First true grow room

[bushmasta]

Hey guys so I have a couple grows under my belt and am about to set up a SOG flower room and a veg room in an attic. The attic is very well insulated but there is a height restriction 5 ft high on one side but it slopes down on the other side so 4 ft on the other side. This is leaving some room for ducting between the roof and grow rooms. The dimensions of the flower room will be 6x3' and the veg room will be 5x5'. Light source for veg room is 5 4 ft t12 flouros and for the flower room right now I have a 400 w HPS so I will add another 400 or possibly a 600w when I get the funds.

I have already got 6in inline fan with a charcoal filter, fan is rated at 424 cfm. This is the one I bought http://htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=52609. This fan can exhaust both rooms in less than a min. I am wanting to use this one fan to exhaust both rooms but not sure how I should do it. What do you seasoned veterans think make a Y connection from both rooms then have the inline fan with the filter afterwards? For the air intake I was thinking a couple 8 inch holes with passive air flow from outside should keep plenty of Co2 around and take care of temps since I am not running that many watts. Not sure if I should vent out the side wall or straight out the roof. I would love to vent out the fireplace but it is on the other side of the house there are no gable vents that I can see in this attic so I will have to cut a hole for sure. I have also seen other people use bungee cords for hanging the inline fan and fliter so I was wanting to do that to quiet any noise.

One other dilema is watering routine. Plants will be put into flower at approx 8'' in half gallon grow bags. Clones will only be vegged for a couple weeks to get a root structure before flowering trying to fit as many plants per sq ft as possible. I need to figure out a way to drain all the pots at once so there is no one at a time watering. I was thinking maybe put chicken wire underneath the bottom of plant containers with something to collect the water easily under that. One buddy even said just suck all the water up with a shop vac.

Frame will be constructed of 2x6 then covered in panda film. Need zipper for doors anyone know where to pick those zippers up? Then mount equipment and voila! Only thing I don't know squat about is electricity and neither does my partner so we are going to go as simple as possible with the timers and everything. There are no plug ins in the attic but there were light sockets so we bought some of those screw in things that make a couple sockets and you can screw a bulb into it also. These will prob be used for fans and that kinda stuff and we will prob run an extension cord into the attic from another room for the lights. Well what do you guys think please give advice if you have some. Thanks for the help fellas

 

[bushmasta]

Ok so I am going to add pics maybe someone can help me easier that way. Here are some pics of the attic nevermind the plants they are waiting for their rooms and I know they are in a less than perfect environment right now. As you can see the room is insulated very well. There are no gable vents or holes for air to escape so I don't know how I am going to do the exhaust. I know I want to try and exhaust both rooms with the one 6 inch inline fan rated at 424 cfm the fan can easily exhaust both rooms in a min instead of 5 since both rooms are 215 cubic feet. Do you think the exhasut duct should be ran to the highest point of the roof of the grow roof? I think the sloped design would make catching the heat even easier since heat will rise to the highest point. I was thinking I could do this in both rooms and have them make a Y connection with the inline fan right after then have my carbon filter after that cleaning air as it exits. I think this would be better than me hanging the filter as a scrubber in the flower room though not as easy. I have vegging plants that already stink some so I need to filter both rooms. As far as where will I exit the air I dunno. I could cut a whole in the side of the wall way to the left of the slope. I can't exhaust into a nearby room and the fireplace is on the other side of the house. How could I do it out the roof or would that be too noticable? Couldn't you put a muffin fan on top of it and make it blend in with other houses?

 

[ForbiddenFruit]

if we could get an overall pic of the attic and some dimensions it would help to design the grow room in our heads.

You could send your hot scrubbed air back downstairs to one room and have an intake going into the attic from another room.

There are other ways to set it up depending on how much freedom you have to make changes on the house.

