Despite Arctic conditions currently battering much of the United States, inclement weather creates a supplementary revenue stream for some US growers, retailers and landscapers who have invested in trucks and plowing equipment.
Garden center owners and landscapers who are able to switch to plowing and salting during the winter can make good ‘seeding money’, enabling them to buy their initial bedding plants early, and this leads to more speculation growing.
All of which is good for the industry, according to Jeff Warschauer, VP of Sales for US firm Nexus Greenhouse Systems. As a greenhouse manufacturer and constructor, Warschauer speaks to many greenhouse growers and retailers; hence he can offer a good overview of the trends in the sector.“The retail demand looks very good for this spring and everybody seems very positive."
“You know, some people’s misery is another person’s gain, and many of our customers that do winter maintenance, plowing and salting, have been very happy with all this ice, snow and cold weather,” says Jeff.
“When we have a year when there’s very little snow and ice, they don’t have that extra cash to buy a lot of landscape material early. They don’t speculate, and that’s a big part of the consumer consumption because the landscapers buy a lot of bedding plants.”
But with severe cold weather and record breaking heavy snows comes the increased risk of damage to greenhouses, particularly for structures that require heating to reduce snow and ice from forming on the roof; and that’s where Nexus offers an alternative.
“In the case of our company, we don’t require any heat during winter precipitation, so if you’re in Alaska or New York City and you decide you’re not going to be open or heat during all or part of winter you don’t have to heat our greenhouse. This can mean a very substantial savings on your heating costs."
With increasing harsh winters becoming a regular occurrence in parts of the US this is food for thought for growers in locations such as Rocky Mountains, Farwest, Northeast and Midwest.
Despite many of the Nexus greenhouses requiring more steel and heavier glazing bars than many traditional structures such as the Venlo design, this doesn’t affect light quality says Jeff.
“You have the steel components such as trusses less often. As an example (Based on region and required structure loads) approximately every 3.6 meters we have a column and truss, and with a Venlo you have more pieces of steel that are smaller, but there are more of them, such as more gutters.” Fewer gutters also mean less expensive gutter drop connections.
“We offer several greenhouses and utility structures that are wide span with the most popular widths being 12, 15 and even 19 meters between columns & gutters, most importantly all meeting the IBC building codes, now that’s truly a high light greenhouses" secures Jeff”.
Jeff furthermore added that more steel per square foot and offering more pre-manufactured components such as pre-drilled purlins and gutters along with Nexus trusses that are one piece factory welded may appear to make the greenhouse a little more expensive. "But constructions costs are less and our pre-manufactured components make structure installation much more uniform and a much simpler process especially for owner built projects."
“If you don’t have to heat the greenhouse for three or four months [in winter] that’s a very big number in terms of savings! It’s is also very important to know that most municipalities now require construction permits. Nexus in house engineers are state licensed in every state in the USA and most of Canada this truly saves our clients money during permit acquisition and time frame it takes to acquire permits!"
For more information:Nexus Corp.
