
Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home - rmason
https://returntonow.net/2019/03/04/swedish-couple-builds-greenhouse-around-home-to-stay-warm-and-grow-food-all-year-long/
======
mayormcmatt
This reminds me of an apartment complex I saw last year, also in Sweden (north
of Stockholm, in Norrtälje). Hard to see inside, but it's practically
tropical, with palm trees and flowering plants, and all doors of resident's
apartments let out into the garden.

[https://goo.gl/maps/C7QAYeFm4bc9X28r9](https://goo.gl/maps/C7QAYeFm4bc9X28r9)

~~~
aasasd
There's an entire year-round indoor beach with bungalows and a small forest
near Berlin: [https://www.tropical-islands.de/en/](https://www.tropical-
islands.de/en/)

Better photos e.g. here:
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236995/The-
worlds-...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236995/The-worlds-
largest-indoor-beach-German-countryside.html)

I'm sure it needs plenty of energy, but I'd also bet the glass dome plays its
role.

Found it online when was again thinking about how to live through the northern
winter.

~~~
looeee
> I'm sure it needs plenty of energy

So much that it has its own power plant, as far as I know.

Environmental issues aside, pretty cool to stand there in swimming trunks when
it's -10 outside and there's half a metre of snow against the glass walls
though.

~~~
Xylakant
I’d not be surprised if they have a power plant. Not because they need a huge
amount of electricity, but it’s a bit remote, so it might have been more
economical to just build a generator hall than to get grid access and they can
use the waste heat from generators to heat the building which substantially
improves their energy efficiency.

------
oftenwrong
This house was the subject of a Kirsten Dirksen video in 2015:

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=30ghnDOFbNQ](https://youtube.com/watch?v=30ghnDOFbNQ)

~~~
cwkoss
I can't recommend Kirsten Dirksen's channel enough to people interested in
architecture, energy efficiency, tiny homes, 'green' construction, etc.
Literally hundreds of hours of high-quality content - I'm really curious how
she is able to find all of these interesting people who are doing such cool
things.

Channel:

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDsElQQt_gCZ9LgnW-7v-cQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDsElQQt_gCZ9LgnW-7v-cQ)

Some other favorites:

Baubotanik shapes living tree branches into building facades -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQdcfiLfgUY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQdcfiLfgUY)

Boeing retiree finds meaning inventing micro homes & high speed trikes -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdyR2zzjGWw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdyR2zzjGWw)

Extreme transformer home in Hong Kong: Gary Chang's 24 rooms in 1 -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB2-2j9e4co](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB2-2j9e4co)

Earth-cooled, shipping container underground CA home for 30K -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0oFJ2jbkDI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0oFJ2jbkDI)

Yokohama narrow tiny house "breathes" & attracts local nature -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mzj63TJYn4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mzj63TJYn4)

~~~
leppr
As well as having great content, the format of her videos is also top-notch.
It's way too common to see architecture videos where the camera won't linger
more than 5 seconds on anything else than some random zoomed-up composition.

In her videos, you can actually appreciate and immerse yourself in the spaces
and the various details. The videos are usually between 10 and 20 minutes and
she's not afraid to push it further if there's enough content.

~~~
llao
Unfortunately the camera is wobbling a lot which gives me an headache. I
cannot watch that. :(

------
gavia1
I wonder how they control humidity inside the home and prevent mildew/mould?
The air in the greenhouse would be very humid all year round I would have
thought?

~~~
DoreenMichele
Why would it be humid? Heat doesn't cause humidity. Deserts can be hot and
dry.

(Edited _are_ to _can be_ for the pedantic people.)

~~~
btbuildem
I think standard household activity would generate a lot of humidity. Usually
dwellings vent outside, but here the outside is in a larger "inside".

I'm guessing the greenhouse has its own air regulation set up.

~~~
fyfy18
In my part of Northern Europe, in the winter the issue is keeping the inside
humid enough. During winter when the air temperature is -10c or less there is
basically no water in the air.

We have a MHRV system, but it doesn't account for humidity, so will happily
replace all the air inside with dry air from outside (I'm trying to automate
it with HASS). Our bathroom fan has a humidity sensor, so doesn't run so much
in the winter, but even so the humidity often gets down to 25% rh inside.

~~~
mirimir
Yeah, same here. When it's -10 C or less in the winter, relative humidity can
drop to 15%. Because we have a standard heat-exchanger HRV. The rotating-
filter ones do manage humidity, but they also tend to freeze up if indoor
humidity goes too high.

So we end up using an aerosol humidifier in the winter, and AC plus a
dehumidifier in the summer.

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estomagordo
"In Stockholm, Sweden, where winter lasts 9 months out of the year",

according to what crazy-ass definition?

