Ok, after 2 mildly successful grows in the shed, we have decided we need to bring operations indoors. (duh) Temperature control was probably our biggest issue, along with the fact that we only visited every few days, and other complications of inconvenience and secrecy. So, we are remodeling a bit downstairs in the basement - our new secret spot will be behind the master BR closet. The area has a drain line already, as well as water supply. Here are our ideas so far: Ideas: - We will exhaust the air into the drain line. MrGJ and several others do this. - For air intake, possibly a passive in? A vent in the wall? The wall would be on the inside where the furnace is, and not visible from the laundry room on the other far side. - There is a bit more space in the veg room, it is the spot underneath the stairs. We can knock that back wall out, and double the floor space, but it has less and less headroom. Maybe to stash a couple of moms? concerns: -Odor - since I am exhausting into a drain line, I would not think odor would escape this way. BUT - what about the passive intake? Would the fan provide enough suction to keep air from getting out this way? - Sound - if you stand in the laundry room, can you hear the fan going? Although hidden, the air intake is still an open hole into the grow room... - Type of grow - I am considering trying a hydro method, and having a drain is really handy (I don't want to wag gallons of water through my closet and master BR every week!) So can I put an additional drain in the line to put water in? Or will I have backpressure from the fan??? -Air flow - will I have enough air flow from my small veg room just using passive in and ducting to the other room? Please any and all comments are appreciated. We won't get full swing into doing this right away, we are just in the planning stages right now. I want to NOT have the problems I did with my shed! Thanks for looking GTWT :XXhippylove:
Your exhaust out the sewer looks fine to me. You should not have too much heat with the two 600w lights. I run mine in a 12 x 15 shop room in basement exhausting with this grow 3200w. Mine is passive intake from the door which is left open. I do run a 1060cfm inline on mine. So I dont know if your passive intake will be enough or not with the small holes but you will probably be alright. Teamster6
so with a passive intake, as long as the fan is pulling decently, you won't get odor problems? i have another way of pulling air in, but it's straight from outside, and winter time would be a real problem with temps.... T6 - is your lava rock grow a hempy(passive) style grow, or do you have pumps and a res and all that? I don't have room for any res, and I don't know if I'll be able to use that drain line as an actual drain if I've got my air exhaust hooked up to it.... GTWT :XXhippylove:
Well yes it is the lava grow. Its kind of like hempy but is simple hydro. I dont flush the nutes out like hempy and discard. I redump them for the week. ebb and flo (flood and drain) NO I dont have a large res. Each tub has a five gallon res of its own. 10 buckets and 50 gallons of nutes. When your talking passive intake we are talking the ability to cool the room. Air coming in verses air exhausted from the room. A outside air source is always better than passive intake. I dont have one on mine. I could run one 1000w light with no exhaust on the room no problem. When I added two the temps went thrue the ceiling. That is why I had to run a outside exhaust. If you are exhausting thrue the sewer and only running the 600w lights I dont think you will have a problem either. You would probably have the same senario I had you would be able to run a 1000w light with no exhaust and the room would stay cool. so you should be fine. If you are exhausting thrue the sewer you should not detect any outside smell. I have a lot of odors outside animals ect and have to outside exhausts and I dont use a scrubber. Standing outside by the vents you cant detect any smell but thats just here with my setup. Teamster6
For a passive intake, the size of your intake should be twice the size of your exhaust. I'm assuming with a 424cfm exhaust, you're going with a 6'' fan. You'll want a 12'' passive intake..I'd go with multiple smaller holes, but I have animals. And you're going to want to put the intake closer to the floor so the air flows through the plants.
Juggy, yep it's a 6" fan/line, I'll be reducing the size down to a 3" drain line though. The hole I already have into the room (used to be an exhaust) is an 8" line, but it's at the top of the room. As far as air flow, I'll have fans on in there, so that's not my concern - with using the outside intake, it gets RI-COCK-ULOUSLY cold in the winter here - teens below zero. My concern with using a passive intake IN the house is the noise and smell with guests, particularly my folks. When they come out, they stay for a few weeks, and will be all over my house. BUT, they only come in summer/fall, so I could switch in the winter, I suppose. OK - There's something not clicking in my brain with hempy grows.... Let me try to get this straight, or please fill in blanks that I am missing.... 1. You have a bucket full of perlite(lava) with a drain hole near the bottom. You fill the bucket with water/nutes until water comes out the hole, then you stop. You let it sit for a week. In a week, you go back and ............ then what? Change out ALL of the water? Fill to flush out what's there? T6 - what do you mean when you say 'redump' your water? Do you re-use it? add more nutes? Thanks for your response, guys, in trying to get this all together in my brain!!! GTWT :XXhippylove:
ON my setup I reuse the nutes for the entire week. Then dump it all out and start another batch. You have the hempy right except you water when the plants have exhausted the nutes or the containers feel light. Usually two to three days in my case. Bigger plants draw more water. I am running hempys right now in seven inch pots watering every two days. Teamster6
I too have my cabinet near my furnace. Turns out my furnace fan is MUCH louder than my exhaust fan. Even standing next to my cabinet, all I can hear is the furnace fan. Just turn your furnace fan on whenever your exhaust is running. There should be a setting on your thermostat to manually control the fan.
