What's new
  • Please note members who been with us for more than 10 years have been upgraded to "Veteran" status and will receive exclusive benefits. If you wish to find out more about this or support IcMag and get same benefits, check this thread here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

The Groffice

Palindrome

King of Schwag
Welcome to the Groffice

I have been working on this idea, for quite some time now.
As after I got back to growing, I quickly realised that I was short of space. As well a needed more to fill out my time, so what better to do then expand the grow?!?

I love building, growing and experimenting.
And even tho I live in a house, IMO big for only two people.
The misses and I are not always on even terms, on what good use of a spare room's could be.
But being the man of the house, I always get the final word .... 'Yes Ma'am'.

There for I am expanding in the garage.

I don't have alot of free space left, as I do share the garage with a car and my workshop.
But it works, drive the car out of the garage and I can move my table saw/work table around.



Last year I put up a new wall in the garage, deviding it up and making a small extra room.
At first to be have a space in the garage, that don't get covered in wood dust all the time.
But also to make a lungroom, that was insulated for the winter season. Now that didn't work out as well as hoped, but it gave me this option.

As it is now, I have an office in the house.
Where I spend a lot of time, and do alot of smoking.
I constantly have a window cracked open, and in the winter that is a waste of heat.

By moving everything into the garage, I won't waste as much energy, as I do now and use the heat, im anyway venting out of my office.

The Groffice messures 3x3,2 meters, and the height of the room is 2,35 meters.

Layout: Top view of the Garage building


It's a sketch, the messurements are not accurate.
Just to give an idea of the layout, and how to use the space optimal.

And talking about optimal use of space, that's a big part of this whole project and experiment.
I wish to stack 3 layers of flowering plants, in each flower closet under LED Strip lights.

Closet Layout:


A flat reservoir devided in two, under two closets with 3 indevidual cabinets.
Pulling air from the groffice, venting into the attic thru two 125 mm metal ducts.
With a Ozone bulp, build into the a box fan in the attic.




This eleminates any potential ozone damage done to the plants, and protects my eyes from harmfull UV rays.
The bulp was 12€ on Aliexpress, and should run a year before it needs to be changed.
Im told a 20W bulp will cover the smell of a 1K watt HPS grow in flower.

I will need to order more bulps, in the end I should end up with something around 2400 Watt's of Flower (HPS & LED) and 500 Watt's of Veg.
If everything is running at max capacity.
My guess is 3x 20W will cover my needs, as the drying will also be adding something to the mix.
One in each flower boxfan, and the last one in the vent from the dry cabinet.
Giving me the option to turn that one off, when I not drying anything.

Now I have only just started the build, so this will be a follow along thread.
I will do my best not to drag the build out too long, but again I am not in anyway a pro handyman.
I like to do things right, and some times that forces me to redo things, that im not happy with.
 

Palindrome

King of Schwag
Reservoir basis

Reservoir basis

First part of the build is the reservoir

It's made from 12 and 15 mm plywood, with 25 mm of insulation in the bottom.

20 mm Styrofoam


5 mm foam with alu IR reflector


This should provide some insulation from the cold concreat floor, otherwise heating the large flat reservoirs.
Would be a big cost, and something I would need to do most of the year.
More insulation would have been better, but I have limited height given I wanna stack 3 grows in the remaining space.


Cutting plywood for the reservoir


Welcome to HighKEA


Bottom sheets, front, back, side and middle pannels.

Predrilled everything with a 3mm drill, before screwing everything together. Working in a narrow space, when building a box you want to go from wall to wall. And screwed together, well enough to hold water, plants and at least parts of a large cabinet ontop.



12 mm Bottom sheet, it was supposed to be 15 mm.
But some stoner idiot got lost in the workshop, cut the wrong sheet up. (me)
The 12 mm, was for the back and side panels. That is supported by the walls, and mainly just to make it easyer to break down.
If we deside to sell the house, some time in the future.

I am anyway gonna polyester coat it, so i'll just throw in a little glass as well.
Then it will be strong enough, even if the bottom bends a little over time.
 

Palindrome

King of Schwag
How to screw

How to screw

After fucking around in the HighKEA workshop, it was time to screw around with the drill bit.

Mounting the back and side panels, screwing them from the bottom.


Getting everything to fit, so it's both in line in front and in the back.
Along with the outerwalls, that was put up by the prev. owner. And if you have followed my first thread "A New Start", you will know he don't belive in the leveling spirit.