3.5 months is a common length of winter for Stockholm, according to the
Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.

~~~
harperlee
The (crazy-ass, yes) definition is in the article: the period the house needs
heating.

~~~
estomagordo
Yeah, I noticed they mentioned needing heating for about that long. But,
really, they didn't explicitly call that winter. Nor should they.

~~~
TumorousJoker
No need to be pedantic, it's cold 9 months in a year, and that's the point we
are trying to make here.

~~~
mosselman
Then write that. Saying winter lasts 9 months is nonsense and nonsense in
journalism should be pointed out, though not as aggressively perhaps.

~~~
matz1
No, its far from nonsense, it makes the article more fun and interesting or
maybe the author has different definition of winter. They are not writing
formal academic paper.

~~~
mosselman
I agree, you must have misunderstood, I define 'nonsense' as something
creative and fun to read.

------
nkurz
A while ago I came across this story of a similar construction in Norway. It's
a slightly different approach, with a custom geodesic dome built around a cob
house on an Arctic island: [https://mymodernmet.com/hjertefolger-arctic-
circle-cob-house...](https://mymodernmet.com/hjertefolger-arctic-circle-cob-
house/).

------
berryg
In The Netherlands 'kaswoningen' (Greenhouse Houses) have been build in 2002,
2005 and 2009 in the city of Culemborg. See: [http://www.eva-
lanxmeer.nl/over/nu/woningbouwprojecten/kaswo...](http://www.eva-
lanxmeer.nl/over/nu/woningbouwprojecten/kaswoningen) (in Dutch)

~~~
dustfinger
This is my favorite one, built by the Hjertefølgers family in the Artic
Circle:

[https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/family-cob-
hou...](https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/family-cob-house-under-
geodesic-dome-hjertefolgers.html)

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yesbabyyes
Cool, I've visited this house! It's located just a few kilometers from where I
grew up. Small correction to the article though: it's quite feasible to grow
tomatoes and cucumber without a greenhouse in summer in Sweden.

~~~
vinni2
Depends on which part of Sweden isn’t it?

~~~
yesbabyyes
Quite. It would be difficult in the polar region. It works great in the
Stockholm area though!

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jhloa2
I wonder if this has a negative effect on the amount of fresh air that they
get

~~~
pvaldes
Fresh air is created by plants and CO2 is taken from the air by plants, a
greenhouse has plants so... probably a good amount of oxigen there

Molds are a problem and there is another, for rodents, mosquitos and
cockroaches this is a dream made true. Spiders can take mosquitos easily, but
the other two will need a plan

~~~
TkTech
I imagine it's not much different from a regular residential greenhouse, in
which case the plan is to throw a sufficient number of cats in there.

~~~
noir_lord
Not sure people in glass houses should be throwing cats.

Mine would love that environment I’m sure though.

~~~
_jal
They are somewhat softer than stones, but yes, cat throwing is rarely called
for.

My mother has a decent sized greenhouse. Her cats spend most of the winter in
there by choice - they love it.

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acomjean
Growing up a had a friend that grew up in a supper insulated house (it was
blown insulation for walls). They had electric heat. They built a greenhouse
on the side of the house that provided a lot of the heat in the winter.
Because the trees where leafy it was shaded in the summer and they used fans
to move the heat it worked out well.

They sold the house and it was torn down, but it was An interesting structure.

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yason
To me, that construction would seem like a hell over the six months that is
actually quite warm at these latitudes. I basically already keep my windows
open from spring to late autumn without a glass dome like that, and it still
gets hot inside during the summer months because the air outside is hot and
only cools down during night. Now, add a greenhouse around the house and you'd
never get fresh air blowing directly indoors. Yeah, you can seal the house and
add air conditioning and heat pumps but hey there goes any natural
ventilation, and now you have that carefully controlled technology that needs
to be kept running or you'll risk mould should one part of the hvac puzzle go
defunct.

~~~
masklinn
The openable panes of the greenhouse are probably way larger, and you can
easily open the top panes to create a large updraft throughout the greenhouse.

Greenhouses don't stay unused in the summer, and heating up to unlivable
temperatures would also kill the plantations. Therefore "permanent"
greenhouses (as opposed to the plastic tarps on struts you build up and take
down at appropriate times) can be down-regulated to an extent (to not too high
above ambient temperature).

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csours
I've thought about building a house in a barn to save on heating/cooling
(Texas, it's dadgum hot here). But this is much much cooler (or warmer, if
you're in Sweden)!

~~~
theothermkn
You might like Matt Risinger's YouTube channel,
[https://www.youtube.com/user/MattRisinger](https://www.youtube.com/user/MattRisinger)
. He's a builder in the Austin area who does very energy efficient homes. He
uses (a variation of?) this thing called a "100-year wall" system, the gist of
which is that the entire envelope of the house is sheathed and sealed,
basically turning the frame of the house into "furniture," in that it's in a
conditioned space. The big insight is that the vapor-barrier-on-the-inside
scheme came about in climates that were mostly dry outside, and mostly moister
inside, whereas large areas of Texas (and tropical and subtropical areas) are
the reverse.

