Building a 4x6 hidden room

I am able to grow only under the condition that it is extremely well hidden - as in, no visible entrance, no fan noise in the adjacent room, no warm walls, etc.

There is one space in my house that I think I can make disappear. My basement is finished, but the laundry room is not. The laundry room is long and the adjacent room is the downstairs 3/4 bathroom (toilet, sink, shower stall). This picture is looking directly at the back of the bathroom wall, the outside block wall is on the left and a wall supporting the stairs is on the right.





The goal is to flower with 1kw or 2x600's and have mothers, cloning, veg (trying to maximize production), and storage of nutrients etc. all in that space, and be able to stand in the laundry room without having any clue it's there.

I've been sketching it up in Google SketchUp. This is the space as it sits. 80" across the back of the bathroom wall from the concrete block to the face of the studs under the stairs. It's 53-1/4" deep from the face of the bathroom wall studs to the outer edge of the last stud under the stairs. Underneath the air ducts it is about 75" and in the taller part I can go up to 82" and that leaves room for the piping to travel along the trusses (82" is 1.5" under the trusses).





The first thing I have to do is move that bench out of the way, it's getting slid further down in the laundry room (plenty of room for it along the wall).

Next I'm going to extend the wall under the stairs by 10". This is as far as I can go and still get past the water heater and under the stairs (in the right of first pic). I would love to use the under stairs area, too, but that would kill the hidden aspect of this room.

After extending I will build the fake wall across. It will be complete along with dummy pipes and wiring to make it look legit.





Secret Entrance: I plan to leave one piece of drywall unsecured so it can be removed. It will be held in place by strong magnets. I am also trying to figure out how I might attach a latch to this panel to secure it in place, but I need to be able to open the latch from outside the room without it being discoverable.

The room will exchange air through the ducts with the rest of the house. I will be pulling air into the room from the return with a Solar & Palau TD-125 5" Mixed Vent inline and I will be exhausting it through a 8"x24" Phresh filter (750 cfm) with a 8" ValuLine inline (745 cfm) and out the duct that feeds the house with hot/cold air, the fan will be dialed down on a speed controller.

I've grown 3k in tents in this basement before, and I'm confident the house can handle being a lung for just 1k (3k needed a dehuey in fall & spring).

Hiding the fan noise is essential. I want the whole room framed in 2x4 filled with Roxul (mineral wool) insulation, which is heavy and sound deadening, plus very fire resistant. I plan to finish the inside of the room with 5/8 fire-rated drywall covered in Green Glue (sound dampening glue) and another layer of 1/2 moisture resistant drywall. The double-drywall layer with Green Glue should block a lot of sound - expect for where I have to cut openings into the ducts. For that, I plan to simply box it in with lots of insulation as best as I can, wrap the ducts themselves in some damping material (like dynamat). If needed, I'll buy duct mufflers, but I want to see if I really need them first.

The fake wall poses a problem. I'll need a second wall behind it that's insulated and holds the drywall.





The inner space after drywall and everything is 4'x6'.

I'm thinking that the removable panel on the outer fake wall will push in and hang off a cable on a rod so it can be pushed to the side in between the walls (like a sliding door, kinda). Then I'll put a similar door by building a panel on the inner wall that is held in with magnets, pushed in to remove, then pushed to the side like a sliding door. But the inner door will be thick and insulated, multiple panels of MDF board Green Glued together with soundblocking vinyl seals around the opening.

I'm still working out how I'm actually going to assemble all this, and how to fit all the grow areas into this space. I'll keep updating as the build out progresses over the following weeks.

I have an unfinished starting room and built a fake wall about 3 feet from the end of the room, so 3x10 total, I grow in 3x4 and have all the stuff and secret storage in the other 6x3. I built it to look like the 6x studs and added peg board and clutter to hide it and make it look like an inaccessible part of the space. Not here, but Ive done double dry wall and green glue before, and it makes a huge difference, works great.

that electrical situation looks scary. be careful

foaf said:

Not here, but Ive done double dry wall and green glue before, and it makes a huge difference, works great.https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=8189&pictureid=207046&thumb=1

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That's cool. I've never used it, but hear good things, and it blocks a lot of sound with minimal use of space.

