South central AL. Hot temps, high winds during storms.

I have a Rion green plastic 8 x 12 that will be four years old this autumn. Both the green plastic and panels (when cleaned) look as good as new. I bought the GH with a door unit at each end, and four roof vents. In summer, the inside temp stays about the same as the outside temp. Unless Rion has changed the design, you will probably want to modify the door closure method to better secure the top and bottom of the double doors when closed. Mine is on a wooden deck, so I used garden gate drop rods at the bottom of the doors, which gave me four Rion inner door latches to better secure the doors at the top on the outside.

These greenhouses are far from airtight and/or watertight when assembled, and you have to use a little ingenuity to plug the leaks.

If at the outset you want a leakproof, airtight GH with solidly placed doors and vents, I think you should look at those that cost about twice what a Rion costs, size for size. After reading the trials and tribulations of GH owners here for some time, it appears there is a direct correlation between what you pay for the GH and how much follow up work you have to do to make it suit you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Photos When New

Don't buy one of these. YOU will be sorry. They just shipped me number 2 since the first one turned black and warped. Now the second one has issues with the manufacturing. It took 5 months to settle the issue with Rion on the first one. More later once the dust settles for the second time.

I've have a Rion 8 x 16 for 3 years now. While I'm much farther north than your location, I do get 60+ mph winds plus a few 100+ degree days.

Because the Rion design uses interlocked short lengths of plastic resin for it's structure, I learned the hard way that having a solid base is the secret of getting this design to stand up to wind / snow / whatever. I constructed a base frame out of pressure treated 16 ft and 10 ft 4 x 4's with cross members every 4 feet which was buried with the top surface of the 4 x 4's just above ground level. I very carefully positioned and secured the bottom plastic resin members of the Rion greenhouse to this frame AFTER the Rion was completely assembled ( which required 6 people to lift the entire greenhouse from the inside ! I also added cedar decking on top of the frame crossmembers.

The key issue is to make sure that wind / snow load cannot force the Rion framework out of 'square' ... because if any part is allowed to twist or move or 'stretch' the whole structure can quickly be compromised.

Also, with the Rion design it's important to make sure that the inside and outside air pressures can't build up a differential. To help in this regard, I added extra wall panel vents ( four total ) and roof vents ( four total ). I also had to replace the roof vent material with solid 1/4" acrylic sheet ... since the roof vents do take a 'beating' acting as 'safety valves' for wind pressure.

I Agree with Billala that there's no way that a Rion greenhouse is ever going to survive being made airtight ! So I don't even try ! This means that I can't even think about heating my Rion for plants to survive sustained sub-freezing temperatures. But that won't be as much of an issue for you as it is for me in the 'frozen' north. I am just now moving seedlings into my Rion on the assurance that there shouldn't be any more 'deep' (

Grandma - You are so right about the importance of erecting these with precision. This company makes highly engineered structures that you have to erect properly, with much fitting and tweaking along the way. You can't just slap them together like a piece of IKEA and expect them to endure. As a retired aviator, they remind me a lot of how aircraft are engineered, and require about the same amount of careful attention, both during and after assembly.

Absolutely, Billala! Just like the 'strength' of an airframe depends on the interaction of the metal 'skin' with the light framework, the 'strength' of a Rion greenhouse depends on the interaction of the base attachment with the plastic framing members and the 'stress' cables which tie the sides and roof peak together. Getting any of this 'wrong' can result in having structural strength of a 'Tinker Toy'. Getting all of this 'right' results in having structural strength to survive 4ft of snow and 60 mph winds at essentially half the price of similarly sized conventionally framed greenhouse designs.