I'm in the planning stages of my new grow space, and I was hoping to get some input on my ideas.
I'll be building in my basement, where the temperature stays consistently at about 50F (10C). The lowest I've seen it get to so far is 48F when it's below freezing outside. I don't have a plan for additional heating just yet, but I figure I'll cross that bridge once the structure and lighting are set up. I'm hoping the heat from lights and possibly the use of a seedling mat might help keep things appropriately warm in there.
I plan to build a closet with two separate spaces behind locked doors to ostensibly serve as a tool/spare part storage space, with one side serving that purpose and the other side housing the grow.
The basement ceiling is ~6.5ft high (just under 2m). I was thinking 6ft would be a decent height for the closet. I would like to have a space for veg (seedlings/clones), males/open pollination, and a larger space for flowering out selected females. For these purposes, I'd like to use heavy duty 27gal totes for the veg and male space. For those I would like to use screw in LEDs or something similar with a low vertical space requirement. Remote ballast PLLs might also be an option. For filtration, I was thinking of individual, small carbon filters on PC fans.
The dimensions of the totes are 15.25in(h)x28.25in(d)x19.25in(w) (~39cm(h)x72cm(d)x49cm(w)) with a volume of 3.8ft3, using roughly the same dimensions for width and depth, this gives me about 3.5ft of headroom for the larger flowering space, with a volume of 13.2ft3
I'd love to use a 315w CMH for the larger space, but for now, I have an old Mars Hydro LED panel that I'll be using.
The thing that I'm having the most trouble nailing down is intake/exhaust for the whole space. I'd like to keep both cost and odor low, and I'm debating between exhausting to the room or building a void in the back of the closet to act as a plenum to recirculate air, or a small lung space that would allow fresh air and exhausted air to mix and diffuse out the back. Alternatively, I could just run a passive intake through the bottom of the closet and exhaust straight out the top. The first option would essentially act as a small sealed room and would most likely require CO2. The second one would also be more discrete, as there would be no noticeable breeze. The last option would probably be the easiest.
regarding fans, I'm unsure of what I would need for a space like this. PC fans seem like they might be the most quiet, but they may also be inadequate for the space
I'd love some input on this plan. If any of you see problems with it or have ideas of how it could be improved, I'm open to suggestions.
Also, I'm working on learning to effectively use Google Sketchup, so I'll hopefully have some basic 3D models to post up and illustrate what I'm talking about.
Thanks!
I'll be building in my basement, where the temperature stays consistently at about 50F (10C). The lowest I've seen it get to so far is 48F when it's below freezing outside. I don't have a plan for additional heating just yet, but I figure I'll cross that bridge once the structure and lighting are set up. I'm hoping the heat from lights and possibly the use of a seedling mat might help keep things appropriately warm in there.
I plan to build a closet with two separate spaces behind locked doors to ostensibly serve as a tool/spare part storage space, with one side serving that purpose and the other side housing the grow.
The basement ceiling is ~6.5ft high (just under 2m). I was thinking 6ft would be a decent height for the closet. I would like to have a space for veg (seedlings/clones), males/open pollination, and a larger space for flowering out selected females. For these purposes, I'd like to use heavy duty 27gal totes for the veg and male space. For those I would like to use screw in LEDs or something similar with a low vertical space requirement. Remote ballast PLLs might also be an option. For filtration, I was thinking of individual, small carbon filters on PC fans.
The dimensions of the totes are 15.25in(h)x28.25in(d)x19.25in(w) (~39cm(h)x72cm(d)x49cm(w)) with a volume of 3.8ft3, using roughly the same dimensions for width and depth, this gives me about 3.5ft of headroom for the larger flowering space, with a volume of 13.2ft3
I'd love to use a 315w CMH for the larger space, but for now, I have an old Mars Hydro LED panel that I'll be using.
The thing that I'm having the most trouble nailing down is intake/exhaust for the whole space. I'd like to keep both cost and odor low, and I'm debating between exhausting to the room or building a void in the back of the closet to act as a plenum to recirculate air, or a small lung space that would allow fresh air and exhausted air to mix and diffuse out the back. Alternatively, I could just run a passive intake through the bottom of the closet and exhaust straight out the top. The first option would essentially act as a small sealed room and would most likely require CO2. The second one would also be more discrete, as there would be no noticeable breeze. The last option would probably be the easiest.
regarding fans, I'm unsure of what I would need for a space like this. PC fans seem like they might be the most quiet, but they may also be inadequate for the space
I'd love some input on this plan. If any of you see problems with it or have ideas of how it could be improved, I'm open to suggestions.
Also, I'm working on learning to effectively use Google Sketchup, so I'll hopefully have some basic 3D models to post up and illustrate what I'm talking about.
Thanks!