What's new
  • ICMag with help from Landrace Warden and The Vault is running a NEW contest in November! You can check it here. Prizes are seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!

Building a 4x6 hidden room

T

Trewarin

Member
apple cider vinegar to keep that thing clean, and some comfrey/hemp tincture to heal it up with little scar-tissue.

I did something similar a few weeks ago pruning my fruit tree's without gloves, try taking your own stitches out when you're ready... I had a ball doing that!
 
budderfly

budderfly

Active member
Alright, got a little more to show you. Here is how I am reducing the noise that travels through the house's HVAC ducting. It's no good if the exhaust blowing into the duct echos throughout the house. Without extra treatment, you would be able to hear the air/fan noise at many points in the house when it is quiet. I believe I can change that.

Earlier you saw me cut large access holes in the ducts while installing the take-offs. I am going to use those holes to install this insulation batting.

I highly recommended this stuff. It's acoustic duct liner, similar to Owen's Corning QuietR duct liner but house brand of a local place. The resonance in the ducts was night and day after installing this.

picture.php




I started by going 2 feet down the duct over the bathroom. (later, and i unfortunately didn't get a picture, but I glued a piece of insulation below this exhaust entrance across the duct to direct the air flow down the duct away from the main hvac unit.)

picture.php




I went 4.5 feet across - the width of the roll - the entire width of the hidden room. Then I added a couple more pieces to bring the insulation all the way to the end/turn in the vent. All the access panels are covered in insulation.

picture.php




Patches are up. These were cut partially with a jigsaw & metal blade and partly with snips. I have concluded sheet metal is just a royal pain in the ass, at least for me.

picture.php




I had some left over dynamat-like material, I believe it's called a mass constrained damping layer or something. Anyway - the insulation made a very large difference in the resonance of the duct. But with the dynamat, now the ducts are just dead. Thud. They are going to dissipate the sound energy very well, and after duct mufflers and lengths of insulated flex duct I think all noise will be effectively eliminated within 4 feet of the taps.

picture.php
 
C

connollyr123456

Member
Sorry but I am a bit puzzled are these your air conditioning ducts? I am just a bit puzzled how your using them are you just running your lines through them?
Sorry maybe I missed something earlier!!
 
budderfly

budderfly

Active member
connollyr123456 said:
Sorry but I am a bit puzzled are these your air conditioning ducts? I am just a bit puzzled how your using them are you just running your lines through them?
Sorry maybe I missed something earlier!!
Click to expand...

Yes they are the AC ducts for the house.

The hidden room will be drawing it's supply of intake air from the house's return duct, and it will be exhausting it's filtered air into the house's supply duct.
 
C

connollyr123456

Member
Actually that's a great idea as the C02 level drawn from the living space will be a bit higher then normal. The only problem might be that the filter slightly fails and makes the house a bit skunky. I have noticed that I become a bit immune to the smell after a while and don't notice subtle changes in smell.
I exhaust everything outside on the no traffic side of my house.
 
J

Jamorg13

Member
connollyr123456 said:
Actually that's a great idea as the C02 level drawn from the living space will be a bit higher then normal. The only problem might be that the filter slightly fails and makes the house a bit skunky. I have noticed that I become a bit immune to the smell after a while and don't notice subtle changes in smell.
I exhaust everything outside on the no traffic side of my house.
Click to expand...
If i was worried that much about smell(super stealth like this!) I would add a little 4 inch fan/filter to additionally treat the air before it enters the house.
 
budderfly

budderfly

Active member
Vhghost said:
i think its update time ?
Click to expand...

Well, if you say so boss. :)

Progress has been a bit slow going - I'm having some trouble getting the door to work the way I want, and I had to redo a couple little parts in order to get the level of precision finish that I wanted. Might as well do it right, ya know.



Here's a shot of the door frame I built. One tip I learned, build the frame in place to make sure it fits the door frame squarely. ;)

I used a router and a straight cut bit to shave off 1/2" of thickness for the drywall to recess into. It was quite messy, loud, and took a long time, but I don't know a better way to do it.

picture.php


picture.php




I ended up just holding the frame together with some metal braces. After routing, I couldn't drive any screws through like you would when framing a wall without splitting boards. In general, 2x4's don't take to well to any cutting other than cutting to length. The braces worked well, and once the drywall was in the door is was pretty solid.

picture.php




Right now I'm having some trouble with the magnets. I haven't been able to get them mounted close enough to work. It's also too damn difficult to pull the door shut from the outside with no hand-holds.

The door's a major part of the build so I'm taking my time with it right now.
 
budderfly

budderfly

Active member
Here I'm drilling some holes through a piece of drywall for the fake piping to go through.

