Grow House- Ranch or 2 story home?

[Leaf it to me]

I need your help deciding whether to go with a ranch style home or a 2 story home for my grow.

I'll be growing in the bedrooms (homes where I am don't have basements) and since heat rises, I thought a ranch style home would help me control the heat better.

I've almost signed on a house
So here's a list of pros & cons I came up with and maybe you can help set me on the right track.


Ranch
-heat less of an issue

-less security. Harder to conceal what's inside the window (pulling the blinds with a box behind the window doesn't look like it will cut it in a ranch home).

-Any guests I might have (which I wont be having many because of my justified paranoia) would have closer access to the locked doors which may look suspicious...despite having a story for it.

Two Story

-heat rises

-I can vent out the window if I absolutely have to because there are woods immediately in back.

-I can set it up so that there's a light in the box behind the window, so it looks legit, and not always dark.


So I just wanted to get general feedback on which you would prefer to grow in if you were growing maybe up to 3,000 watts.

Ignore Verite (my own troll) who will be here shortly.

 

[Guest]

Most new ranchers have a crawl space,their great for ventilation and heat issues but the height is a problem and their fore the room requires more fabrication and experience but if the rancher has a basement then that would be alought less stressfull then a two storey with a basement but you also have to consider your living conditions and family as well.

 

[BruceLeeroy]

man, i'm not trying to troll your thread, i simply want to point out a few things.

1. if you can't decide for yourself what kind of house will or will not work for this, you're without a doubt overstepping your bounds.

2. if you go through with this, and get yourself a house you can't afford without a commercial harvest, and something goes down i.e. security breach etc, then you'll be forced to make a decision.... risk years of your life by keeping it running, and when you get busted spend years more picking up the pieces, or tear it down and go bankrupt because you can't afford your house, a situation which will again take years to recover from.

i'm not trying to be a naysayer. i'm trying to get you to be a realist. i'm not saying you're incapable of doing this. i'm saying you've got all the time in the world, relax, take it slow, and follow a sensical progression. get yourself a small cheap house and a 1k light, do a couple harvests, read up on everything you can find. then you'll not only have the knowledge, you'll also have enough money it wont be a do or die situation.

best of luck, if you have any specific, realistic questions about something i'll be happy to help

p.s. by the time you know enough about the necessary room construction to pull this off, you'll know enough to pick out the right house yourself.

peace

edit: ever hear the joke about the young bull and the old bull? an old and a young bull are sitting on a hill overlooking their herd. the young bull turns to the old bull and says "hey, lets run down there and fuck a cow." to which the old bull replies "Nah, let's WALK down there and fuck em all"

don't be the young bull, the old one gets more pussy.

 

[Leaf it to me]

Most new ranchers have a crawl space,their great for ventilation and heat issues but the height is a problem and their fore the room requires more fabrication and experience but if the rancher has a basement then that would be alought less stressfull then a two storey with a basement but you also have to consider your living conditions and family as well.

Yeah this one ranch I was looking at had a crawl space under the house where a bunch of air ducting ran through. I dont know how I could access that venting from one of the bedrooms without busting a hole in the floor

Another ranch I was looking at had a decent cieling height with an attic or crawl space above it.

Hey Leeroy,

I'm not putting myself in as bad a position as you probably think. If I have to go 1k, I'll go 1k. But what I'm trying to do now is maximize the chances I have at being able to boom out of the 1k into maybe a 3k.

I just wanted your honest opinion about a Ranch or 2 story. It's a very general question, I realize this.

 

[BlindDate]

OK, to answer your question: "It really doesnt matter", You can have equal successfull results in either house. It depends completely on the setup rather than the house. If anything, your choice should depend on neighbors and location. Also, are you buying or renting? How nosey is the landlord?

 

[Leaf it to me]

Renting. Hard to tell how nosey these people are...

I'm asking to have the lease amended so that they give me a days notice before entering the house. It's a must-have obviously.

 

[Maj.PotHead]

Renting. Hard to tell how nosey these people are...

I'm asking to have the lease amended so that they give me a days notice before entering the house. It's a must-have obviously.

if your renting you better have your shit wired tight stealth like a mofo growing in a rental is very risky

 

[Teadaemon]

if your renting you better have your shit wired tight stealth like a mofo growing in a rental is very risky

That's good advice.

Given the information I've read so far a basement or crawlspace is looking like the best option. What're the floorcovering like for the one you mentioned with a crawlspace? Would it be possible to cut yourself a hatch in the floor and keep it covered with a rug/carpet/etc? From my experience of rented accomodation you'll be wanting to treat this like you're a POW tunnelling out of Stalag Luft III or something like that.

 

[Guest]

sorry leaf, verite is busy scouring the internet looking for a cheesy pic to modify, seems he's trying a bit too hard lately.

anyway, 3k is not a lot of wattage, either house will do fine.

bring intake in low, vent heat out high. cut through the roof, attic, window whatever to vent out.

and i love rental houses been growing in them for years, i've been known to cut some shit up in these places! as long as you fix the holes when you leave! i always leave em nicer than when i moved in! (drywall master) : )

edit: oh yeah, deadbolt the room is a must! and my landlord is required by law to give me a 24hr notice. although i've never had a nosey landlord.

carbon scrubber, light tight, mouth shut = no probs

 

[HIDEyourBUD]

Trust me, find a house with a full basement. The temps will stay cooler and you can have people over without them wondering why you have dead bolt locks on bedroom doors.

