First grow, 1000w/600w venting/fire questions

I am not starting anything I am just debating what has been said.
Remember I am talking about tanks not generators. Generators need constant monitoring, tanks don't. I will not post in his thread anymore out of respect for him, you can stop anytime also.

fiiiiiiiiiiyyyyyyaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!noooooooooooooo!! quit ya blodclot cryan

mindz so you wanna have a grow off im stayin away from you ive seen your pics haha do it up lets see co2 bottle timer vs your setup.i got money on you

any updates bud you get the electrician there yet

dr pyro said:

any updates bud you get the electrician there yet

Click to expand...

Yo! Electrician is coming out on the 12th, and I got two quotes from handymen to start work sometime next week. I will attach a layout picture of my plan at this time. My cover for the moment is I am going to have a pottery wheel (like in the movie Ghost :hubba. Therefore this pottery wheel generates a lot of heat due to keeping the clay at a malleable temperature, requiring ventilation in and out of the room by way of ducting. I am having the handyman seal off the sliding door way, and make a hidden bookshelf, that opens like a door. See link below (I can't link sites till 15 posts, I will post twice more then link it as a reply!).


The one good thing about the economy sucking is handymen are working for cheap, both guys said they could do this door and all the work in one day. My light arrives the same day the electricians come on the 12th, and due the good graces of DirtyolSouth I have been getting great input, back and fourth dialogue and suggestions regarding getting everything squared away. Picked up some Advanced Nutrients (per Souths nute lineup suggestion) from a all-cash seller in downtown STL (seedy warehouse, no sign ). Got some Fox Farms Ocean Forest/Light Warrior, pH meter/calibration, all my pots, etc. Picked up a Can 33/6"HO combo that will just scrub air in the room, and have a 409 CFM I am going to use in the duct work, considering getting a second one to make sure the duct work has great air flow from intake to exhaust.

Needless to say I am excited to get started, getting closer each day. The bug man sprayed on Friday, the whole perimeter of the grow area, whole basement, and exhaust and intake of the duct work areas to come.

And this makes 15!

:clap:

Hidden book shelf in action.
hXXp://video.yahoo.com/watch/496987/2644143

How to make it:

hXXp://www.instructables.com/id/Hidden-Door-Bookshelf/

Though this is just an 'option', default studs and door is in the estimate also.

Showing this to the handymen, they said they could make it np.

Tact,

Before you spend a lot of money on a concealed doorway, think of this "What would your first reaction be if you went into a basement and saw a pair of walls that obviously weren't outside walls and formed a room in the corner with NO apparent way in or out?" My first thought would be "What is he hiding behind those walls? I'll bet most of you would have similar reactions too. I'll guarantee you that any competent drug cop will see that as a flag immediately and either tear the walls down to see what is behind them or find a sympathetic judge to issue a search warrant allowing them to tear down anything suspicious.

Concealed doorways are only effective when it is not obvious that there is a room or passage way behind the wall the hidden doorway is in.

Yes, the hidden doorway is kind of cool, but it really isn't going to serve any purpose. How are you going to conceal the signs of frequent traffic through your book case? How are you going to explain the ducting going into and out of the walled off area?

Regardless of whether you try to hide it or not, you need to get rid of the slider and have some kind of swinging door with an overlap to stop the light. If you need the extra storage of the shelving down that wall that is fine, but do NOT close that corner of without some visible access or you might as well put up a sing saying something like "Guess what I have hidden in this area. A much more effective thing would be to close the doorway off, build your shelves, close off the end of the grow area by the water heater with some kind of usable doorway through that wall.

Remember the purpose of "stealth" is NOT to hide something as much as to avoid arousing suspicion. A room with no visible access is an instant flag of suspicion. On the other hand a cobbled together looking wall and doorway just looks like someone really didn't care about what was behind the walls. Of course it must blend into the rest of the basement. Either too shoddy of workmanship or t good of workmanship in relation to the rest of the basement will both raise flags of suspicion.

Just my experience in law enforcement in the military and searching for contraband of all sorts.

Don,

There is a door right next to where the sliding door was, its in the layout picture as a square, like a window. There is another sliding door farther down in the layout by the washer and dryer. No one except me has ever even been in my basement (except the electrician/handymen), much less police officers, not even my girlfriend of 3.5 years has set foot in my basement, it is unused except for weights, washer/dryer. Like I said though, the hidden bookshelf is an option, with the main estimate being for studding and a lockable door. If the police start going through my house I don't know if a locked door would be any more of deterrent then a hidden bookshelf .