 

[bushmasta]

I can get more pics when I go over there to check on things tomorrow hopefully. The length of the whole attic is 21 ft to the place where the fold downstairs are up to the attic. As for width I only measured to a usable 5 ft width cause the height gets to 4 ft at that point. At the highest point the height is 5 1/2 ft tall. I was thinking of having the veg room 5x5 with the above height limitations and the flower room 6x3. The flower room will have two 400 HPS for now will upgrade to 600s when the money flow starts. Veg room will be completely T12 flouros for moms and clones. I would really like to do all duct work with exhaust and intake in the attic to keep it hidden. I will get more pictures when I go back and post them. Shoot me anymore questions

 

[BeeBee]

Hi Busmasta,
Even though your attic is insulated, it will still be very hot in there on sunny days, so it's important to know approximately where you are located, and whether the roof is shaded or not. It's not unusual for an attic like that to reach 110 degrees on a sunny summer day.
You can get around that to some degree by having the lights off from 10 am to 10 pm, as long as there is no light leakage from the soffit vents (under the eaves) to give you away.
Also, while there is some power available from the light sockets, the 1500 watts you are suggesting (2 600 watt lights, some fluoros, and fans, etc.) may be more than the circuit can deliver without blowing breakers or fuses. You need to know what else is on that circuit, how big the breaker is, and how big the wire is, so you can determine what you can safely draw for your project.
I have a friend who grows in a similar attic in the East Bay (San Francisco area). Using one 400 watt light, one 600 watt light, and a couple of small clone lights, she harvests about 11 ounces every 4 weeks. The grow and flower room each have 16 plants in one gallon pots. The grow room isn't exactly a grow room--the rooted clones are planted in there and vegged for 9 days, then changed to 12/12 for the next 19 days. Then they're moved to the flower room under the 600.
She had custom trays built--24 x 24 for the "grow" room, 36 x 30 for the flower room, and waters by capillary action. All you do is add water to the tray--the soil sucks it up through the holes in the bottom of the pot. As long as the pots don't get too dry, this works fine. You can even leave standing water in the tray--this helps a lot when the weather is hot. You'd be surprised how wet marijuana roots can be, with good results, as long as you use a good, light soil-less mix, such as Fox Farm Light Warrior.
There's often no reason for mother plants, as clones can be made from material taken from the plants at the end of the 9 day veg cycle.

 

[bushmasta]

Hey BeeBee thanks for the reply. My partner says this whole house stays real cool all spring. He never has to even turn the AC on until July when it gets real hot for a bit cause the house is mostly shaded and stays cool. I wasn't really planning on using all the watts from just those light plug ins I figured the flouros and fans on the light socket plug ins and pull an extension cord from another circuit up for the 1200 watts. I will try checking the breaker box and all tomorrow where is the wire I should be checking the size of?

I was wanting to build trays also not sure if I wanted to water that way though. What about when you feed nutes? Water from the bottom and feed from the top? I wanted the trays though for drainage for sure so we don't rot the attic. Prob build the trays to fit exactly inside the rooms out of 2x6 and plywood and cover it pond liner. I am using baccto right now it's the same thing as Promix just a diff brand in half gallon grow bags. The goal is to veg moms for cuts, veg rooted clones for a couple wks and flower at 8-10 inches. Doing a true sog at 4 plants per sq ft flowering using a short flowering strain 55-60 days and try to harvest at least 1 elbow a month. I got all the lumber and cut it up today so tomorrow I will be working on the frame I will take pics. Is there anything in particular I should get pics of to help you help me?

 

[funkervogt]

After growing (unsuccessfully) in an attic during the summer, I would say make sure you CLEAN the hell out of it. Trust me on this, the creepy-crawlies will get to them quickly, and high temps won't help the situation. You'll be surprised how much temperatures will vary in their without a dedicated AC

 

[BeeBee]