Flipped it down, and pushed it out from the wall.



To screw it from behind!




Time to screw it from a different direction, so puched it up against the wall .... hard!
To get it in place, with nice snug fit.

 

Palindrome

King of Schwag
Adding a rim around the reservoir, for the bottom plate to rest on.

There will simply just be gabs, where water will drain back into the reservoir.





Im planing to make two small access hatches, for daily readings, adding nutes and what not.
They will be placed in the center space, between the closets.
That way I can check values, change the water at any time, day or night.

 

Avinash.miles

Caregiver Extraordinaire
Moderator
ICMag Donor
Veteran
yhea, im gonna pull up a bucket and watch where this goes.... buildout is looking good, palindrome :good:
:joint:
 

Palindrome

King of Schwag
Welcome inside the Workshop friends!

Im getting the reservoirs ready to get their fiberglass and polyester coating, but before that I got a little preping to do.

I learned this last time, when I build my veg closet. The pine resin in the woodknots, will react with the polyester resin and it wont harden right.


It's very easy to see, that the woodknots didn't cure right.
So back then I had to redo alot of work, this time I hope I will be able to skip the redo step.
And get it right the first time, so plastering all the larger woodknots and screws.





Next job, cutting fiberglass strips for all the cornors and seams
 

Badfishy1

Active member
Let’s gooooooo! Hate glass work! What a mess! But definitely amazing results! Looking good! Nothing but success coming your way
 

Palindrome

King of Schwag
Let’s gooooooo! Hate glass work! What a mess! But definitely amazing results! Looking good! Nothing but success coming your way

I used to do it 5 days a week, for 3 months as part of training for a warehouse job I had, on a fiberglass factory. Even tho I wasn't in the production, but packing the supplies for the production. I had to start with 3 months in the production, learning about the end product and what everything was used for.

It was a terrible job, all the toxic chemicals and itching from tiny glass fibers getting in your skin.

This will be done in a short time, I will only reinforce where the wood sheets meet. The waterproofing will just be about 5 coatings of polyester
 

Palindrome

King of Schwag
Thank you, all of you!

Not a pro, just taking my time trying to do it right.
I learned alot from the "first" closet I build last year, but I have no education in building. Got 3 months experiance and a epoxy licens that is more then 10 years old, so id say it only counts for the know how.

As I see it, what I am doing everyone can learn from some YouTube toturial and patience. I go over everything two or three times, before I start to avoid too many stoner errors and noob fuck-ups.
The materials I work with are not that expensive, but im not a rich man and all in all combined it's not cheap either.

Fiberglassing the reservoir is not the cheapest way to go, pond foil would prolly last just as long but with the risk of punkture.
Fixing that, would be much harder then fixing a crack in the polyester coating.
Concidering how the whole construction, will look when it's done.


To start with I heated the room up to 20C degrees, cut glass strips to match the seems. As once you start working with the polyester, you have about 30 min work time til it starts to cure.
And you get sticky gloves, making it impossibe to cut the glass.
Without it getting it everywhere, and you will pull lot's of strands out of the mat.



Rolled out a layer of polyester resin mixed with hardener, in the edges where the sides and bottom sheets meet.
Folded the strips on the middle, layed it on the bottom edge.
With the fold into the corner, and then lifted and softly pressed the upper side or the folded strip. Towards the sides of the res, to get it stick to the plywood side.
With the roll I soaked the fiber mat, and worked it into the seams/corners.
After all the glass was in, I too a ridged alu roll and worked out any air bubbles. This is most important, where there are multiple layers of glass.

cure_it_paddle_roller_6.jpg




I put in two layers of glass, in the back of the reservoir.
Then desided it was overkill, and would only take up more resin to make it waterproof.



Now it have to cure, next is giving it another 3-4 thin layers of polyester. And coat the lit in polyester, not to forget :D
 

Badfishy1

Active member
I used to do it 5 days a week, for 3 months as part of training for a warehouse job I had, on a fiberglass factory. Even tho I wasn't in the production, but packing the supplies for the production. I had to start with 3 months in the production, learning about the end product and what everything was used for.

It was a terrible job, all the toxic chemicals and itching from tiny glass fibers getting in your skin.

This will be done in a short time, I will only reinforce where the wood sheets meet. The waterproofing will just be about 5 coatings of polyester

Have built MANY of my boats from shell and stringers. Also do my own repairs. Keep a bottle of vinegar in shower for just that reason
 
Top