~~~
danans
Matt Risinger's show is great. I think it's awesome how he brings high
performance low energy footprint home building ideas to audiences that might
not otherwise be exposed to them.

------
dhruvkar
Very very cool.

How would this fare in the summer months?

I.E. How would this work in the US Midwest where summers are very hot and
winters are pretty cold?

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mikaelgyth
How much would something like that cost?

~~~
chrisco255
He claimed to have spent 80K euros on it 10 years ago. No idea what prices
would be in the States. But I'm guessing that 80K figure is for the glass
alone.

~~~
tribler
It looks great. 80k investment to go from 9 months of heating to 6 months.
Expensive project, wonder if solar would have yielded more in the north.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Isn't a green house a solar collector in some way? They get their heat from
the sun, and their main mechanism is simply trapping it in a closed
environment.

~~~
loeg
I think the parent commenter meant to imply buying $80k of solar panels.

------
unicornporn
I have a documentary about this house from Swedish national public television
if anyone is interested.

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strooper
Its an interesting project. I wonder how they keep earthworm or other insects
out of home.

~~~
inflatableDodo
I would imagine they try to encourage earthworms as well as many types of
insect.

~~~
hutzlibu
But probably not inside the house

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mikorym
I would venture a guess that this kind of construction did not happen in mass
historically due to cost and materials? EDIT: (That includes manifacturing
cost and ability.)

In Britain I have seen that their glass conservatories are quite popular (and
many are much older), but they are typically only one room.

Could it also be that the greenhouse effect was not fully appreciated until
later in human history? I would also guess that glass would have been much
more expensive in ancient times.

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2rsf
A different house from SVT's (Swedish national public television) series
called Husdrömmar (House Dreams):

[https://www.svtplay.se/video/12590440/husdrommar/husdrommar-...](https://www.svtplay.se/video/12590440/husdrommar/husdrommar-
sasong-4-avsnitt-5)

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moneytide1
I have loved this concept ever since I discovered Michael Reynolds Earthship.
I wonder if their exterior is glass or polycarbonate?

~~~
Moru
According to the movie it's security glass, the type that if it breaks, it
breaks in thousands of tiny pieces.

~~~
moneytide1
That must mean it's tempered at least, which would be safer. And I believe
polycarbonate yellows after long-term exposure to UV, but would have more
structural integrity. Glass would probably be better in the long run but they
better not have any exterior trees with their high-wind-branch-shrapnel in
proximity to the glass lol

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rv-de
I wonder how much money it would cost to figure out whether you are allowed to
build such a construction in Germany at all.

~~~
scraptor
I've seen a similar construction in Germany so I assume it's allowed.

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danielfoster
Any insights on what this would cost to build?

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rblion
This is a dream of mine. To live a very simple life off the land, powered by
the sun, creating art, building things, not needing to be connected 24/7\.
Take care of some alpacas, maybe create an animal rescue facility or with
enough acres, a refuge.

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amacalac
I always thought this would be an interesting experiment to do this over a
whole neighbourhood

~~~
WalterBright
There was a Stephen King story about that. Turns out it leads to the collapse
of law and order and lots of people die.

~~~
war1025
Wasn't it also the theme of one of the Simpson's movies? (Probably based off
the Stephen King novel?)

~~~
icebraining
The Simpsons Movie (called just that) actually predates the novel.

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aetherspawn
The house would also last longer as it wouldn’t be in contact with rain.

Rainforest houses in Australia (yes.. it’s a thing) are built out of wood and
last like realistically only about 15 or 20 years before they’re practically
falling apart from rot.

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droithomme
That's a ... really really large greenhouse.

They're about halfway to a workable Mars habitat.

~~~
d33
If building two such big greenhouses was enough to live on Mars, we'd already
have been there.

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exabrial
Their Neighborhood Housing Association is much more patient than mine

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inflatableDodo
I was wondering about something similar, but also designed to add suspended
floors above existing structures in order to increase housing density without
tearing down streets.

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ronak-patel
Is there is some basic maintenance cost for this house or not... Knowing the
fact of saving electricity from heating device, How much it saves?...

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jorblumesea
How much snow do they get? Seems like it would be serious work to make sure
ice and snow didn't pile up or bring down the greenhouse.

~~~
otachack
Does the warmth of a traditional greenhouse melt snow from the roof?

