Help designing grow room? And other general advice

[Ghudda]

If I ramble I blame it on being very tired, working a graveyard shift that's ending in a couple hours here (78hrs). 4 days off ftw.

I'd like to begin putting together a winning vertical design within the next couple of months. In the meantime I was hoping to get well prepared. I been reading threads on this site and ordered a few books. And asking for help

I saw a "Growing MJ FAQ" out there, that I think was from Overgrow forums collapse? The info in it outdated or is most of it still applicable? It's a huge compilation, but it is more or less organized, and I'm drawn to that.

I hope to get all of my information piled together into very few documents to go over them with a fine tooth comb. Anybody else out there that works like that, that has done that? Point me towards it? The areas I'm having trouble understanding are below.

The room design is what's really getting to me. Disclaimer: I don't work in construction by trade, I can use power tools though and know what cfm stands for Replicating someone's vertical racks should be no problemo. I guess it's the HVAC/Ventilation stuff that seems daunting to me.

I'm not really sure where I should run things like ventilation, carbon scrubbers, etc. to accomplish stealth (sound, odor). I'm not sure how much room to dedicate to cloning, vegging, and flowering either. I have a room in an unfinished basement, that is 108"W 149"L and 92"H. There's also a closet that I never get around to measuring out, lol. If it "makes sense" I'd like to put the entire OP into that room and to me making sense is growing a lot... enough to move the OP out of my home in short order.

Been following Bobblehead's grows as well as other related matters of interest (planning for the future, real estate for instance *wink*) and am looking for guidance. I'd PM ya Bobble, but I don't have a 50 post count! Your goals pretty well match up with mine however, and your setup I'm a big fan of. I read all 57-58 pages of your latest thread and I follow bits and pieces of it here and there.

If anybody has some tips or shortcuts to get me where I wanna be headed let me know. Again, mainly on the subject of designing the room. Cost of doing this is a limiting factor initially, then again, I'm pretty good at finding good deals so maybe it's a moot point.

Anybody have a grow-room schematic for a basement that I can nab? Like, where all the ventilation and crap is going? Or can tell me whether I should be throwing up "pods" or grow tents in a basement? As far as fresh air goes, I'm not sure the basement environment constitutes that. I imagine a huge advantage will come from semi-constant temperatures.

 

[bobblehead]

lol... I think you're biting off more than you can chew. How man grows have you done before? What's your experience?

More plants= more opportunity for things to go wrong, and you have to be ready for that. Nothing can replace experience.

What are your goals? To become wealthy obviously... but what's your goal for the grow? If you're mimicking my pods, then you want 6-10lbs a run, for production... so you're gonna monocrop the shit out of it with a decent yeilder. Forget about plant numbers, cause you're headed toward 500... lol veg and 2 flower rooms...

IME veg needs to be about half the size of flower.

Ventilation? blow the air around the basement, EXCHANGE THE AIR IN THE BASEMENT with fresh air... IDK why you don't think it's necessary. How do you like sitting in a locked room with no ventilation? Air exchange 2x a minute FTW. Take the cubic footage, and double it for the CFM's you want to move.

I can go on all day, but you need to get more specific my friend. All of my equipment is listed in the flip pod thread. There's even a walk through tour and the dimensions of my rooms.

 

[greenmatter]

not to many shortcuts in this game. if we are both reading the same threads you notice that ALL the vert guys are always changing,polishing and learning. don't jump in over your head

 

[Ghudda]

lol... I think you're biting off more than you can chew. How man grows have you done before? What's your experience?

More plants= more opportunity for things to go wrong, and you have to be ready for that. Nothing can replace experience.

Ventilation? blow the air around the basement, EXCHANGE THE AIR IN THE BASEMENT with fresh air... IDK why you don't think it's necessary. How do you like sitting in a locked room with no ventilation? Air exchange 2x a minute FTW. Take the cubic footage, and double it for the CFM's you want to move.

