In May 2013 I put a hot tub in the yard for my wife. Come October she said she wanted an enclosure around it for the winter. After much research I selected the Palram Silver 8x8-foot Snap and Grow Greenhouse and purchased it from Great Offer Stock.com. Shipment was quick and the package arrived in good shape. but note that it is heavy for one person. You may need help moving it around.
I rated the quality as good. There was no lack or defect but you get what you pay for. There are much more expensive models out there that may be of a higher quality but at a much higher price. I rated value as excellent, judging it based on price and quality for the price. This is not a real cheapie piece of junk. This is a well designed product for the price.
I made a base for the greenhouse out of 4" X 6" X10 foot pressure treated ties cut to the 96.5 X 96.5 inch specs in the plans. It is square and level, sits on my concrete block patio, and should provide a solid base for the greenhouse. I would not consider buying this greenhouse unless you plan to put it on a solid, rigid, square and level base. It is too light to just sit on the ground.
Because we were building this around an existing hot tub it complicated the build just a little and may have taken us a bit longer. I would say allocate 8 hours and two people and you should have no trouble finishing the job in that time. If you have any experience with building stuff, two people can probably finish it in 4 hours.
I am quite impressed with the design and engineering of the kit. Things go together well and the structure, is quite strong and rigid. Mine has only been up for a few days but we are getting 15 mph winds today and the building is not visibly flexing at all. The plastic panels flex and rattle a bit but that is to be expected.
The fit of the doors is not quite right yet, but that may be due to a need for some adjustments. I think we will be able to improve it.
While the assembly is not hard, I would not recommend it to a first timer to assembling a kit. At least one person needs to have some basic understanding of construction of kits and how things go together. My daughter helped me and we both characterize this as building Ikea furniture but on a bigger scale. If that sounds too hard for you, then get some help.
Assembly requires a minimum of two people as there are times when one has to hold while the other places parts in place or puts them together. Or one needs to be up high and the other needs to hand parts. Definitely use silicone spray as recommended in the instructions as some parts are very tight fitting, which is good. On a few occasions we found a rubber mallet helpful to get that last little bit to go in and seat properly. And be sure to follow the sequence exactly as presented in the manual. All parts are well marked so you should have no trouble matching up pieces to the instructions.
While not absolutely necessary I would recommend having a sheet metal seamer tool like this one. //www.harborfreight.com/6-inch-jaw-straight-sheet-metal-seamer-98728.html. Some of the parts have thin edges and can get slightly dinged or slightly bent during shipping. Or, if you drop something, you can bend the edges making assembly nearly impossible. With this tool this was not a problem at all as this straightens them out quickly and easily.
We did the build over two days of about 3 hours each, not including the building of the base. We stopped on the first day because the wind hit 22 mph and it started to rain. We got the frame up and the front and rear "glass". On the second day we got the rest of the panels in and finished the structure. Again, nothing hard if you have any building skills at all and you can follow the pictorial directions.
As a greenhouse this should be an excellent product. However, because I am using at a hot tub enclosure I was not able to put in two braces that support the roof. Normally this would not be a problem but if I get a snow load on there the roof may be over stressed. So I am going to have to come up with a modification that will reinforce the roof. That is not a product defect or design defect. It is because I am using it for a purpose for which it was not intended. In areas where snow is not likely this might not even be an issue.
I can't say how this will hold up over the years but based on my initial impressions I think it will do just fine. The plastic panels are quite tough and should hold up well to minor impacts like small branches or stuff being blown around by wind. We have already used the hot tub inside the greenhouse and it seems it is going to work very well.