Polytunnel build - what sliding door hardware?

[alex robinson]

Ours is over 20 years old, now on its 2nd cover as we moved. The cover is trenched in and tensioned on a warm day by pulling the tube up the ground spike and putting the pin through the highest hole you can reach. Don't think that would work with plastic pipe though.Most of the commercial ones using base boards have plates on the bottom of the ground pegs, which are concreted in. I'd almost be tempted to bodge up something like a duckbill anchor on the bottom of your scaffold tubes to resist the potential uplift.
Our cats have found it's a lovely warm thing to snooze on top of but it's never caused a problem with the cover. Me sticking a cane through it was another matter

Keep an eye out for the clear tape in Aldi/Lidl, it's great for repairs

Been wondering about concreting and hoping to avoid it as it means not only more digging, but also harder to get weed matting continuously from inside to out. Like the look of the anchors. Never heard of them before..

Looking to get 8ft poles, and whack them up to 4ft deep (we will see how that goes). Cut any spare to give 4ft vertical sides. How deep do you think it needs to be?

 

[whereistheceilidh]

Can I ask why? Every poly tunnel I've ever seen has had a trench down either side about a foot deep and a foot wide back filled with earth, to be honest I thought this was pretty much the only option. Happy to learn otherwise

Exactly as Alex says....it is tricky to tension if it is dug in. We have wood bottom bars secured with U bolts. Plastic comes under bar & is fixed to the top of the bar round a slat. If we need to tighten then slacken bolts a bit & tap down. As Alex says ...do not need as much plastic ...& is easier to change plastic in a few years time....which you probably will.
Will maybe send photos later Alex but we strangely have good weather ...and a lot to do outside if it is dry.

 

[Tris]

Been wondering about concreting and hoping to avoid it as it means not only more digging, but also harder to get weed matting continuously from inside to out. Like the look of the anchors. Never heard of them before..

Looking to get 8ft poles, and whack them up to 4ft deep (we will see how that goes). Cut any spare to give 4ft vertical sides. How deep do you think it needs to be?

Reckon if you can get them 4ft deep it won't go anywhere easily even without trenching the polythene. If it works on Skye it should be fine in Hampshire

 

[curryjunkie]

our tunnel sliding doors have a tshaped piece of pipe attatched to the bottom of the door frame, then a c channel is screwed to bottom of door frame and slides in that. ill take a picture to show and upload it. you can see the top rail in this picture

 

[curryjunkie]

Exactly as Alex says....it is tricky to tension if it is dug in. We have wood bottom bars secured with U bolts. Plastic comes under bar & is fixed to the top of the bar round a slat. If we need to tighten then slacken bolts a bit & tap down. As Alex says ...do not need as much plastic ...& is easier to change plastic in a few years time....which you probably will.
Will maybe send photos later Alex but we strangely have good weather ...and a lot to do outside if it is dry.

ground rail is so much better than digging the plastic in, i agree you can get the cover tighter this way, choose a warm still day to cover the frame and the plastic will stretch a little more than when its cold.