[Jimche]

Here are a few pics of my new seed starting setup. Wanted lots of capacity for peppers and tomatoes, but did not want to spend $2,000 for two 4-shelf racks with lights and four 2'x4' heat mats. Instead, I spent about $600 in materials and way too many hours building these. The racks are just 3/4" plywood, trimmed in 1x2s, set into notched 2x3 supports, held together by lag bolts. The shop light chains run through holes in the lower half of the 1x2 shelf trim and are held in place at different settings by nails that pass inserted downward through the chain links. The heat trays are made of a masonite bottom, wood trim sides and aluminum sheeting on top, with about 35 feet of 1/2" rope light (not LED type) winding around inside. This rope light idea came from postings by others on this and a couple of other sites. The stuff I bought emits 5.5 Watts of heat per foot, giving about 190 Watts for each 2'x4' tray, which is in the range the commercially available units supply. It heats a flat of soil in my 72 degree house up to about 82 degrees. I found it important to make sure the rope light contacted the aluminum, so that it can be the heat sink. Otherwise, most of the heat is conducted out the back through the masonite, which the lights also contact. So, this has been a fun project. Now let's see if I can grow anything (newbie here)!!