Having said that, I am not spending a lot of money, which is why this economy + handymen work is so good like I said! There is no way great way explain to ducting going in the grow room, or out of the room, with either a standard door, or a hidden bookshelf doorway, either way its obvious this ducting is out of place as my dryer is on the other side of my basement already. My floor joist layout simply sucks for running more duct work, cant saw holes through them as it would be dangerous to the stability of the floor above, so I need to drop under them and run against the 'grain' of the the direction they run. Horizontally with the joists is almost completely occupied by duct work already in place for the A/C system duct work, the path of least resistance, and short of a mess of duct work mazes across my basement s to run the duct work as it is in the layout diagram.

If people are searching my house for something illegal I would have major problems already it seems, I would hope it would never get to the point people are 1) in my basement period, or 2) police are searching my basement/house at all . I am going out of my way to make sure all the air is scrubbed in the room 2.5x a minute, not letting stagnate smell build at all much less leave the room, and light can't escape above the floor joists in the room itself to the rest of the basement due to stapling black bag/insulation around the ceiling floor joist openings. I appreciate your concern though, I have no tools, and the cost of tools would be far more then having a guy put up a partition w/door and run a straight line of duct work through (2) 6" holes, similar to dryer exhaust vents already in place in my basement.

It looks like you are drawing air from outside the room, through the light, and then ducted outside the room to cool the light, which is great. However, you are going to need to exchange the air in your space 3-4 times a minute. Do you have plans for fresh air exchange?

I agree with Don on the door thing. And what do the handymen think about a hidden door?

The handyman said he had built them before and that he just did one for a wealthy family that wanted one for their children, I told him I needed shelf space in my basement and why not do shelf I saw online and just make it a door? He went on to make suggestions as to 'hide' a lockable door knob by hollowing out a book and putting it over the knob , he also said the steel frame in the DYI links above were not needed unless I was putting more then 500 lbs on the door/shelf. So he seemed game, but I guess it is completely unnecessary.

Pictures attached, this shows the "north' wall of my layout, it has an 80 year old coal chute. This pops off but has awkward dimensions that I have been able to find an A/C unit of fitting within. It can not be 'cracked' open, its either on, or off, it used to have hinges but when I had my driveway done they had to pop off the hinges in order to properly make the driveway contour away from there so water would run the other direction (which it does). If its off the whole door is off, with a big opening obviously. I will attach a few more pictures of my idea of how the duct work and hole would run into one side of my basement to the other side and exit

Would bringing air through such an intake, not be enough you gather? Is the idea that the exhaust would be taking all the intake air before the plants get to eat up the C02/fresh air? If that is the case, then I guess a third hole (separate from intake/exhaust) would have to be figured out. Originally an A/C was going to be used in the 'hatch' spot, but I can't find one that fits there, also the shot from my driveway shows an A/C hanging out the back of such an area could look odd, the vents however could just be assumed to be dryer venting for all anyone knows.

Something like this used for the intake/exhaust vents:

http://www.iaqsource.com/product.php/fantech/com6p/?product=112108

http://www.artiscaps.com/exhaust.html

http://www.irawoods.com/Fantech-DGD6-Designer-Exhaust-Grill-w-Collar-Damper-for-6in-Duct





Edit: I re drew up the layout to show the changes to the door, and detailing some of the other things in the basement. Also the sliding door by the grow room was taken OFF the sliding mechanism rail, which was removed as well, the door will be cut to fit the hole of the sliding door gap, and nailed to the opening so it will be seamless with that wall from the outside of the grow room. No sliding mechanism, no gaps.

This is quick update showing:

1) the intake/exhaust ducting going to be used to cool my light
2) the air exchange that will bring in fresh air into the grow room
3) the fan/scrubber that will sit in the corner and scrub the air before it ever leaves the room

Tact,

Those are some good looking varieties from what I've heard about them.

On the concealed door, why do you even need a door there if you are going to have another way in and out of your grow room? I'm just not understanding. Putting the book/storage shelves across that wall sounds like a good idea by itself, but why the concealed door? Why not just cover it up with the bookcase, unless you just want the concealed door because you think it cool, which is okay too?

On the end wall with the locked door, why not move that wall down ot the end of the narrow area to where the existing wall takes the jog away from the basement wall? It won't cost anymore to put it there and it will give you more room to work in, to store your growing supplies/equipment or to expand your grow area if you should decide that you want more room.

You are correct that a lock will not even slow down law enforcement if they are searching your house, they will just destroy that much more if they have to break down locked doors. As my grandfather used to say "All a lock does is keeps the curious and honest man out but it only makes it harder for a thief or a cop to get in."

