Compost Greenhouse Completion?

Of the many things I could have learned from my grandfather... carpentry comes to mind today.  Before the freezes and rains and snows we've been having we had set up a compost station made from pallets and had made considerable progress toward turning that into the back wall of a greenhouse.  This grouping is suspected to help both the greenhouse and the compost stay hot.  Since it warmed up for a couple days and dried out a little we attempted to complete the project as we'll soon be in need of a greenhouse to get all those plants going. 

Nothing about this contraption is square or level.

For our roof panels we are using 2 thin, extra long pallets (probably refrigerator box supports) roughly 4ft wide and extended with 2x4s to 12ft tall.  We wrapped them in 3mil plastic and placed then into the tops of the downhill pallet wall and laid them on our roof peak beam that extends up from the north compost wall. 

We gloated & took a break to gather supplies for the next step. I forgot what the next step was because we didn't get to that step.  The roof and south pallet wall section fell over.  the roof section on the left in the picture below.... isn't suppose to bend that way.  Cracked both sides real clean. 

Keep in mind that I had, earlier in the day, I expressed my concern that it wasn't going to stay up and I just wanted to get it up there so it would fall already.   I did think it would last longer than 15 minutes.  

It was time for Plan B.
We wood glued and screwed our broken roof pallet back together and made a lean to greenhouse.  So we have less workable space  than Plan A ... or is our workable space half full...?

This seems to have worked out.  We lashed the roof beans to the top and leveled and anchored the bottom legs then stretched a giant sheet of 6mil plastic over the whole thing and filled gaps at the bottom with cinder blocks that were looking for a job.  The door side is, for now, just a full length Flap.

We were working against the sun last night trying to get it ready for the wind and rain we got that turned into  snow before this morning.  So the north side / compost side is not complete yet.  the tarp will tent over the compost piles allowing for the desired heat exchange between the compost and the greenhouse. 

The temperature this afternoon hit 48.  It was 68 in the greenhouse. I think this structure will stand for a while.  If we can get through this year before the plastic shreds it will have done it's job.  Even though some day we do want a more proper greenhouse made Properly from the old windows gifted to us by W's dad; we've got about 60 bucks worth of materials into this including the fallen wall (that will get used somewhere else) and if we just have to replace the plastic every year that would only cost about 30 bucks.

In a week when it gets above freezing again, we'll get it completed.  If it's still standing.  :~)

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