As of today ICMag has his own Discord server. In this Discord server you can chat, talk with eachother, listen to music, share stories and pictures...and much more. Join now and let's grow together!
Join ICMag Discord here!
More details in this thread here: here.
Hey Saluki, thanks man. I'm not so sure about perfectionist but I probably have some of those tendencies. Methodical - fucking a buddy, yah, thats me. I do tend to overthink things and love designing and the constant urge to do something better than you did before. Or I'm driven to see if I can do something that I'm not at all sure I can do... wrt this room that isn't the case though. This is all within my experience and I am able to learn what I don't know so easily with this interwebby thingy nowadays. It does help.
Best help though is to buddy up with someone who knows construction and then get them to help you if you are unsure of what to do or what your options are.
ICMAG has been a big help to me though. What I would really really like to see is a picture thread of just grow rooms, and only grow rooms. No plants if possible. Just to give you a place where you can get ideas and see how other people have solved a problem... I want to see some pictures of these $50K rooms I hear people mention! Shit fire I would love to have a good reference thread on room design. Especially the high end shit! Nothing high end cannot be done modestly and on a budget after all. But the thing is you need to have to be given or taught the idea or you must conceive it yourself.
Thinking up new things without a similar-to background is not an easy task for people to do, it really is hard. But pictures help that. Some people can innovate and some just need to be told what to do. There is a place here in ICMAG for everyone. I guess I've always been a person that can think shit up without necessarily having to have a "similar to" item or object to base it off. We tend to learn new things in relation to other things we already know, have seen, or experienced.
I just grow for myself and maybe you missed these in my journal but this is my clone/seedling area with 4' 4-tube T5's.
Sorry about the plants but you get the picture. Here is my teenager area (no plants) with 400W MH.
Here is my flower area. The flex tubing on the left is my intake for an outside vent with a 6" inline fan. You can't see but in the upper right corner hanging from the ceiling is my carbon filter hooked up to a 6" inline fan that pulls 440 cfm. So this is my grow areas.
I'm curious, do you prefer T5's over regular T8's then? I think I'm just going to start small with veggie and use T8's. Sorry I scrapped those two fixtures last year that I could have saved and re-used...
How is your stretching under the T5's? too much or just fine?
A little time to work over lunch today. Hope to start laying floor.... Back to life with the black octopus but that is groovy with me.... You'll see.
Listening to John Hartford 's Morning Bugle. Just sublime awesomeness....
FYI I will be at the John Hartford Memorial Music Festival the end of May in Bean Blossom. If any of u cats are going PM me for a good time meet up in the campgrounds
McKush how it going man have you got any lites hangin yet ? what are you gonna run? time to get some strains going under some t5 s almost springtime, times a wasting brother lol Bud..
Hey Bud! Got nuttin for ya yet.... Soon. I'm going to use lighting interaction (DGS Dutch Garden Supply) E Papillion w Phillips DE bulb. See my unboxing pics above.
I'm gaining on it... Hundreds of pics not yet found time to post. I'll get them soon.
Yah, I unboxed the unit and took pics, eye balled it some, smoked some, eye balled it again and then put it up for the duration. after re-designing a bazillion times (I started this build in August maybe??) I ended up deciding on a 2Kw+ design. around 55w/sqft at max levels I think.. not checked lately what the exact sq ft is after my last iteration..
I'll get ya's some pics bro.
ah yah mon, almost forgot.. the final shape of the room is a rough cubist interpretation of the yin yang symbol... coola
I turn my attention to the "ledge". Remember how I excavated out under it some? This is the veggie area, the top of it will be able to be removed so that the veggie space can be included in the FR space with a trap door, it is separated from the FR. I'll put a velco black out curtain on the side facing the FR.
Another view
I removed some of my 2x10 framing and cut thru the floor joists.
Here you can see me working on the bottom plate. that is the sump pit getting the second of three layers. This feels like a better way to deal with the weird floor walls at the bottom of the "pit" in the FR. My house foundation was in the way so instead of chipping away all of that unnecessary foundation (jk) I needed to get some meat to work with later on.
I was planning on using some floor jacks strategically to steady the floor but I eventually scrap that idea for ganged 2x4 supports. Once I get them in there will be zero bounce and no need for adj. floor jacks. Wish I would have saved that money I spent on 'em ($27 a piece I think)
my contractor's framing crew or foundation crew cut thru one of the 4x4 supports on a corner.... I noted this before and planned to come back to this part of the wall to address this. When I'm done it will be solid and I won't have to worry about this little problem again.
Here I'm removing more framing so I can get some 7" long 1/2" bolts, self locking nuts and washers on the existing 2x10 side joist. so what you see on the boards to the right of the pic is ganged 2x10's being bolted to the existing 2x10 which runs under the side of the structure.
in the main FR, i just have a single 2x10 bolted with a spacer board to the existing 2x10. The unit is sturdy. and and should not bounce at all.
The 4x4 post that was cut from the prior pic is this same corner.
This definitely reminds me of my crawlspace grow I have going right now. I'm still hazy on what exactly your building but I like all the work you're putting in. It's going to be really cool when you'll be able to stand back and admire your finished product.
Thanks who Dat! I checked your crawl thread. Nice. I think u should excavate to get 10 foot ceiling! Ha. Seriously, think about it. Sure to get u fit if u ain't and if you is fit, all the better...