On your ventilation issue, my suggestion, based on the premise that your light has an air tight lens and your carbon filter only has one exhaust tube and the intake is through a series of holes in the outside wall, would be to put a intake opening near the floor on the water heater end of the room and then let the ventilation system suck air from that opening where it will be coolest and fresh into your room then then enter the carbon filter that you have mounted on a shelf or something so that it's close to the ceiling where the temp is highest, then through the ducting to the open end of your light(s) flow through the light(s) then exhaust the clean heated air where ever you need to exhaust it.

You could either exhaust it into the basement when it is cool/cold to help heat your house or through one of the windows when you don't want the heat going into the basement. That will take care of both your odor and heat problem all at once. The only drawback is you will have to figure a way to ventilate when the lights are off without it getting too cool in the room, because the carbon filter will only work when the air is moving through it. If the air isn't going through the filter then it will let the smell out into the basement and if it is too cool near the floor and you aren't adding heat some way, then you could cold stress the plants.

If you don't mind using an A/C to cool the basement, you could just dump the exhaust out of the wall up higher and back into the basement keeping the exhaust up higher than the intake by quite a bit and preferably as far away from the intake as practical.

All you are really worried about is 1. keeping the temps around 70F to 85F, maybe 90F with preferably at the most a 15F swing in a 24 hour period; 2. getting enough fresh air into the room to keep the co2 and o2 levels balanced; and 3. keeping the odor under control. With a little thought and help from the rest of us, you should be able to figure out a way to do all of those things in one system.

Personally, I don't think you will have that much heat problems. I'm running 4 each magnetic ballasted MHs in my flower room and only using a 6" round commercial equipment cabinet fan for exhaust and my temps never get over 90F, and that was before I added the intake vent from under the stairway-- now they stay right around 80F and that is without using separate cooling for the lights. I'm running 1600watts of magnetic ballasted lights which is going to put out a whole lot more than your single electronic light.

Either way, you are going to have a good setup by the time you get done. Good smoking to you and everyone else.

Hey Don,

DonJones said:

On the concealed door, why do you even need a door there if you are going to have another way in and out of your grow room? I'm just not understanding. Putting the book/storage shelves across that wall sounds like a good idea by itself, but why the concealed door? Why not just cover it up with the bookcase, unless you just want the concealed door because you think it cool, which is okay too?

On the end wall with the locked door, why not move that wall down ot the end of the narrow area to where the existing wall takes the jog away from the basement wall? It won't cost anymore to put it there and it will give you more room to work in, to store your growing supplies/equipment or to expand your grow area if you should decide that you want more room.

Click to expand...

The concealed door was abandoned, its just a door now, a normal door, in a normal studded partition wall. As for not moving it down further, I still can, there is some ducting that blocks that area though, large rectangular ducting, so it would make for an awkward partition if I cut straight across where the wall kicks into the HVAC side of the basement, I can always ask the guy though, shouldn't be a big deal. Though that ducting means the wall on the left side of the partition would only be 5' tall as opposed to 6.5' on the right side of the partition.

As for the intake air
(for c02, not cooling the hood), its going to come in by way of negative pressure through the floor joists, I will attach a picture. The carbon filter has its own fan dedicated to it (Can 33/Can 449 CFM blower) sitting in the corner, or mounted in the corner so it gives more floor room, that will just recirculate the air over and over in the room itself. Finally a 409 CFM fan will be blowing air out of the room and into the rest of the basement, allowing fresh air to rush in through negative air pressure through the floor joist openings. My basement actually has ducting and vents that have great airflow for heat/cold air from the HVAC, its a partially finished basement, I have always kept those vents closed, but can attach some extra 25' ducting I have and hook it into that line, drop it through the floor joists and into the grow area, this can bring warm air if it gets to cold in the winter, or cold air if it gets to hot in the summer. As often as possible I am going to leave my basement windows open (none of which can see into the grow area) to allow fresh air to roll in and be sucked up through the floor joists passively, due to the negative pressure of blower 2 from my diagram. One last change I made was the blower for the hood venting system will actually be just inside the partitioned room, and past the hood, if I need to get boosters I can , but 630 CFM should be able to haul the air in/out enough to cool the light hood.

