Heat Your Greenhouse With Cat Litter || 5 Great Methods 

One comment I wanted to make about the digital version of the milk house heater. I use a heater on very low in the winter to keep my motorhome from freezing between trips. When I replaced it with a digital 2 things happened. 1. The lowest I could set it was 60 degrees, far warmer than I wanted to set it. 2. I found out the hard way, it does not come back on with a power bump like the analog heater will.

Since my garden and my very new greenhouse is too far from electrical power, for the summer, I'm going to use solar power for using fans to cool it. As for the winter, I'll do some experimenting. My greenhouse isn't very big, just 6 ft. x 8 ft., but I think it will do for starting seeds for two people. The floor is gravel and will have some pavers.

Using DC PTC heating elements directly hooked to a solar panel can harvest heat from outside where the sun is not impacting the greenhouse. Put the PTC heaters in a large container of sand in an area and have heat all night. Add as needed for size. On cloudy days, hook a 2nd panel up. Using a large compost pile that can be watered and turned on the North side can give North side heat. Run air tubes through it for passive heat. Tubes buried in the ground for 100-200' can bring in earth ambient temp air for the cost of a fan (55F in Wisconsin). Cheap heat.

Thanks for the ideas. I have been a subscriber for just a few months. I live in zone9a Pacific Northwest. When I first read the "heading/Title," I thought you were using "cat litter," to heat the greenhouse and not just the wonderful containers, smile. No problem. Smile. You, however, have given me the idea of what to do with the empty containers. I also like the other suggestions. I have been pricing the foil for another round of insulations this time for the greenhouse. I had used it/foil insulation in my chicken coop to reflect the summer heat, so I am going with that idea also. I like your suggestion of the digital thermostat/ monitor, I will get one shorty. Thanks again for the great ideas.

When you're heating up the pails in the sun angle them so 2 sides are exposed to the sunlight and heat yp faster than having just 1 side exposed to the sunlight and maybe get some heavy, thick cardboard that will stand up on its own. Bend a fold in center of cardboard and cover with aluminum foil and place on backside of pails you're trying to heat up. It will reflect heat back onto pails from backside of pails and concentrate the heat in that area so pails heat up faster.

Thank you for including your growing zone. Very helpful.

you MAY Want to paint half of any thermal bank WHITE and keep the other half BLACK... black to absorb heat and white to direct it where you want the heat emmited

Paint some barrels flat black to absorb solar heat. Connect them with PVC or the 1/2" flexible plastic irrigation pipe. Make a solar collector by painting a piece of plywood flat black and attach as much flexible plastic irrigation pipe or PVC painted flat black as you can fit on it after attaching small boards around the edge that will hold the glass covering the pipe. If using flexible plastic irrigation pipe, let it set in the sun so you can flex it into circles on the board but do NOT let it set in the sun with the glass uncovered unless you have the pump working or the pipe will melt! Run the pipe through the plywood in the center of the coil and the outer edge and attach a large aquarium pump or similar one in the pipe so that it pumps the water through the collector and barrels. A solar powered pump works very well because it will only run when the sun is heating the water and not cool the water by running it through the solar collector after it stops heating. And to go all out and use the best heating material; sand, build a cabinet around the barrels and fill it with sand. With a solar pump, your heating will be free after the initial purchase of materials.

Thank you so much for your video! We are just finishing up building a greenhouse on our channel. And I've begun research for how to heat it. I had the idea to use our cat litter containers for supplemental heat, with water in them. Painting them black and everything.... And I thought I'd look to see if someone else did it. Your video was extremely helpful to me! Very well put together video, appreciate it much as I am new to doing a year-round greenhouse😊

I was wondering, “What the heck is a Bay Hale?” Then I realized you meant “Hay Bale.” Then I got worried maybe you were having a stroke! Lol. Great video - love this stuff.

Great information!

