Customer Reviews

RION MLT3 Mini Lean-To Greenhouse

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Rion Mini Lean-To greenhouse comes in a flimsy cardboard box that contains about a hundred plastic parts. It difficult to put together because the parts are poorly labeled. (Making it even more difficult for me was that several parts were missing.) The 12 page instruction manual shows several diagrams - but no photos - with parts labelled to help with assembly. One classic exerpt on page 7, "The 'OUT' on the 2D connector should face the inside of the Mini Lean-To". This kind of product gives the term "some assembly required" a bad name.

Also, it's a bit pricely to be so flimsy and poorly designed. Save yourself the trouble get something else.

There are a couple of "gotchas" not mentioned on the Amazon.com webpage for this item:

A concrete slab is REQUIRED for installation, there are no other options for the base according to the installation instructions.

You also should build a special wooden frame and mount the frame to the house and the greenhouse to the frame instead of mounting the greenhouse directly to the house. It's not nice and pretty against the house like it's pictured on the amazon.com product page. In fact, the picture at amazon.com is just the greenhouse freestanding against the house (on concrete, of course).

You CAN have the lean-to just free standing against the house, (that's what I'm doing) but it will be somewhat wobbly. If you do decide not mount the greenhouse against the house, you probably don't want to use the built-in shelves. The shelf supports are just 3 aluminum "sliders" that slide into very shallow grooves in the sides.

Since there is no support at the back of the greenhouse, there is nothing to hold the back part of the frame rigid, and all it takes is about an extra 1/4" width at the back of the lean-to to make the shelf supports fall out, along with the shelves and any plants those shelves might have been holding. It would have been a MUCH better design if they had MOUNTED the shelf supports into the frame, rather than just have them slide into slots only around 1/4" deep. This would have also helped strengthen the entire structure of the greenhouse.

The sliding doors at the front are also not very well designed. The polycarbonate panels used for the doors have unfinished edges, and the doors slide open and closed in plastic strips which are connected to the frame of the greenhouse. It doesn't take much to jam the smooth sliding of the doors since there isn't really any mechanism to them--it's just raw edge polycarbonate sliding in a plastic groove. I imagine I'll be frequently squirting WD-40 in those grooves to keep the doors moving easily.

The opening for the bottom shelf on my unit is just a little bigger than the doors, so the doors fall out when you try to slide them open or closed.

I also gave up trying to put the rubber insulation strips into the edges where the polycarbonate meets the frame. Those strips just don't want to be pushed in, no matter how much force you apply.

I really can't recommend this greenhouse. If they would just incorporate some simple (and cheap) design changes (like mounting the shelf supports), I think it would be an OK greenhouse, but as it is, I'm afraid I can't recommend it.

This is the best small greenhouse I have ever purchased. Compared to cheap metal pole assembled units that cost between $40 and $60, this thing is built like a tank. The unit has a thick poly tubing frame with metal bracing inserts and shelf supports. The panels are made of polycarbonate multi-wall sheeting that is uv-protected - these panes really hold the heat inside.

Assembly was moderately difficult, similar to putting an entertainment center together. The size in the picture is deceptive. This unit is large. We assembled this unit in our living room on a snowy Sunday afternoon ( delivered in the snow, after lunch, on Sunday - only one day late for Amazon Prime two-day shipping, but considering the circumstances kudos to FedEx anyways ).

Considering the build quality, shipping, and price, we have only positive experiences to report with this product. We paid less than $70 for this product, which it turns out was a steal. I see the price jumped has up to $260, which is a shame because my wife wants another one now.