So to clarify there is 3 things going on with the ventilation, the first is a ducting system just to pull in air over the light, then suck it out of the house. The next one is just for c02 air exchange to bring in fresh air, this involves a blower blowing air OUT of the room, passively allowing fresh air to come in through the floor joists. And the third, a constant dedicated blower/filter that will scrub the air continuously in the room itself. I have a speedster fan controller if one element is dominating the other, like air being expelled from the room before being scrubbed. The cubic feet of the area is 182 feet, the blower and filter can scrub 449 CFM per minute, with no ducting being attached, just sitting on the filter directly. So roughly 449 / 182 = 2.5 times the air will be scrubbed in the room per minute


Pictures:

1) This is where the ducting can attach when colder/warmer air needs to be dumped in my room using my homes HVAC (i leave this bastard on 24/7 in the summer).

2) This is a shot of the floor joists which lead to the grow room (over that closet wall), note this is the closet from the diagram near the North wall.

3) Showing just how large an opening the floor joists actually is, allowing for plenty of fresh air to be negative pressured into the room itself, C02 air exchange.

4) A quick update in ventilation and layout system, showing the movement of blower 3 to just inside the grow area.

Electrician comes out Thursday, handyman comes out on the 30th, I have all my supplies, just waiting for the walls to go up, duct to be run, then I will germinate. My light and pH supplies arrived today. :hubba:

Like Dirty said..welcome .....and you put your post and q's together well dude....

I don't think that you brought it up, but I wouldn't mess with the cO2 thing until later when you get the basics down....

And lastly: quote.."Great idea, I was thinking of filling in the cracks with an epoxy, then painting the walls, and floor of the grow area with that gray paint you see in automotive garages, half the basement is carpet over concrete, no pad. I know there is something you can treat walls with, hand held light of some kind that you can zap mold on walls with, then 'seal' that wall with an anti-mold agent.. i will do some research."

You want to paint the walls with a white paint that will create a more sterile and reflective enviornmet than gray paint...reflect your light to get more from it..

again..welcome!

i wanted to see the other guy do co2 and you do fresh air

Tact,

You're thinking about what you are doing before you do it and that is the most important thing in getting a good setup from the start. However, for the size of operation that you are setting up for I think you are needlessly complicating the ventilation systems and going for greatly more than what you will ever need. You are doing great and all I'm trying to do is to give you enough information to make the best decisions that you can instead of having to guess.

If you are going to use the area between the rafters for fresh air intake, that is gong to be the hottest air of anywhere in the basement. For a grow area the size of yours, one cold air return cover over a 8" high hole between 2 studs in the new wall will provide all the fresh air you will ever need via negative pressure like you are talking about doing through the rafters and it will be cooler air in the summer. If you go to Home Depot, they have crawl space vents like the one in my picture edited to add picture here that have screen in them to cut down on insect movement, which your open rafter thing won't do. If you decide to stay with the open rafters at least get some window screen and screen them. Also, for negative pressure to work properly your exhaust system must move more air out than the intake, what ever it may be, open rafters, leaky doors, vents through the wall or what ever, will let in. Otherwise you are going to have great inflow in the rafter opening closest to where your exhaust opening is and little inflow in the other rafter openings and very possible outflow through some of them.

On having to put a short door in the new wall, try seeing if you can put a full height one between the ducting and the outside wall, and do NOT make it narrower than 30" if at all possible. If not I'd just wall it uptight and use the doorway you already have. Since you don't show water supply or drainage in your plans, I presume you will be carrying it and soil in and out of your grow area and take it from me, you don't want to be bent over or trying to squeeze through a narrow door while you are doing it.

In some ways you are ahead of me and I've been growing as many as 35 plants at a time between my veg & flower rooms for nearly 3 months now. I just sat down and prioritized the needed construction and tried to do the most critical ones first and do them in a way that they wouldn't interfere with the less critical ones when they came due. I thought and changed my plans many times for nearly 2 months until my son, who has a lot of remodeling experience, and I started putting the walls in and then we probably made at least a half dozen small changes while we were building it. Like the fresh air intake and the exhaust fan through my hall door -- that didn't happen until after the outside air cooled down enough that we weren't using the house A/C, and now by recirculating the air from in the basement instead of exhausting it outside, we have cut way down on the use of the furnace. (I just run the fan constantly to circulate the air between the downstairs and upstairs and in 40F weather entire house stays above 65F.) I thought it would be wasteful to heat the air some how, run it through the grow room and then blow it outside. To me that was just like cutting 6" hole in the wall and running the fan constantly.

Also, how are you going to keep the light out of the grow room if for some reason the basement light gets turned on or left on during the dark cycle? Any easy way you have of making those spaces light tight where they cross the top of the existing wall is going to greatly restrict air flow.

The difficulty that I see with using the scrubber in the room instead of ducting it outside of the room and thereby creating a negative pressure and sucking all of the odor laden air through it, is when you just recirculate air in the room, the scrubber will NOT be able to process all of the air and you may have odors leaking out of your room; however using the scrubber to develop your negative pressure will process ALL of the air as it leaves the room.

