plants to shut down for maintenance just before a blue norther. Air got into the gas line and kept the heater from coming on although the fan did. When the power came back on, I assumed everything in the greenhouse was fine. Six hours later, I decided to place an additional temperature sensor in the greenhouse and was greeted by droopy translucent-leafed Brugmansias.

This is what my greenhouse looked like after the droopy translucent leaves turned brown, about a week later. The photo doesn't show all the damaged plants. About 75% of all my plants were affected.