The pics above are mostly the veg locker and sump for DTW tho. I will flower in 5x9 x 10' high so I can run 2 DE fixtures or up to 2.3kw of light. I'll be able to grow horizontal or vertical if I want. I'm ventilating for more capacity than 2.3kw so can go higher watts but I doubt I'll need more than 55W/sq.ft. If I want.. I'm around 55w at max light level. My fixture is the epap
ah mon frere, but its not a "hood" per se with the epap. it gets most of the light from the bulb and spreads back out it out. The reflector has more than one element with helps even it out. Ideal for horizontal growing, er not so good for vert....
They are good fixtures from what I can ascertain without any direct knowledge (I'll report back...)
I'm planning on 2 epaps but I can always run other fixtures to get different grow configurations. Not sure I would ever need more than 2 epaps... I'm already doubting that I can run both at 1150w, might be too much light for the area. Don't know, I'll find out for sure tho.
Its one of the reasons I'm going to go with 12" fans inlet/outlet of the FR (push pull set up) so I can get plenty of air exchange between the FR and the lung room which is my almost equally sized room next to the FR. I've yet to partition the spaces but I'm close.
Installing some more bolts to really secure the floor joists.
if the fibreglass were not blocking the view, you could see the sump area. This is from the other side of the main floor joist which borders the FR. This part of the room is on the studio/lung side of the room.
This is a view of the studio side of the room. Those joists need some attention in a bit..... That is the future home of my water resevoir and ventilation system... yeah remember when I excavated sideways... I had an idea...
I took salvage ganged 2x10's from the FR side work and tied all of the joists together using metal hangers.
ah, haven't seen rodents in a while, wonder why...
^And if you are really clever and following closely. You should notice by now that I had the main power on the other opposite wall, but decided to locate it on my house side of the wall. The grey conduit is carrying 100A 220V power up to my Main box.
foing sawsall says it all.... (ah fyi the "foing" is supposed to be that sound sabres make.. ala Touche Turtle... showing my age )
on the studio side of the space I decided to put in a 3'x4' trap door on some sort of assisted hinge hardware (TBD - help?) The trap door will be boxed in with 2x4s and layers of 3/4 ply with GG in between. and I'll insulate as much as I can of course. I plan to stager the door with boards to create a more vault like door to give it the best sound treatment I can. I'll use rubber on the surfaces to get good seals etc...
When I reconfigured and enlarged the FR, put the VR in a locker under the ledge, etc... I had a problem of where to store the water.. well I probably had this problem to a small degree with earlier design revisions but my earlier ideas where to make a small FR, smaller VR and put the water resevoir under the ledge... I didn't like the watt per square foot levels with the smaller design and the fixture I wanted to use sooo.... that led to the current design which was to ditch the water res under the ledge and put the VR there instead. Excavate under half of the studio (still much tbd also folks, more you guessed it, digging.) and put the water and fans 'n mufflers there.
That at least, is the current vision...
I should be able to store enough water for 10 days unattended operation I hope... I've not done the exact math and there are variables I truly don't know yet until I do an indoor grow... So I don't know exactly how long unattended I can go, but my hope is 10 days at least. So around 100 or 150 gallons. I'm not exactly sure on this detail yet... have not sourced containers yet or researched on how many reservoirs are necessary
Last minute decision really and it was by happenstance I saw it at the Home Despot. I was taken by the better sound proofing rating I would get using it to be honest. Also the type of foam I had bought is no better insulation (maybe a bit less?) than roxul. Roxul won't burn as easily as foam also. NOTE: the Reflectix burns like a real mo' fo' so no fooling myself that the reflectix will be any help in a fire. The Roxul will help tho.
I made several changes to some of my earlier ideas for certain areas of the room. I'm taking pics so I'll explain when I get to them.
so I was in Home Despot reading the different literature on insulation they (better selection than Lowes imho and area) had. I liked Roxul the best and decided to return what foam I can (keep ur receipts fellas and ladies) and go Roxul.
bought 4 bags of Roxul & left.
at some later date - went back to HD and bought some more Roxul and Alum tape and left...
today - Still have Roxul to install but I'm out of alum tape. Time for another supply run I'm afraid.
I'm taping it up tighter than a frog's ass (see my friend earlier in the thread and ask him. Don't wait for a reply. the fucker) as they say in my parts.
Ah Caravaggio - re: spray foam. Good point. I had considered spray foam and only used a very little bit of the can stuff around the sump. BUTTTTT BUTT BUT spray foam off gasses like a muther foooker broooother. I would not recommend it for a FR but hey others have tried it. I'm pretty much making this shit up as I go my friend, kinda like... life....
The foam panels I did use some. But I'm returning alot of it also when I decided on Roxul for the bulk of the insulation. Also there are better types of foam than what I had gotten and are shown in the pics. It was what they had when I went...
The Reflectix is what I could find at Lowes tbh. There is a much better product out there called Prodex but I couldn't source it local. But shit fire Reflectix will help seal this up just as well. like life man we make compromises.
Also - I have a ton of fibreglass insulation which I'm pitching. I threw it up in a hurry from some bales that I was not going to use but return (my idea at the time was foam panel the bitch). But electricity was eating my fricken ass alive.. $450+ electric bill man. Shit fire, alarms were rung and the fucking war patrol was not happy. Ya dig? Popped those bales and threw the insulation up. Found out that the insulation the kid loaded in my truck was not the right one. He gave me R38 instead of the R13 stuff for studs 16" oc.
So that is why the walls look like their falling down. That is mostly R38... hehe.
Its coming down now my brothers. That you can bank on.