~~~
cgh
Greenhouses depend on at least some sunshine to stay warm, as mentioned in the
article. If it's snowing, it isn't sunny, and if the snow piles up, then you
have trouble. Around here, it's not unusual to get half a metre of snow
overnight. The greenhouse these people built is made from glass and it's
difficult to see it surviving a proper winter.

Another problem with this is humidity. I wonder how they deal with possible
mould and dampness?

~~~
chrisco255
It's a 10 year old house so it has survived a few winters already...in Sweden.

~~~
cgh
I assume by "...in Sweden", you are implying Stockholm gets fierce winters.
But it doesn't really. It gets a lot of sun (comparatively) and not much snow.
I was wondering about real snowfall accumulation.

~~~
ptaipale
Stockholm doesn't get much sun in the winter. Average for the month of
December is somewhere around 20 hours. (per the whole month).

[https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-hours-
Sunshi...](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-hours-
Sunshine,Stockholm,Sweden)

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mcv
Don't greenhouses use energy? I thought Dutch high intensity agriculture
greenhouses used quite a lot of it.

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cwbrandsma
I can hear the sounds of 100k HOAs screaming in the night thinking about
someone doing this in “their” neighborhood.

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darepublic
Wonder about the legality of doing this.. seeing this made me want to do the
same although I would hardly know where to begin

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mothsonasloth
Interesting to see how well the fruit and veg grows during the winter periods
with less sunlight. Maybe they are smaller?

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ddmma
This might work even on Moon or Mars with transparent solar panels and fertile
soil

~~~
icebraining
Probably not, because the lack of a magnetic field and atmosphere means the
surface of Mars is much more exposed to harmful radiation and meteorites,
respectively.

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failrate
If you like this, you should check out the work of Amory Lovins. Negawatts!

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jefflombardjr
similar video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc_clnBY-2I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc_clnBY-2I)

Both very cool!

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vinni2
Don’t know if it the glass needs to be cleaned regularly

~~~
ptaipale
Often it does, but people sometimes use self-cleaning glass that at least
Pilkington makes.

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eecc
And in Amsterdam - of all places, the capital of one the countries most
threatened by rising sea levels - the idiots keep gas fired terrace warmers
burning at full blast.

Cycling through the city feels like the deck of the Titanic.

:S

~~~
WJW
We'll build the dikes another few metres taller. Shrug...

~~~
eecc
You seem to be missing the point.

It’s not just about building higher dikes.

It’s about the ethical soundless of pissing tons of CO2 in the wind just
because you can’t be bothered to wear a sweater. (What does that inscription
next to Leidseplein say?)

Edit: it’s also not just about higher dikes in NL, the effects of that CO2
goes well beyond the Dutch border. It’s Global Warming after all... global.

The cognitive dissonance of this attitude, compared to the Swedes building
greenhouse homes to save on energy, is what makes it feel like we’re swingin’
on the Titanic.

~~~
Bakary
Unless your carbon footprint is that of an Uttar Pradesh subsistence farmer
there's no reason to point fingers

~~~
eecc
No, lets leave true Scotsmen alone.

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hello2
they won't need the greenhouse for very long. in a few years it'll be warm
enough to grow figs outside without the greenhouse

~~~
roel_v
You're being downvoted, but there are places here in the Netherlands where
figs are doing well where they didn't 20 years ago.

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m0zg
The cleaning bill on that would give me PTSD.

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bayareanative
That website has far too many chum boxes.

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etaty
Great but they should avoid burning wood in highly populated area. Because it
is generating a lot of small particules, worse than a car.

~~~
Max-q
Not when using a modern burner that circulates the gasses until they are
completely burned. If it is one thing we know in Scandinavia, it is burning
wood efficiently.

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RickJWagner
Nice!

I wonder how it does in windstorms, though.

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mckenna
Very cool!

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jpfed
Sure, they reduced the heating bill. But the tradeoff is that they can't throw
stones anymore.

~~~
vesky
_rolls eyes_... take your upvote and go.

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Romanulus
Imagine the flocks of dead birds around their house.

~~~
andyv
Yea, I was thinking they shouldn't throw stones...

~~~
adamson
Well, the Javits Center is still standing

------
bufferoverflow
The title should say 2015. This is just a spammy article that took a 2015
youtube video, described it and took some screenshots.

I remember this when I saw it in 2015. The whole project is dumb. It's
extremely expensive, they will never break even on the heating costs. It's
completely unprotected from hail. The ventilation is horrible. Humidity is
high.

Sure, it's creative and fun, but let's not paint it as groundbreaking.

------
JBiserkov
>Any supplemental heat they need, that is not provided by the sun, is provided
by a wood-burning stove.

Such green, much modern, wow!

Edit: Hm, others in the thread have pointed out one could use a gasification
burner