 

[BruceLeeroy]

actually, if you're really slick with the whole carpentry bit, it's a cinch to remove a door fram and remove the handles, then light tight the door and cover it with a great big tapestry. most people would never try to visualize the layout of a house and compare it with the outside to notice a difference.

peace

 

[Guest]

that's very true bruce! how bout the old bookcase in front of the door trick? : )
and as far as the deadbolts on the bedroom doors, how bout locking door knobs then.

and if i had my dream setup, other than a warehouse... i would choose a basement too. lots of benefits.

 

[BruceLeeroy]

lots of benefits to the basement but there are a few things i will look out for after a bad experience....

make sure there are rain gutters, so the basement wont flood in a rain

make sure it's not flood prone

make sure to remove carpet. dont just cover it up in case of floods

lol

 

[NPK]

Yeah, I'd vote for a place with a basement, too. Temps are easier to control (my basement's ambient temperature is 68 degrees even when the thermostat upstairs reads in the mid 90s!) and your grows will be easier to hide, too.

 

[Leaf it to me]

Trust me, find a house with a full basement. The temps will stay cooler and you can have people over without them wondering why you have dead bolt locks on bedroom doors.

I would have to move to a different state if I wanted a basement.

The ranch house with the crawlspace...at best, I could exhaust out the crawlspace or bring intake from it. The floor of the crawlspace is dirt & gravel.

Anyways, I'm off to scout some more houses, peace.

 

[BruceLeeroy]

a great way to vent is to connect into you're house's dryer vent. if the house has existing ducting, then you can run your exhaust through that. if not, get a 4" hole saw bit and do it that way. try to use whats there as much as you possibly can, rather than cutting new holes to the outside.

 

[Guest]

very good point bruce.
especially if you have a house with an attic that you can get access to the dryer vent, bathroom exhaust fan, water heater etc.
i've even heard of people venting through fireplaces! gotta love stoner ingenuity!

 

[vonforne]

Im in the process of renting a 2 story enclosed stilt home. i will build my room in the lower part which is set up with dryer vent and a water supply. rent from an agent and ALWAYS pay your rent ontime. use common sense and do not get too big and always double check yourself. us stoners tend to forget that

 

[BruceLeeroy]

keep your utility room seperate from your grow room if in ANY way possible. having ballasts, res pumps and all that shit out of the grow room will make it TONS easier to control heat and water temps.

keeping ballasts in one room, res and water control in another rom and the grow in a third room is the best way to do it

the comments you see alot of people making about "the right house" is mostly a myth. the fact is that there is no such thing as a good grower. just good builders. building a big grow is all about knocking holes in walls, running ductwork, carpentry of various flavors, and then fixing it all when you're done with the place (unless you own it). the skill of any grower lies not only in knowledge of plants and what they want/need and the signs they give off, but every bit as much in the design and implementation of the actual room. If you build it (right), they will grow.

my point is that it really is almost pointless without a detailed floorplan of the house, as well as a layout of the "hood". for instance, lets say you have a ranch house whose whole back half opens into a huge empty field. then you vent out a window into that field. ranch house with a crawl space... vent through the crawlspace to the outside. attic? same thing. maybe you have a house with an upstairs window that is blocked by a tree. maybe the house has a sewer vent you can tap into, or even the exhaust on the home's furnace. the possibilities are endless. there is no "right house". there is only the house YOU can choose, design, and run. the house i choose won't be the right house for you. if i know i am really good at carpentry, and have no problem replacing a window frame with a stealth outside exhaust setup, then i'll choose a house which the next guy, who is a Tim Allen clone from Tool Time, would have a nightmare of a time trying to make work. we all choose according to our strengths and weaknesses, and if you ask other people to choose YOUR house, then you're going to be choosing according to the weakness of others.

i've been renting various houses for almost 15 years now. i've probably looked at 30-40 rentals in that time. in reality, almost EVERY ONE of them would have worked nicely for a 3-5k setup.

exceptions include:
landlord very close/nosy
within 1000 feet of a school, church, or anything else LEO will nail you for
high foot traffic areas
small yards/close proximity to other houses
land close to military installation
located on a flood plain

anyway that gives you an idea of some of what i consider the WRONG houses. that's enough ranting for now.

on to the topic of cutting holes in the roof. you want to build your setup with as LITTLE of it noticable by the outside world as possible. a vent cut in the ceiling is noticable as HELL. find some way of tying it into something existing (you said it had washer/dryer hookups?) to vent safely, or else build a stealth window vent. i dont mean this to be rude, but if you don't have the know-how to select/plan/design your setup house yourself, then personally i seriously doubt you have the know-how to cut hole's in ceilings and make them look professional to the outside world, as well as making them leak proof.

peace

 

[sproutco]

The law in my state is 1/2 mile from a school, daycare, park, etc... This adds ten years (!) to any sentence.