If you want to use magnets to secure the hidden door here is an idea. Used medium strength magnets on the studs where the door attaches, use metal plates on the hidden door (glued to the backside of course), and then for your latch just use a more powerful magnet than used on the studs to pull the door off by the hidden steel plates on the other side. That way the door is inaccessible with out the stronger magnet, you can even put it in a different room to "lock" the door.

Water above the receptacles is a no no.

If you get a leak then you will be fucked.

Now on to some important math.

By my figures if your house does not burn down you will be able to fit 3 Chinese sex slaves in that size of a room. If you can expand another foot in any direction you can bump it up to 4.

Now those calculations are based on my assumption that these sex slaves would be "of age." Now if they are not "of age" I am thinking you can get 6 in there.

If in doubt though the best thing to do is check with your local building inspector. It would suck to get written up for not allowing enough space for your sex slaves. In this economy every dollar counts.

Here's a little update. I started taking the bench apart, but it appears to have been built in place, with lots of overlapping 2x4's all screwed into each other. I'm not going to get it un-screwed from the studs on the walls without taking the entire thing apart - the bottom's loose, but there's a lot of screws hidden under the top:




And here's where the bench is going, just sliding down a couple feet:




I pulled a few photos out of some old videos. Here's a grainy shot of what used to be in that empty spot and underneath the bench:

So what I think I'll do after removing the pegboard is take a circular saw and just zip through the 2x4's above the bench so I can pull the whole thing off the wall and then remove the bottoms of the studs.




Here's where it sits right now:




And, lastly, I'll throw these in. This is what used to be in another room of the basement, 2 tents each with 1kw:

At least you got nice tools to work with there I see ;-)

,,,,,

nice

use your work bench as a veg chamber. i have a similar setup in my garage and have a similar workbench, I enclosed the work bench, then put foam board on the inside for insulation. Slide it up against the flower cab and attach a 4in dryer duct blower/booster to the veg cabinet and flower cab. That way you can exchange air in the cabinet and keep it cool by useing the flower cabinets air. small desk fan in there and no one knows shit. i have a pad lock on mine. people always ask why the lock is on there (to keep the damn kids from useing my tools) but they never know i have a 50+ plants in there vegging.

Subbed. I have a big chubby for large stealth grows. This should be epic for sure.

burns1n209 said:

use your work bench as a veg chamber. i have a similar setup in my garage and have a similar workbench, I enclosed the work bench, then put foam board on the inside for insulation. Slide it up against the flower cab and attach a 4in dryer duct blower/booster to the veg cabinet and flower cab. That way you can exchange air in the cabinet and keep it cool by useing the flower cabinets air. small desk fan in there and no one knows shit. i have a pad lock on mine. people always ask why the lock is on there (to keep the damn kids from useing my tools) but they never know i have a 50+ plants in there vegging.

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That would work great... we certainly vegged plenty under that bench before. Unfortunately, I simply cannot have any plants outside of this hidden room.

My goal is for this room to be able to go undiscovered if this house had a search warrant served on it. That may be a lofty goal, but I think it is entirely attainable. Plants anywhere outside the room, however, isn't going to work.

Made a little progress today. Got the bench off the wall. Took the circular saw, set it just so, and zipped the 2x4's in half right above the bench. Couple tugs and a little prying and the bench popped right off the wall.

Construction so far is coming along nicely. Keep up the good work.

-Funk

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Iron_Lion said:

There was a guy on here a while back that had a completely stealth 2k hydro grow hidden in his basement behind a false wall. I wish I could remember his name, it might be helpful.

It was pretty impressive, he built a false wall and covered it in peg board and hung a bunch of tools on it, you'd never know it was there.

I've thought about doing this but it seems hard to hide the ducting or to have ducting running into a wall.

A member here named Cannabunker man has the king of all stealth grows, he built a concrete bunker under his out door patio and had a secret entrance hatch hidden in his hatch way. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen, the pigs would need ground penetrating radar to find that bitch.

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Here's the CannaBunkerMan thread. That's pretty awesome, but above my knowledge level by a ways. I can frame a wall and run electric, but even hanging and finishing drywall will be kinda new to me. I wouldn't dare mess with my foundation. Wish I had someone close and trustworthy who did construction.

I like where this is going...

awesome!! subscribed

I love this. I've been thinking about installing a false wall. I'm paying close attention.