Cleaning a basement for growin ??

[Dreamscape]

Hey everyone

I've recently found a good place to begin a garden however its in an old basement. There is exposed insulation on the walls and ceiling , the floors are super dusty and it smells of musty-ness as soon as you open the door to descend into the basement.

From my lurking and reading i've read that air purity is MAJOR when growing. I already have plans to create a frame to be surrounded by visqueen plastic which will have vents for intake and outtake air however i'm still concerned about the rest of the basement and any random air contamination.

What are some good , sure fire, ways to clean out and sanitize a basement of this sort??

Thank you and happy holidays !!
~ Dream

 

[Ganico]

Maybe make the room or cab inside of a larger enclosure like you described, and run a ozone generator in it to kill airborne bacteria/molds,etc.


Just an idea

 

[Guest]

Use heavy plastic to cover the insulation (staple into the rafters & beams with a staple gun).

Clean the floor & walls with bleach. At least twice. Bleach will kill mold, mildew, etc. Make sure you have adequate ventilation; bleach can be hazardous to the health (chlorine gas is not healthy to breathe).

When you build your container, plan to install "allergy" level furnace filters on all the intakes to filter out mold/mildew spores. You might want to turn off ventilation any time you open the door to prevent spores from being pulled in when you go in to tend the plants.

You are probably going to need a dehumidifier in the basement to keep humidity levels down to prevent problems in the garden.

An ozone generator can help kill nasties in the room, but don't ever run it when you are in the room and be sure the ozone has had time to dissipate before you enter the room. You won't want to run an ozone generator all the time; 5-10 minutes every hour seems to be adequate to control garden odors in most gardens.

 

[Mackawber]

Sounds like an old place. Better check out the electrical supply. Old wiring simply will not do. You need new wiring, breakers and a good supply of amperage to power lights, fans, heaters, dehumidifiers. Failure to check and if necessary, replace the wiring, breakers and electrical bus could spell disaster and I don't mean a light failure. We are talking about an electrical fire!

You know what to do.

 

[sticky icky]

dream is basement concrete, if it is you can take muranic acid in a very very very duluted form and pour it in a bug sprayer, and spray on all concrete surfaces, make sure you have ventilation and drain in basement.Also dehumidifier if you have one.then run water and sqeagy floor. Then do it again with even a more diluted mixture. Then just run plain water . Now i would paint floors with garage floor paint caulk every thing with something industrial. Then as suggested run a vapor barrier around any open insulation. Try sealing everything. The more time and muticoulous you will be the better your grow room enviroment will be even maybe replacing old insulation ect. All this is very inexpensive just man hours. You could turn it in to blazes room with time. i personally have done this before when i painted and cleaned up a warehouse and painted floors. Hope this helps and remeber very diluted amount of acid. You can get it home depot. Later and good luck SI

 

[pepelepew098]

check for leaks also, there's a reason its damp and moldy

 

[Dreamscape]

Awesome info friends... Thank you all.

The basement is concrete and there's a crack running pretty much the length of the floor as well. There is a leak problem on the other side of the house during the spring time however I have a sump pump on my side of the building so I'm thinking of just putting everything on tables of some sort within the enclosure just in case the water gets too high. probably main reason for the musty smell too.