Greenhouse growers are constantly monitoring ambient air temperatures throughout the greenhouse, but just as important for uniform, healthy plant growth is ensuring soil temperatures remain constant.
Stuppy Greenhouse recently helped a customer with that issue via installation of its Heat2O™ Hydronic Heat system in the growers’ production benches. Designed in-house, Heat2O includes a range of standard options, including on-bench, under bench aluminum fin, ground and floor heat. However, according to Stuppy sales engineer Cameron Fulton, who worked on the installation, this was not your typical on-bench heating system design.
“The customer was looking for a bench tube heating system for a commercial setting, with the main goal of maintaining a consistent soil temperature in the winter,” he explains. “The special application of this install was the supply, return, and reverse return needed to be routed overhead. This was not our standard installation design, and it provided an opportunity for our engineers to design a system that could adapt to multiple configurations.”
“Specifically, the custom install project consisted of 6,800 sq. ft. of benches, split in various sizes and configurations, both in our ‘L’ and ‘T’ style manifolds,” Fulton shares.
“Our goal is to tailor a heating system to our customers’ needs in the best way possible,” he adds. “And to find a solution for unique heating applications that leaves our clients happy. We checked both of those boxes with this project.”
Fulton says the Heat2O system solves two issues for growers: better plant quality via consistently managed soil temperatures, and a nice savings on heating costs for the greenhouse.
“With the system using feedback via soil temperature sensors, we can control and monitor the needed BTUs to keep plants happy,” Fulton says. “The grower also saw a reduction in heating costs over the winter (with this project), but in our larger applications we’ve witnessed even greater savings.”
For growers that decide to go with Stuppy for greenhouse heating system needs, rest assured you are getting a knowledgeable, seasoned team of experts to work with: the sales and design team features over 180 years of combined horticultural industry experience, according to the company.
“Our goal at Stuppy Greenhouse is to provide a well-designed and engineered system that leaves the customer satisfied and ready to grow,” Fulton says. “We all know that there are items that pop up and require more assistance, guidance, or input, and we make sure that our customer is always taken care of efficiently and completely.”
Click here to learn more about the company and the problem-solving solutions it can offer your greenhouse.
