The CoCo Cave.... my adventures in buiding my new growroom

Edited because the higher I am the worse I spell

I have started breaking ground on my new growroom, these are the pics of what I am starting with... a hidden area underneath a building.

I am showing you the entrance as it will be changed to still be hidden but will look totally diff than in these current pics so the finished entrance will never be photographed.

So on with the show




Here are the 1st shots of the area I have to work with





These are shots from me standing just inside the access


Here are some a little further in



This is a shot of the area around the corner to the right of the cement wall on the right of the pics above





I am going to lvl the area ib between the pillars in this pic to 8ft the lvl inside the entrance is around 7ft...


the distance between the pillars left to right is 80 inches and the distance from the back pillar on the right to the edge of the concrete wall is 120 inches... and the front left pillar is even with the concrete wall making the area a perfect 120"x80" with 8ft of overhead...

So the next few weeks will be slow on progress I suspect I was planning on puting a major dent in the excavating this weekend put I wore my ass out for 4 hours yest and didnt make much of a dent.. I had failed to realize that dirt that has been under a building for 50 years gets hard as concerte...

So I am going to make a extra long chisel blade for a pneumatic chisel and go at it .... If that doesnt work I am going to rent a jackhammer, however I think the air chisel will work.... I will take a few shots of my struggle to remove the granite hard dirt over the next few days and detail my progress..


This is going to be a long work in progress that is going to result in a fair sized grow room utilizing Coco in a SoG ... most likely built to fit E&F tables but I may give drip to drain a try but I know E&F and the idea of all those dripper hoses snaking through a large cramped SoG kinda scares me.

As far as lights and such.... its still up in the air... I am guessing 4k min, but you never know... I am switching from my old ballast to new electronic units so my lights may change from 1ks to 750s or 600s

Also besides just digging out the spot to build the grow room in I will be installing a monster R/O system 100 Gallons of R/O storage.. which may or may not get put to use, I just sent off some wellwater from the on site well just to make sure it is ok before we start using it... the results may indicate we dont need the R/O unit ... still debating whether or not to dig a hole for the rez... just afraid it may keep the rez to cool( whats the temp roots cold shock at? I forget).... So I will have some pics in the next couple of days of the R/O unit as well as the 60 and 40 gallon R/O tanks going in.

So say tuned and feel free to shoot any questions at me... I have big plans for the room... going to be fully automated if I can swing it $ wise

lol damn I meant to post this in teh growroom forum... oh well this is my favorit forum now so here it stays

Glad ya got stuck over here This is gonna be one heck of a project...gonna tag and learn....thanks for contributing to the site/forum

you lucky bastard... I wish I had a space like that to work with! :jawdrop: I'll definitely be sticking around for this one. Best of Luck!

One Nadagin,

i love it man, secret rooms are the shit man, lol.

i can just imagine the hard work it will be to get that dirt out of there. but man is it gonna be worth it. oh yeah

as it's gonna be a coco setup, this is the best place for it imo, lol. bring it on...

the ro unit will be good anyway, just use it at 50/50 with well or tap water unless you are gonna get special ferts that are made with ro water in mind. anyway, i can't wait to hear and see more.

peace

LMAO there are R/O nutes?... there were not any 3 yrs ago when i quit . what are they and whom makes them

On getting the dirt dirt out it will be a hassle I am breaking up all the dirt 1st then I will build a ramp on the inside of the area up to the little concrete lip of the hidden entrance.... I will wheelbarrow up the ramp and then dump from that wheelbarrow to one into one the floor out side the room... then cart it out.

well the only ones i know of are hydrotop who actually make the nutrients to fit perfectly with the water sample you send them. there are bound to be some others that do the same thing, but i don't know of any coco specific nutes with ro in mind. i have always been lucky with my tap water except for in one place, where an ro unit was needed due to high salt and specially chalk content of the water. but in that place it was enough to use the ro for only 50% of the water, the rest was tap so i still had the trace elements and chalk you get in tap water. with pure ro you need cal mag and trace elements added.

cool space to turn into grow space

how are u going to solve the ventilation etc?

peace

and hope the house doesnt cave in on u hehe

bonecarver_OG said:

and hope the house doesnt cave in on u hehe

Click to expand...

