Hoop House Calculator

The hoop house calculator is helpful in estimating the greenhouse surface area and the size of the heater you would need to maintain appropriate temperatures for your crops.

Plants often require a specific set of conditions to grow, and it is critical to save them from changes in the environment like extreme cold. A hoop house or greenhouse maintains pressure, carbon dioxide, and lighting. It is also used in normal weather conditions for hobby or gardening purposes. A greenhouse heater regulates temperature and humidity depending on the greenhouse's size and shape.

If you know what type of greenhouse you have, you can start by entering the numbers in our hoop house calculator or reading to understand what a hoop house is and the associated costs.

A hoop house or greenhouse is a transparent confined space or cabin-like are often made from polycarbonate or glass or polyethylene that mimics favorable conditions for the plants to grow. It is mostly used to grow crops in places where it is difficult for plants to grow due to the extreme weather or to grow delicate plants that need particular climatic conditions. A greenhouse works on the basic principles of:

• Heating;
• Cooling (see newton's law of cooling calculator);
• Ventilation;
• Lighting (our lighting calculator might help); and
• Carbon dioxide enrichment.

It is made from a transparent material to receive heat inside by solar radiation and trap the heat inside it. Based on the space or ground area availability, the greenhouse could be of different shapes and sizes. Types include:

• Arched roof;
• Gable;
• Quonset; and
• Lean-to.

A hoop house often has a concrete foundation dug into the ground and a wooden frame. A transparent covering of acrylic glass, polycarbonate, or polyethylene is attached to the frame. The amount of greenhouse cover depends on the exposed surface area of the structure. You can head over to our surface area calculator for more information on the topic.

To find the surface area, first, we need to find the area of individual walls and roofs. You can ignore the area of the ground. The walls are triangular, square, or rectangular in shape, with an exception in the Quonset type and arch type greenhouse where it is an arc. You can then multiply the surface area by the material unit cost to find the total material cost.

You can also use the surface area to calculate the walls' net heat transfer. This heat loss is helpful when estimating the heater size you need to fit in the greenhouse to maintain adequate temperature levels. To start using our hoop house calculator:

1. Select the type of greenhouse.
2. Enter the dimensions of the greenhouse, such as:
   • Total height;
   • Height of sidewalls (if present);
   • Width; and
   • Length.
3. The greenhouse cover calculator will return the surface area of the hoop house.
4. Choose the construction material you plan to use for your hoop house. Selecting the material will also provide its corresponding heat loss coefficient. Choosing the last dropdown option will allow you to enter a custom heat loss coefficient if your material is not on our list of options.
5. Enter the inside temperature.
6. Fill in the outside temperature.
7. The hoop house calculator returns the heat transfer through the greenhouse walls.
8. Insert the heater efficiency to obtain the heater size needed.
9. Fill in the unit cost of the material.
10. The hoop house cost calculator returns the material cost.

Find the area of the gable-type hoop house having the following dimensions:

• Total height = $10~\mathrm{m}$;
• Height of sidewalls = $7.5~\mathrm{m}$;
• Width = $8~\mathrm{m}$; and
• Length = $10~\mathrm{m}$.

The greenhouse is made up of 6 mm polyethylene having cost as $\text{\textdollar} 0.5 \mathrm{ / m^2}$. The inside and outside temperatures are $30 \mathrm{ °C}$ and $10 \mathrm{ °C}$, respectively.

1. Select the type of greenhouse in our hoop house calculator.
2. Enter the dimensions of the greenhouse, such as:
   • Total height = $10~\mathrm{ m}$;
   • Height of sidewalls = $7.5~\mathrm{ m}$;
   • Width = $8~\mathrm{ m}$; and
   • Length = $10~\mathrm{ m}$.
3. The surface area of the hoop house is returned as $384.34~\mathrm{ m}^2$.
4. Choose the type of construction material as 6 mm polyethylene.
5. Enter the inside temperature as $30~\mathrm{°C}$.
6. Fill in the outside temperature as $10~\mathrm{°C}$.
7. The conductive heat loss (or heat transfer) through the greenhouse walls is $50.16~\mathrm{ kW}$.
8. Insert the heater efficiency as, say, 0.8 to obtain the heater capacity needed as $62.7~\mathrm{ kW}$.
9. Finally, you can fill in the material price per unit area of the material you selected as $\text{\textdollar}0.5~\mathrm{/ m^{2}}$.
10. The material cost for the greenhouse is $\text{\textdollar}192.17$.