I've put the piece I am cutting on top of another scrap piece of drywall. When using a hole saw or spade bit on drywall I found the surface you cut into on top comes out pretty clean, but the back surface blows out pretty bad. This is solved by simply laying the piece on another and cutting through so that the piece under prevents the backside from tearing out.

picture.php




Here's the drywall up for a test fit.

picture.php




And finally the copper is all soldered in place and the PVC is glued up. Behind the new, fake wall you can see the old wall and its piping. The point is to make the new, fake wall look very similar to the old wall. I think the fake piping goes a long way towards making the wall look legitimate.

picture.php




Here's the backside where the pipes go through. They don't actually extend beyond the drywall on the bottom because I'm going to Green Glue a second sheet up over everything. On top, you can see I put some elbows in - those are to keep the pipes in place and prevent anyone from pulling them out easily/accidentally.

picture.php




And finally after I green glued and screwed up a second sheet. of drywall.

picture.php




So, it's coming along. But the door is a pain, and I have to finish that before I can go further - the door basically gets built into place - as far as I can envision it will be impossible to remove once the inner wall gets built, as there will only be a few inches between the two walls.
 
budderfly

budderfly

Active member
Ok, I hit a milestone here tonight. The door is workable and in place!! There's still some improvements to be made, but I can continue on past the door until I get some more magnets, lol.


So the first thing I'll show you is the door frame with the magnets attached. I used spade bits to drill recessed holes for the magnets.

The larger magnets at top are 7/8" diameter and are rated at 10 lbs holding force. The smaller magnets are 5/8" dia. and rated at 7 lbs holding force. I also plan to get 1" dia. 20 lbs magnets for the door on the inner wall, now that I have a sense for how strong they. These are all from K & J Magnetics, and their site is good - lots of options, good info, competitive prices from what I can tell and quick shipping.

When you have these magnets in your hand, they are very strong. But once they are mounted they are not perfectly close together (unless you're a wizard at building shit), and so they do not seem nearly as strong.

The large magnets at top can snap the door shut from a few inches, and they take a good push to open - but this is by no means any measure of security! I will be using a security electomagnet with 600 lbs holding force (or maybe 1200) to hold the door closed. The permanent magnets are simply backup.

I also plan to order more 5/8's magnets and drill the holes deeper to stack 2 magnets. That will increase their holding force significantly. I think having the four together in a plane also increases the total force, but not nearly as much as stacking along the magnetic axis will.

A couple of the larger magnets cracked from screwing them in too hard. Bummer. They warn you that they are very brittle, and they can go a little nutso when the come apart...


picture.php




Here's the door frame. I initially tried magnets on both sides. You can order them in pairs, N pole & S pole up. When stuck straight together the bond is much stronger, but on the door it was really impossible to line them up well enough, and sometimes you'd get repelling edges.

It worked far better to use metal plate. Again, you could make this thicker, or use different materials, to create a better bond.


picture.php




On the right side of the door I found I had a gap and could see the magnets. I pulled out the chisel and countersunk a rectangle for the plate. With the plate flush the gap is gone and you cannot see the magnets, but I'm not getting the best hold, either. I believe stacking the magnets 2 deep will fix this, but I have to be careful to not make it so strong the wife can't open it, ha!


picture.php



picture.php




Here it is closed up with the middle stud just propped up in place. What do you think? Stealthy?


picture.php




Tomorrow I'll be laying base plates for the interior walls and building those out.
 
budderfly

budderfly

Active member
hempluvr said:
good job man. got any strain ideas yet? What ya want to run?
Click to expand...


I have access to a Connie Chung cut that was a freebie in an order gifted to a friend who's running it outdoors. Some of the biggest leaves you ever seen, fat indica ones. Smells skunky.

I also could have a pack of both Chemmy Jones and Chemwreck Kush from Connoisseur Genetics, they are sitting at another friend's place waiting to be popped.

At some point I'd like to try some Alien gear, like Grenades or Lemon Alien Dawg. Fruity Pebbles etc sound nice, but some of that gear goes for outrageous prices.

I've also considered Killing Fields might try that at some point.

I have so little room to work with. :( I think what I'll try to set up is a vertical scrog, each pot with its own trelis so that I can easily move them, maybe have a staggered harvest and different strains. I've got a lazy susan bearing rated for like 1000 lbs so I might make a 4 foot circle with the plants rotating around the light - then I can turn it and access each plant from the corner of the room where I enter. But I'll just have to see what shapes up when the room is ready to rock and roll.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Latest posts

Top