As a New Plymouth District Council Approved contractor ICE Electrical, Chemtest and AHI Carrier made an obvious team for the glasshouse automation upgrade at the Pukekura Park Fernery in New Plymouth.

The project purpose was to simplify a system which has been manually operated for decades and to provide an even and consistent growing environment within the display houses. In addition a new seed raising glasshouse was added as well as a rain cover roof complete with irrigation.

An overview of the system would show how the system reacts to solar hours, wind direction, rain fall and internal temperature and humidity. The use of vent motors operate the glasshouse windows to provide passive ventilation while newly installed sweep fans can provide circulation. Fogging pumps and irrigation pumps provide essential growing environments for young plants and during the winter months gas boilers control glasshouse temperatures through heated piping and fan coil units while all the time recording all results and status’s back to a central control computer.

The horticulture specialised Sarnia automation system provides a format that is made extremely simple to use and provides nearly no obstacles for new users.