Hi Bushmasta,
Believe it or not, I always water from the bottom. If you are using any kind of soluble fertilizer, it will work perfectly. Soluble fertilizers include any liquid that is transparent, whether colored or not. General Hydroponics is soluble--so is Miracle Grow. Currently, I am using Peters Professional 10-30-20 and Technigro 20-18-18 in a formula that mimics the Lucas Formula of GH, which I used formerly. I got tired of carrying all the water (in the big, EXPENSIVE jugs of GH), so I switched to soluble powders, which is what most commercial greenhouse growers (of tomatoes, poinsettias, etc.) use.
If you are using organic teas, it may still work to water with tea from the bottom. It depends on how quickly the solids settle out of the liquid.
You'll have a couple of months before you have to deal with high temperatures. If it's hot with just the lights on when it's in the 70s outside, you'll know what's coming in the summer. Plan to provide plenty of water, and a goodly amount of circulation. Circulation helps to cool plants in hot weather, just like a fan cools you when you are sweating. And run the flower lights from about 10 pm to 10 am, depending on the temperature swings in your attic.
One more thing--some varieties do not like heat. For example, Snowcap would not flower well when temps exceeded 100 degrees--the buds got wispy, with little resin and weight. On the other hand, Northern Lights #2 and Purple Erkle both did well, only suffering a little bit in appearance (they looked a little orange when dry, because of the numerous small, dry pistils), but not in weight, smell, taste, or potency.
The wire I referred to was the wire going to the light sockets, but that isn't important if you are only using about 500 watts on that circuit.
Use a very large extension cord for the 1200 watts (14/3) or use two 16/3. If you can, run the two extension cords from different circuits, circuits which are on different legs of the 240 supply to the house. Keeping the load balanced is always a good idea (a balanced load draws close to the same amount of current on each leg, black and red, of the 240 supply).

 

[querkle]

one of these days !!! looks great

 

[bushmasta]

Well at the last min I decided to go with the basement so we cleaned it out and got to work. Got the veg and flower room framed and almost completely stapled with panda film except the door and floor (waiting for my zippers to arrive for the doors). So now I need to figure out how I am going to run the exhaust and passive intake ducts.

The basement before construction

This door leads to a furnace room. I am thinking I could exhaust into this hole under the house after it has been charcoal filtered. What do you guys think here or take it outside. I can push the ceiling tiles out of the roof of the basement and take the ducting through the roof of the basement to outside still not sure how I should run the passive intake.

Progress for today

 

[bushmasta]

Bump need help with how I should run the ducting for the exhaust and passive intakes. I have a carbon filter to run the air through. Can I connect the two exhaust ducts from each room like Y with the same length duct from each one and then run them to that spot under the floor in the furnace room with the carbon filter on the end? If I do that then I can run two passive intakes through the ceiling and from outside.

 

[BeeBee]

Generally, the carbon filters are placed in the grow areas, and air is drawn through the filters.

It looks like you made "ceilings" on your areas. What I would do would be to open the ceilings, so that hot air is free to escape (hot air rises--gravity). Have a single exhaust filter mounted close to the real ceiling, and draw through it, exhausting all the hot air from all the spaces.

Control light leakage from one area to another with drapes (you can use panda film). Remember, air flows around corners--light doesn't. The walls and ceiling can be covered with black felt to cut reflected light, to avoid contaminating the flower room with light from the clone, mother, and grow rooms.

Use active intake: find a good source of cool air, and blow it through ducts into each space. You can bring the ducting in through the open "ceilings"--the cool air will drop to the floor of that area (again, gravity).

It's not good to exhaust into a crawl space. No matter what you do, you will get odor buildup, and since hot air wants to rise, it will filter through cracks into the house. Also, you will be flooding the area with moisture--not a good thing for a wooden structure. You should find a foundation vent that you blow through, if possible--one that still allows stealth.

If you blow directly out through a vent, then the crawl space will be a good source of intake air.

 

[bushmasta]

Well guys finally got to finish my grow rooms yesterday. Was tired as hell then though. We are working on stablizing temps by reducing the intake on the veg side since the flower side has more resitance. Heres the exhast line runs outside to a dryer vent. I also switched to Foxfarm nutes cause I am switching to soiless will do the flower room completely full of half gallon grow bags with clones done SOG after a wk or two of vegging.

Flower room one pi x bw and one grape kush both 2 1/2 ft tall under a 400 wt hps more watts soon to come

Veg room
one 400 MH

Check out the huge indica leaves on this grape kush

Well I am finished with this but now spring time is close and I gotta get some spawn started for mush and some clones taken for outdoor adventures. Thank you to everyone who has given advice and helped you all know who you are and I am glad I know have this knowledge to teach others. Nothing like getting your feet wet and learning something. You are all mentors to me

 

[FirstTracks]

lookin good bushmasta!