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1st Grow - 400W Room Setup Questions

JoeRocket2

Member
Hello, I will be setting up my 1st grow room & would like some advice. This operation must be as stealth as possible to keep my wife happy & me out of the doghouse. She knows whats up, but is VERY concerned about others catching on.

The space I will be using is a small concrete room on 3 sides & the ceiling, with the 4th wall being wood with a door. The room measures 4.5' x 4.5' x 6' , or roughly 120 cubic feet, and is in the basement of a house we own.

Fortunately, this is an old well room and there is a 15A outlet on its own circuit that I believe used to run a pump of some sort, so I dont think power will be an issue.

I am planning to purchase a 400W electronic switchable ballast with a 4" or 6" air-cooled hood.

I am also planning to buy a 12" x 14" x 4" Eco Plus Carbonaire carbon filter (16 lbs. of carbon) and suitable fan for odor & temp control.

Fan Questions - Remembering that stealth is #1 concern, I am looking at 2 styles of fans....the Eco Plus 4" inline 170CFM or a Panasonic FV-10NLF1 120 CFM. It's supposed to be a super quiet, high perf. inline fan.
I would like to be able to use a "speedster" or similar speed control with my fan to help control noise & air flow. Anyone have experience with either of these fans that can comment on noise from the fan itself or air noise? Do the speed controls cause inline fans to hum or make more noise? The instructions with the Panasonic state NOT to use a solid state speed control with it. It has a capacitor type motor, any idea if another type of speed control will work?

I have heard that the Panasonic is very quiet, but I want to make sure I have enough power to pull air thru the scrubber, then possibly the light, then out an exhaust vent.
With a 400W electronic ballast light setup, do you think I will even need to air-cool the light in my room or do you think that pulling warm room air thru the scrubber & out might be enough?

Exhausting the scrubbed air will be another challenge. The one wood wall in my room with the door connects to the main room of my basement. 2/3 of that wall is door, the other 1/3 has a large wooden wardrobe closet sitting right outside the wall, leaving a small gap of about 1" - 1 1/2" between the two I can use for intake & exhaust. The gap runs from top to bottom, but is very narrow. My thought is to place a 4" to 6" passive intake at the bottom of the wall (room can also draw some air from the area between the rafters in the ceiling as there is about a 12" section in the top of my room that connects to the area between my basement tiled ceiling and the floor above).

For exhaust, I am considering a couple of things to try to keep exiting wind noise at a minimum. One is splitting the 4" hose into 2 (or more) and then runnung it out a couple of 4" exhaust holes at the top of the room. Again, this will basically blow the air at a wall right outside the hole.....Too much noise? The other is to construct a long box with a 4" intake and seal it up against the inside of my wall. Then make either 1 large cutout in the wall for exhaust or many smaller ones. Because of the close placement of the wardrobe closet to the outside wall, I should be able to make large exhaust holes in the wall without it being noticed from the main basement room.
Does anyone have advice on how to best vent my room while keeping things quiet?

As far as Odor Control goes, I am planning on growing 4-6 plants at a time right now.
I am VERY limited as to exhaust options so I'm pretty much needing to control odor inside rather then vent it outside.
Do you think I will be OK venting my carbon scrubber into my main basement room?

What kind of smell can I expect.....nothing at all.....minor smell in basement....smell leakage upstairs in house?

Fan/Air noise and odor are my two biggest concerns as my wife will not allow anything too noticable.

Any advice I can get from you experienced growers will be much appreciated!!!!


Thanks in advance,
Joe
:rasta:
 
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I know i'm new to the whole growing and such, but i know for a fact the wife will never not notice, they have a way of finding things, they are very very good at it.
 

JoeRocket2

Member
JoeRocket2 said:
Hello, I will be setting up my 1st grow room & would like some advice. This operation must be as stealth as possible to keep my wife happy & me out of the doghouse. She knows whats up, but is VERY concerned about others catching on.


Again, she knows what I'm up to....just very apprehensive.

:wave:
 

Queso45

Member
If you're ultra concerned with odor, you should definitely get a low odor strain. Certain strains are so smelly that even a carbon filter can't mask them.

I use a eco-plus fan, but mine is the 6 inch version, which I believe is 440cfm. I would say that my fan is not quiet by any means, but its definitely not loud. For example... if you stand directly in front of my grow room door, you will hear my fan running. However, if you're 15 feet from the door you can't hear it. Bear in mind my fan is more than twice as powerful, so yours might not be half as loud. Oh also.... its the sound of the air blowing that I hear... NOT the actual fan. I don't hear any humming at all ever.

Now while my fan isn't really quiet---- it is REALLY effective. My temps never go above 80, and I can literally keep my hand on the glass of my cooltube without it being too hot.

I also use a carbonaire carbon filter, mine is for a 6" duct, and I'm growing Big Buddha Cheese (super super stinky). You should have zero odor problems with this filter unless you grow something really really stinky (I'm planning on having to use some ozone later on in my grow).

If you are having trouble deciding on whether to go with a cool tube or without.... I would really recommend a cooltube. Your plants can come MUCH closer to the lights (mines 5"), and you won't have nearly as many heat issues in your room.

Good luck Joe
 

JoeRocket2

Member
Queso45, thanks for the 1st hand info....you are definitely easing my worries a bit.

Do you have your fan on a speed control?

Is the air blowing noise coming from your exhaust, and if so, do you think that somehow splitting it into more exits might reduce that whoosh a bit?


Thanks again!

:rasta:
 

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