I am almost finished building a new grow room at a friends house and was wondering if some of you could give me some advice on the setup or anything else that I might be doing wrong. I have the room filled with plants already, but only with two 1000 watt HPS at the moment. There is enough plants here for four 1000 watters, but I plan on adding the extra two very soon. I will be using air cooled hoods that really are not needed yet, but since summer is just around the corner I want to be prepared. I have still yet to add the door and the air cooled hoods to have everything finished, but other than that everything is well on it's way. It's kind of weird to have plants in an unfinished room, but thats the way it worked out this time.
I started these plants at another location, so they got a little tall and lanky for my liking. Now I have the problem of growing height, but I will get to that later. I will explain my grow below to give you a better idea of what it's like and then hopefully I can get some good advice from some of you more experienced growers.
I have totally sealed the room with B&W plastic to contain the smell. The air being exhausted by the CAN100 cardon scrubber now creates a vacuum that is aparent when turned on. The whole rooms plastic can be seen being sucked inward, and when the door is open air rushes in. So in my mind I have succesfully created a room that will not let any air excape other than going through the carbon scrubber first. If there are any leaks the smell will not flow out, but be sucked into the room with fresh air from other parts of the house.
I am only using half the room, but unfortunately I had to plastic the whole room to maintain its air seal. I didn't want un-carbon scrubbed air entering the living areas of the home. All air now leaves the room carbon scrubbed, and clean air will be sucked in from another room adjacent to this one through a passive intake. Suction pulls in all the air the room needs.
Right now that passive intake vent doesn't exist and the air is being pulled in from a leak in the plastic door to the room. To my amazement even with the plastic door a vacuum is created. Eventually this plastic door will be replaced with a normal wooden door, and then the vent will be needed. I must make sure I make the vent hole not too large, or else air will start to leak from the room. It is important to keep the vacuum that the carbon scrubber and fan create at an optimal level.
I hung the carbon scrubber from the ceiling with chain and two hooks drilled into the houses floor support. The fan powering the carbon scrubber is an Elicent 200B. I think it should be powerful enough. Some pictures of the setup have been placed below.
The timer box is all being powered by the dryer plug that is located about 10 feet outside the grow room. I snaked it up through the floor boards and into the room. The top right plugs power the HPS at 220, and the lower plug will be used to power a fan, thermostate ect. at 110.
Also for safety, the power coming into the house has a main shut off situated even before the main breaker box to the house. This I was told by my electrician friend will make the operation much more safe. That I no nothing about, but seems logical to me.
The two ballasts being used now in the picture are on concrete blocks, but this is just temporary. Eventually I want to position the ballasts outside the room. I originally wanted to keep the ballasts inside the room, but after seeing how much heat 2 of them put off and knowing I need another 2, I decided to move them outside the room.
The room originally had a furnace return vent. Since this room will be cooled with the central air conditioner for the home, I needed to block this off. If not un-carbon scrubbed air would be circulated all over the house making the smell also distribute. I sealed it up with B&W plastic and relocated it to the next room where the carbon scrubber expells the clean air. This way the carbon scrubbed air can now be sucked into the return vent. This was easy to do as the air duct extended through the first room into the grow. All I had to do was cut a new vent hole in the other room, and with the old vent sealed it made the new vent operational.
The next picture is of the funace vent. This is the only one in the grow room and is closed at the moment. As soon as the weather gets warmer and the central air conditioner is turned on it will be opened. This is the only vent that will be cooling the room with air from the air conditioner. I hope this works in combination with the carbon scrubber and furnace return vent relocated outside the grow room. Since summer weather is not here yet, I have yet to see how this will work out. It seems logical that it should work, but in reality sometimes things work out differently. If any of you see a problem with the way this is set up I would be most interested to here from you.
This is the part of the room that I am most worried about. I hope with the central air, air cooled hoods and ballasts located outside the room that it will be enough cooling for the upcoming hot summer days. I know this should be enough, but with me relocating the return vent and with the suction created by the carbon scrubber and fan, it changes the way air is circulated throughout the home. Time will tell I guess.
I started these plants at another location, so they got a little tall and lanky for my liking. Now I have the problem of growing height, but I will get to that later. I will explain my grow below to give you a better idea of what it's like and then hopefully I can get some good advice from some of you more experienced growers.
I have totally sealed the room with B&W plastic to contain the smell. The air being exhausted by the CAN100 cardon scrubber now creates a vacuum that is aparent when turned on. The whole rooms plastic can be seen being sucked inward, and when the door is open air rushes in. So in my mind I have succesfully created a room that will not let any air excape other than going through the carbon scrubber first. If there are any leaks the smell will not flow out, but be sucked into the room with fresh air from other parts of the house.
I am only using half the room, but unfortunately I had to plastic the whole room to maintain its air seal. I didn't want un-carbon scrubbed air entering the living areas of the home. All air now leaves the room carbon scrubbed, and clean air will be sucked in from another room adjacent to this one through a passive intake. Suction pulls in all the air the room needs.
Right now that passive intake vent doesn't exist and the air is being pulled in from a leak in the plastic door to the room. To my amazement even with the plastic door a vacuum is created. Eventually this plastic door will be replaced with a normal wooden door, and then the vent will be needed. I must make sure I make the vent hole not too large, or else air will start to leak from the room. It is important to keep the vacuum that the carbon scrubber and fan create at an optimal level.
I hung the carbon scrubber from the ceiling with chain and two hooks drilled into the houses floor support. The fan powering the carbon scrubber is an Elicent 200B. I think it should be powerful enough. Some pictures of the setup have been placed below.
The timer box is all being powered by the dryer plug that is located about 10 feet outside the grow room. I snaked it up through the floor boards and into the room. The top right plugs power the HPS at 220, and the lower plug will be used to power a fan, thermostate ect. at 110.
Also for safety, the power coming into the house has a main shut off situated even before the main breaker box to the house. This I was told by my electrician friend will make the operation much more safe. That I no nothing about, but seems logical to me.
The two ballasts being used now in the picture are on concrete blocks, but this is just temporary. Eventually I want to position the ballasts outside the room. I originally wanted to keep the ballasts inside the room, but after seeing how much heat 2 of them put off and knowing I need another 2, I decided to move them outside the room.
The room originally had a furnace return vent. Since this room will be cooled with the central air conditioner for the home, I needed to block this off. If not un-carbon scrubbed air would be circulated all over the house making the smell also distribute. I sealed it up with B&W plastic and relocated it to the next room where the carbon scrubber expells the clean air. This way the carbon scrubbed air can now be sucked into the return vent. This was easy to do as the air duct extended through the first room into the grow. All I had to do was cut a new vent hole in the other room, and with the old vent sealed it made the new vent operational.
The next picture is of the funace vent. This is the only one in the grow room and is closed at the moment. As soon as the weather gets warmer and the central air conditioner is turned on it will be opened. This is the only vent that will be cooling the room with air from the air conditioner. I hope this works in combination with the carbon scrubber and furnace return vent relocated outside the grow room. Since summer weather is not here yet, I have yet to see how this will work out. It seems logical that it should work, but in reality sometimes things work out differently. If any of you see a problem with the way this is set up I would be most interested to here from you.
This is the part of the room that I am most worried about. I hope with the central air, air cooled hoods and ballasts located outside the room that it will be enough cooling for the upcoming hot summer days. I know this should be enough, but with me relocating the return vent and with the suction created by the carbon scrubber and fan, it changes the way air is circulated throughout the home. Time will tell I guess.