Hm, problem is I never run my furnace. I've gone totally to wood stove heat, and my fan is on all the time, on an adjustable speed. I have figured out the sound dilemma - in the laundry room, I'm going to set up one of my old 3x3 tents right on the same wall as my grow, and do veggie hydroponics. Bam - what's that sound? It's all my shit in my tomato tent. Here, take a look..... Yah! GTWT :XXhippylove:
Green Goblin would really be able to help with this question. Too bad he's a degenerate reprobate! :roffl:
How's the room coming GTWT? And I have a couple questions. What is your budget? And how are you prioritizing it? Retiree
hey retiree, good to see you here again, it's been a while it seems. my room is still in planning phase, as I am currently on the east coast working until summer. mr thumb is home, gutting the room & prepping for the build, and will do what he can by himself. not started yet, he's been busy...... as far as budget, i don't think I'll need a big one, as I already have most everything I need. My total growing space is increasing by a third, as my old setup I just had two 3x3 tents. I now have double the size, plus the extra room near it just for vegging and moms. Here's what I've already got that I'll be using in the new rooms: 2 - 600W HPS a crazy jimmy-rigged CFL setup for the veg room 424 CFM exhaust fan w/variable speed control 2 carbon filters, although I don't know if I'll need them..... LOTS of building material - 2x4s, plywood, vent. tubing, etc. What I'll buy for sure: RO system ~ $100 on eBay Assorted piping to hook up to sewer drain ~ $50-75?? Still up in the air about hydro or hempy, but I'm guessing we'll get pumps, airstones, etc. so probably another $150-200 for all of that. Besides a CO2 system, I can't think of much else that would even fit in there, I think our lights will be plenty for that space, and that would be my biggest expense, upgrading a light or two. So, not really a whole lot on the $, as I have most of the $$ stuff already. Well, since this will be designed behind a new custom closet in the NEW master BR, actually my budget is quite high! lol GTWT :XXhippylove:
Yeah GTWT it's been a while. But I'm back and will soon be starting a thread on my new room. Which is kinda why I was asking where you plan to spend. A RO system is definitely a good choice imo. I don't have one yet but think I'll get one soon. Similar to the one Ras recently got. I read earlier that you didn't have sound issues but were concerned about odor control. And since you mentioned co2, those two kinda go together. With a sealed room and the two scrubbers you already have you should be good to go on errant odors and you'll get the benefits of larger harvests as well. I'll be growing in an apartment and odor control AND sound control are high on my priority list as far as security goes. Well, I'll be watching what you do for ideas on my room. Glad to hear things are still coming along and tell Mr. T I said hello. Retiree
most of my noise was my fan exhaust, and it can fairly easily be muted with that insulated ducting, the stuff that already has insulation wrapped, or you can wrap it yourself. also, variable speed helps a lot too, its way quieter when it's at a low speed. i don't have scrubbers, just the passive filters. i don't think I'll need them because I'd like to exhaust into the sewage system, but with a passive intake, I'm still a little sketchy on odors getting out, but i suppose with a good negative pull on the rooms I should be okay. you going to grow in a closet/tent? I can't remember what you had before, sorry.... post some ideas of new possible setups, i'm sure we could help you get a new outfit set up! GTWT :XXhippylove:
I'm going to be growing in a fairly large closet. Basically a 6x6 area which will be devoted to flowering and a 3 x 2 1/2 closet within the main closet which will house my mothers and clones. I don't know if I'll veg in there too. Don't think I have room. ButI've got a nice veg box already built that I may utilize. Only problem is I have to put it in the bedroom and I'll have to add a small scrubber inside the veg box to take care of odors. Since you're starting from scratch, as I recall you saying Mr Thumb was doing the demo now. You can install soundproof sheetrock. It's available at Lowe's usually on special order http://www.quietrock.com/lowes.html?_kk=gypsum&_kt=e0eae268-4256-4c78-80d4-850fa5e0bc61&gclid=CJDLyqzU56YCFcqs7QodDFtCWg I've done some research on soundproofing and found that this is less expensive and more effective than other products. You could really amp up the soundproofing if you installed mass loaded vinyl underneath the quietrock. One of the manufacturers of mass loaded vinyl is found at http://info.acoustiblok.com/acoustiblok-products/acoustiblok3mm/?&t=3095&Preview=true But there are others. This is what I plan to do. I'm not sure if I'll spring for the double whammy sound barrier, but I'll definitely do one or the other. I'm kinda leaning towards the quietrock. But who knows for an extra $300 it may be worth going for both. I do live in an apartment. As far as your concern for odors, your solution of maintaining a grow room with a negative pressure is really the best option. I do wonder though... is it worth choking your fans down to two or three inches and having to push throuth a sewer line? You are going to lose like 75% of your cfms if you do it that way. Can you not just use your existing furnace vent and mount your fan at or near the top of this piping. That way you're pulling and not pushing air. It's much much more efficient that way. Your fan will move waaay more air. and it moves the noise of the fan away from your grow and somewhere into your attic I'm guessing. YOu can still have a variable speed controller mounted inside your room for regulating temperatures also. With my neibghors in such close proximity I am opting not to vent at all. I'll supply co2 and cool the room with a chiller and at least two 6" "ice box" condensers. See the demo here The above is kinda why I was asking about your budget before as I think that hydro innovations really has an awesome concept. But it allows a sealed room which is benneficial in soooo many ways and also offers a more economical way to provide cooling. The startup costs for me are about 1750. But I've got the equipment now and the monthly bills will be less and I'll yield more with co2 and encounter fewer if any pest issues with a well sealed room. You should really give the concept some consideration. You're starting from scratch just like me. Perfect time. I'd love to have someone else on GK running the same sort of setup as we could really compare notes and solve the sure to arrise issues with the two heads are better than one system. And by the way I love your Avy. Stay safe and sticky. Retiree