Zero prior grows, no experience. Yes, probably biting off my more than I can chew and will take it one giant leap at a time when I get started. Couple books arrived so I'll have my head in those for awhile.

I know ventilation is necessary, I'm just not sure how best to bring outside air into the basement (at this moment). I understand that some people send exiting air up into the attic, out a vent/chimney on the roof, or into a crawl space under a house. Chimney would probably work for me. But as for bringing air in, didn't know and still don't.

I'll figure it out. I'll holler back when I got something going.

 

[0verkil13r]

I understand where you are coming from (really I do). There is something quite alluring to stepping out on the field for the 1st time and knocking it out of the park on your first at bat. One can only hope.

My suggestion would be to start off small (maybe in that closet you mentioned). Select a mother and do some scaled down versions til you get results to your liking. Then, go for broke.

I would hate to spend a ton of cash & time designing my dream setup only to find out I had major design flaws. Smell, light leaks, poor circulation, security issues? Maybe not enough time to keep up with the plants (this can get overwhelming in a hurry).

There's usually a reason most of the old timers (read long-time growers) didn't jump in both feet first. Take some time and get to know your plants and what they respond well to. Then have at it.

Definitely keep reading. Having said that, nothing beats hands on experience. Best of luck.

 

[bobblehead]

lol... Think about it like this: I'm one of the more experienced and dedicated growers posting. I started small, it's documented, until I hit over 1gpw... Every grow got bigger and bigger. This way I got my experience level up, and accumulated equipment... Then once I was successful enough, I spent almost every penny I had made on more equipment and miscellaneous bills. I'm talking about several thousand dollars. You need about $10k minimum to cover everything... assuming very little goes wrong... Then I built "the perfect setup"... and all but fell on my face.

You're inexperienced ass is going to do what I'm doing, and hit a home run?

You gotta crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. If you start skipping steps, you're gonna get hurt. The business isn't forgiving. Once you do manage to have a huge harvest, b/c you kept your mouth shut and your nose to the grind stone... what are you gonna do with it? Cause it's not worth shit till you have that cash in your hand... and moving lb's is nothing like moving oz's.

Not trying to talk down to you homie, but you're not ready.

 

[Ghudda]

I'll be taking the advice I'm getting and starting small. As for that last sentence about moving lbs, that's another one of those things I'm wondering... which may not be in one of those books I imagine

Plan (while open a bit to change) is to veg/clone the closet out and try to come up with a good looking mother and then flower in the neighborhood of ~5 plants. No big deal. Along the way though, I wanted to figure out ventilation sooner than later. Well along with everything else. And I am concerned about how much automation I can put into the setup as I exponentially increase the # of plants. It's disheartening to read about people spending 5 hours a day on their grow, yet when I see others talking about their setups only needing a visit every weekend or so... well... brings my morale right back up.

No worries. I'm not dropping 500 plants and 10 grand into my first setup. No way, no how.

 

[bobblehead]

I'll be taking the advice I'm getting and starting small. As for that last sentence about moving lbs, that's another one of those things I'm wondering... which may not be in one of those books I imagine

Plan (while open a bit to change) is to veg/clone the closet out and try to come up with a good looking mother and then flower in the neighborhood of ~5 plants. No big deal. Along the way though, I wanted to figure out ventilation sooner than later. Well along with everything else. And I am concerned about how much automation I can put into the setup as I exponentially increase the # of plants. It's disheartening to read about people spending 5 hours a day on their grow, yet when I see others talking about their setups only needing a visit every weekend or so... well... brings my morale right back up.

No worries. I'm not dropping 500 plants and 10 grand into my first setup. No way, no how.

Now you're sounding more sensible... Exchanging the air 2x a minute means taking the cubic footage, L x W x H, and double it. So, say you have 400+- cubic feet. You will want 2 400cfm fans, one blowing air in, and one sucking the air out. Simple as that.

Moving weight involves developing a network, aka a drug ring... Remember, that's what the newspapers will call it if you're caught. Tell nobody.