You can buy mini splits now that have an mppt built in that runs directly from solar panels, that can heat and cool the space..You could use a diesel heater and use it's exhaust for thermal mass heating, 2 heaters in one..Solar is the best though, I built a solar system from from (48) LIFEPO4 280 AH EVE cells(44 kilowatt) to make three, 48 volt battery banks, and have an all in one 6500 watt inverter/solar charge controller/ac charger and alot of solar panels..My system paid for itself already in just three years, but that only works if you build it yourself, atleast that fast..My batteries are usually charged completely around noon-1, and then the loads run directly from solar until the sun goes down, and then my batteries at night, which we use very little from that big battery..I am no longer attached to the electrical grid..Things were a bit cheaper when I built mine, except for the inverters, they are both better and cheaper..Everything was well under $7,000...And I have back up parts, an all in one inverter, a few BMS's and some fuses..You would not have an electric bill for the rest of your life, you would have power when the grid is down, and could power anything from the sun for free..Electricity will become extremely expensive soon, and unreliable, it's inevitable..

Thanks for sharing your ideas ,i truly appreciated

Your info is great and very worth while to know. Thank you.

Beautiful green house.

On super cold nights what about using a metal container of sand and turn the heater towards the container with sand. Seems it would add to the heat generated.

I'm wondering if you could preserve your current plastic greenhouse walls for a couple more years by using the same technique that people use on older, plastic car headlights. I don't know if you've seen such DIY videos, but it seems pretty easy---just use a light buffing compound (Meguiar's Headlight Restoration kit is good), do some sight sanding, and then spray with a UV protecting clear coat---and it turns the plastic from opaque, to clear! Not sure if it would work on the type of plastic that you have, but it might be interesting to experiment with a small spot. I would probably only do this on the outside wall, to avoid using all that spray near my plants. *Thanks for the ideas! I might try putting-up some of that reflective/insulating material along the north wall of my greenhouse. It seems like a logical idea :)

You may want to consider something more narrow than a dryer vent. I suspect the large diameter will allow too much cool air through the system. Coiled copper tubing may be too expensive. I’m interested in the results that you get.

Noma makes an electric oil register heater with a a good thermostat, i measured power use vrs other electrical heater found they are best. Mine has 750 watss, 1500 watts. So max it watts per hr can be controlled, another i use big buddy propane

your candle video from after this, used a copper coil buried in some sand and that was a great idea, but it made me think of another idea involving concrete, and i wonder if something like this could work, or maybe some sand would have to be in the concrete in order for that heat transfer along with a buried copper or aluminum coil of some kind to transfer that heat across an entire slab of concrete. i had this idea for a heated drive way kind of deal where all you needed was a pilot light running with some gas, it could be propane or it could biofuel to hydrogen gas to create enough heat to transfer across the slab in order to heat it proportionately so it's leveled and even, cheap. it's basically the same idea how it works for under ground pips for that exchange air but all being passed within that closed loop.

Thanks for the good advice

Another great video with fantastic ideas about greenhouse heating.

Hi- enjoyed your heater videos- but I see you also use an electric milk house heater. Have you considered an infrared heater? We gave up heating our large ranch house w propane years ago and now heat exclusively w infrared heaters in each room we are using. We don’t heat the hallway or guest rooms we’re not using. Infrared heat is much more energy efficient than a regular space heater. We live in zone 6b so it gets pretty cold and it’s also windy here. We had some extreme cold here about a week ago (° 0 F) and a sand heater would have been a great supplement- if I had known about it.☺️

The real farmer came out and he said Bale Hay.. Then had to remind us common folk lmao. I miss farming.

I saw your damp sand and copper ribbon heater but I could not find where to purchase the copper ribbon?? Please advise? You said you would put the source of the copper ribbon below on that site but I could not find it?

The plastic of your cat litter box is too shiny, so some of the sun's energy is reflected back. To counter this, and make it more efficient, I would paint the outside MATT black, so it reflects less heat. You could also use angled mirrors to shine more sunlight onto the sides and/or back of the boxes, which would heat them up even quicker. Mirrors are expensive, so I've used those metallised "space blankets" stretched over a wood frame - a lot cheaper, and you can make them any size or shape you feel you need.

@ZenGardenOasis Hi, I find your advice useful but one thing that I would like to know is how you stop your cats from getting to your outdoor garden?

Just use soap stone gravel in the floor of the green house.

I don't know for USA but in France all cat litters comes with chemicals and perfumes. I'm 2 miles from the beach. I have free sand. So no Thank you. And you can buy sand in any hardware shop in the world

You jump around too much. Stay on topic.