No worries there the pillars are sunk deep 35-45 feet

bonecarver_OG said:

how are u going to solve the ventilation etc?

Click to expand...

The area does have passive vents in a few places around the area in the pics... I will see if I can get a better pic of one tomorrow... the lighting ventalation will be inline fans intake air from the coolest darkest spot in the area in the pics and push it through the room across the lights then out of the room to be dumped near one of the passive air vents ..... it is my hope that it will vent well enough on its own... if it wont I will make a vent box for the back side of the passive vent and blow it straight outside the foundation

fresh air intake will be pulled into the the roon via a fan and 2 1way duct flapper valves

Oh yah baby!

love the hidden room concept mate,im big on covert hehehehe.
think i best be subscribeing to this one...
kindest regards,FT

BTW do you guys like my 1956 Mexican liquor store nudie calendar?....

you can always make a nice pile of fire wood right in front of the exhausting ventilation outlet, lol. a pile off wood up against a house with a chimney is the best of ways to hide the exhaust, if you can't tap into the actual chimney that is, but that's only possible if it's no longer in use. i would plan on a strong exhaust ventilator hooked to a big overcapacity scrubber. that is one investment that is a must if you don't want sleepless nights and possibly worse, due to your whole house smelling like mad.

the vents are surrounded by plant/flower beds.. no direct line of sight to them... I just want to make sure the heat exits the area. The fresh air will be blown in past a 1way flapperin the floor to insure it doesnt flap open on accident...there will be another 1way flapper inline on the roof of the room attatched to duct that will run it to and through carbon scrubber in a sealed rubbermaid trashcan that has another duct attatched to the trashcan that then runs to and merges with the lighting exhaust ducting and is then blown outside

I forgot to mention I am going to actually build a room in the area I excavate between the pillars...

sounds like u got it planned mate

Yeah I have a pretty good idea of what I want, but plans can change


Like I really thought I would be at least 1/3rd done with the excavation by now... but it is proving to be most difficult. So I have been working on my closet grow while I contemplate my next assault of bunker hill...
Hopefully by this weekend I will have made some good progress

Are you just gonna scrub the intake? Or will you add a HEPA filter?
Good thinking on the temps relating to that rez if you bury it....could always get a cheap heater if it's an issue....or bury it later if heat is an issue....I asked the same thing in the coco thread:

-VT- said:

Can I shock my plants watering with cold water? I use tap water...the shit is cold (winter here in the USA)....should I mix my nutes and feed with lukewarm water?

Click to expand...

gaiusmarious said:

yes better feed with water that's no colder then 17° ideally speaking up to 22° is still great for coco specially if the climate is coldish. ice cold water is not ideal at all. let it sit at room temp before using it.

Click to expand...

Thought I'd share that 'cause I wasn't sure if anyone caught it or not when you asked about it....

R/O is the way to go with Botanicare nutes anyways.....tapwater is emergency usage only round my way here on out....I saw your visit at my spot....awesome news....I thought about buying some CNS17 bloom just to "take one for the team" lol...but I just can't....hope you try it out and share some input in that CNS17 thread....

Sorry for the long winded ramble....

peace

Wow, what a great thread. I love the excivation situation, I grow in a basment, but I wish I could do that type of thing. Knowing me I'd go ahead and rent the jackhammer, and borrow a few manly friends, and make the damn ceilings 10' high. I hate low ceilings, its the worst thing about growing, imho.

I would suggest you do sink the res, because you can add a heater and get whatever temp you want, or pull it out later, but I doubt you will want to. It is ideal to have your nutes slighly below desired temps then raise them with a heater, so if you get a big heat wave things will remain constant. Which is another benifit of a sunken res- nice constant temps.

Are you planning on pouring cement in there? If not what type of flooring? And are you serious about 35 ft pillars? That seems way way deep, unless this is a 20 story building we're talking about....

GWG

GWG - very good points