Starting a room

In the last few weeks of my first effort and want to support the KISS proponents. I also want to emphasize the importance of redundancy, especially if you are buying lights and other equipment online. If the replacement for your one light is a week away, you have a problem.

Study your water supply before you start and get a new one or improve it if you have to. Along those lines, get a 3 drops in the vial PH tester whether you get a pen tester or not. Electronic PH meters have some use but they require a lot of care. You can't trust them to be the final word.

Getting rid of heat from lights is a huge issue. You need to move a lot of air and you need to get it away from the plants.

Getting rid of the smell is a big deal too. You need to have a backup here too. The smell is astonishing. These aren't normal house plants.

It's been fascinating. If it weren't, it would be hard to justify the effort.

Dude, if you are running ac you scrub the air and keep it inside.
Think about your fridge, does it work if the door is left open?

Start with a 600 in a tent for now.
Run the lights at night.
Your house ac will deal with it.
Find out if you can even grow.
I would try soil for your first time.

A window 20 ft from your neighbor won't work for anything other than a passive
Intake or a spot to run a window ac unit if you care about stealth. If you are in an apt complex or something where there are people all over and every body has central ac
It will probably look weird having a unit. It's easy to use that bedroom as a lung room
With a window ac unit and a tent that will contain your smell issues.
Best luck.

2886 said:

i get where you're coming from. the house a/c is old and it makes a weird sound. i definitely would have to get it looked into if i decide to run it for the grow.

with what you're describing.. air will come in through the intake from the rest of the house and then exhausted out through the window. if enough airflow occurs, will this be adequate to cool the room during lights on if the outdoor temperatures stay under x degrees.

with that setup, i believe i could also setup the portable to exhaust through the same window. Am i missing something?

the cost of the portable a/c is not a problem. I want to stop running the house a/c cause it needs to be maintained and i don't want to go through the process of calling someone to come. The a/c runs a lot noisier than my neighbors. And it is not all that efficient.

Plus when i want to move to a sealed room setup with c02 (if i choose to go that route) i will have the a/c. If not it could be used to cool the living room. The portable a/c is very versatile and has many applications, i have no qualms purchasing one.

The portable a/c that has odor leaks are the single hosed ones. The portable a/c i found is dual hosed. I will run an odor test before I actually put it in though. What would be a good test to see if odor escapes?

I think I am finally visualizing it correctly.. hopefully.

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If the night air is all most always going to be good enough then you wouldn't be using either the portable OR the house ac very much at all. One 600w is not going to put off all that much heat.. I would just get things started and assess the situation. As long as you don't stay in the high 80's or higher constantly then its not going to be a crisis. Would the portable work? Yes, but it would have to run constantly to try and keep up .. ever try running your car ac on the highway with the windows down? The house ac is just way bigger and wouldn't have to run constantly.. but if its on its last leg then I hear what you're saying.

I agree with Chunkypigs.. while it IS possible to vent the portable ac and the fan ac out the same window, if you have a neighbor there it is going to be pretty obvious what you're doing.

Testing for smell is easy. Just get it all setup and running and light two incense to burn inside the grow room. Then go grab coffee and come back and walk around the house and window. (may want to act like you're looking for wasps or something).

St3ve said:

I agree with Chunkypigs.. while it IS possible to vent the portable ac and the fan ac out the same window, if you have a neighbor there it is going to be pretty obvious what you're doing.

Testing for smell is easy. Just get it all setup and running and light two incense to burn inside the grow room. Then go grab coffee and come back and walk around the house and window. (may want to act like you're looking for wasps or something).

Click to expand...

When you say the neighbor will know, are you referring to the sound pollution or the smell?

In the youtube video posted earlier they added a mesh so there was no visibility outside in, and then they built a box to cover and seal the window to prevent light leaks. And then they added a carbon filter to the exhaust and blow it straight out. They also hung the things on rubber rings to prevent noise pollution.

Listening to the house a/c while it is running and comparing it to my neighbor who is running the same model. I do think it is on it's last legs which was why i was shifting towards the portable a/c solution.

The incense idea sounds great.

2886 said:

When you say the neighbor will know, are you referring to the sound pollution or the smell?

In the youtube video posted earlier they added a mesh so there was no visibility outside in, and then they built a box to cover and seal the window to prevent light leaks. And then they added a carbon filter to the exhaust and blow it straight out. They also hung the things on rubber rings to prevent noise pollution..

Click to expand...

Both really.. once you have them curious with a blacked out window and venting sounds from a fan AND ac, its only a matter of time before they catch a whiff. Carbon filters work WELL but are not perfect. Even when they are brand new.. they can leak a small amount of smell. (ie higher temps and super stinky strain during the last two weeks)

2886 said:

The incense idea sounds great.

Click to expand...

No charge..

I still need to get the mesh cover the window. I keep forgetting when i go out on my shopping forrays.

One thing though, at least in my area, Home Depot is miles ahead of Lowes in terms of having employees who know what they're talking about. The people at lowes don't even know what items they carry and what they don't. They're always so lost and clueless.

I decided to cheap out and go with the 6ml plastic instead of the pond liner. My reasoning being that i am already planning an electrical upgrade and once that happens it's sealed room time with ripped out carpet and the whole sha bang. But that is a completely different notebook.

I will be building trays out of 2x4 and osb to sort of be their "bed" and to catch any spillage.

Any tips when working with this type of plastic? It's the husky plastic sheeting from home depot. I got the 6ml black variety that measures 10x100

Both really.. once you have them curious with a blacked out window and venting sounds from a fan AND ac, its only a matter of time before they catch a whiff. Carbon filters work WELL but are not perfect. Even when they are brand new.. they can leak a small amount of smell. (ie higher temps and super stinky strain during the last two weeks)

Click to expand...

When you say leak smell, do you mean "a small amount of odor leaks out" or "the odor will start leaking out".

Unless you seal a window a/c unit (take it apart and manually seal up the divider area)... it's most likely going to leak a bit of smell.

Building a room, within the room, and scrubbing all exit air from that inner room will take care of the smell. Just make sure your carbon scrubber is oversized for your area.

Suck from the inner room and blow through the filter.... make SURE there are no leaks between the fan and the filter. You do that and you'll be fine.

Stay Safe!

I don't have a whole lot to offer to this thread aside from this...

If growing in soil place run-off catch trays underneath the pots. I do this and not much water really touches my floor aside from the few drops that drip off the pitcher that I use to water. The rest is caught in each plants own catch tray and soaked back up.

I'm not sure if this is ideal but it helps me with my mold worries.

On to the attic mold. I've been venting in my attic for a couple years and plan to make mine vent right out of the roof. Luckily I've been in the fireplace business for YEARS and installing a roof flashing and a 6" pipe/rain cap to vent my two rooms out of won't be a problem. I'd imagine a lot of condensation has already occurred which could be potentially bad. In the previous winters I've had 10" of snow or more on the roof but a 20' x 20' area directly above the grow room stays relatively clear with my split rooms running (two 5x8 areas in a 12x10 room flipped so only one half is 12 on/off at a time).

Venting through the roof isn't too tough, and it's the highest point in your home. A 6" B vent flashing along with 6" single wall air ducting (or woodstove interior single wall), a storm collar and a storm cap will take care of it. I don't worry about odor control because I live in a rural area and have a medical card but it would be easy to add a carbon filter to my system.

This thread makes me want to tear down my panda film and finish up my drywall job. Wonder what's growing under there. It has been two years....