If you pull cool fresh air into the room along the floor,then exhaust the hot air from near the ceiling back into the basement through your scrubber, I don't think you will need to worry about cooling your light or the room.

Keep on questioning things until it make sense. That is how we use the knowledge and experience of the group to avoid repeating other's mistakes. As we used to say in the 60s (oops I'[m dating myself now) "Keep the faith baby and good smoking to you!"

DonJones said:

If you are going to use the area between the rafters for fresh air intake, that is gong to be the hottest air of anywhere in the basement. For a grow area the size of yours, one cold air return cover over a 8" high hole between 2 studs in the new wall will provide all the fresh air you will ever need via negative pressure like you are talking about doing through the rafters and it will be cooler air in the summer. If you go to Home Depot, they have crawl space vents like the one in my picture here that have screen in them to cut down on insect movement, which your open rafter thing won't do. If you decide to stay with the open rafters at least get some window screen and screen them.

Click to expand...

Great point regarding having the passive air intake be LOW, rather then high, due to the fact that hot air rises, therefore a passive intake via floor joists = warmer air. How about this as a solution. In my layout diagram, fan #2 will be mounted HIGH on the partition wall, actively expelling mostly warmer air into the rest of the basement. I will then take either heavy duty plastic and cut it into square shapes, and staple them in between each of the floor joist areas, or heavy duty garbage bags and do the same thing. While this will hardly be air tight, it will allow less air to enter through the floor joists, then I will have a LOW hole on the partition wall(s) for a passive, colder air, intake. I can make two passive intake holes to guarantee a cumulative higher opening of passive air intake compared to any cracks/floor joist areas not sealed with the stapling of plastic material in the floor joists and put those crawl space vents over them you mentioned from Home Depot. I have a screen I can cut into squares and staple to the partition drywall/in between studs, to try and limit particle/insect entry due to airflow (them being blown in). I did however get my whole house/basement sprayed by the bug man, and have not seen in a live insect, save for a few spiders, ever in my house, but who sees/looks for spider mites for example prior to growing?

As for the light, my basement is unused, I can guarantee that no light will be on the basement PERIOD, there is no 'switch' just three pull-chains with bulbs in them, none of which are near the grow room. There is however windows but the light that will come in will not be able to truly get in the grow room, if for some reason a modicum of light does, I will eliminate it, to the point of putting cellophane sticky material over the windows, or simply put towels/blankets over them, they are small windows, and none are close to the grow area, the closest one being by the circuit panel (see diagram, or pictures page 1). Due to the awkward ducting, the easiest approach, is where I have the partition now, it does limit the length of the room to 8 feet, I am fine with that for now, I am only growing for myself though, a few Lbs will go a loooooong way. And finally, a full size door is a must for me, so I can go in and get out easy, luckily by my dryer is a full sized drain, as well as hot/cold water faucets, so not much hauling of water. Finally, I might want to go buy the knob myself, as I take it the handyman (who is getting the studs, door, drywall, nails) will not get a locking door knob for an interior door. I also will e-mail him telling him I need a full-sized door, just to clarify the point. I bought the ducting, which is 6" insulated, to reduce noise of the wh-o-o-o-o-o-sh from the longer ducting, and the intake/exhaust vents, because those are hard to find locally in 6" size, I had to order them online.

So in summation changes to ducting for active air exchange:

1) Partially-seal with heavy duty plastic/garbage bags in between the floor joists by stapling, achieving a total air-seal will not be possible short of putting wood/caulking in there or dry walling across the ceiling (like a normal upstairs ceiling), I want to avoid this for two reasons, the first lowers the usable height of the room, and two, radiant heat? So the objective would be to make the floor joist air penetration less cumulative entry space then the passive air intakes.

2) Have an active 6" exhaust, being powered by a 409 CFM fan blowing air out of the top of the partition wall, left side of the door. By positioning it high on the partition it will be more warm air, as opposed to cooler air which will be closer to the floor.

3) Have two to three 6" passive air intakes, positioned on the left-right of the door (partition wall). Negative pressure will bring in more cool air, due it the hole being closer to the floor rather then the ceiling.

I guess the only question then is:

Is my approach to sealing the floor joists as a passive (warmer air) intake remedied by my plastic/bag partial-sealing approach? Obviously it won't be anymore near air-tight, but if it makes the cumulative area less then the passive intake holes on the partition wall, will it be negated due to physics of negative pressure?

I can take pictures, or draw a diagram if any of this is not clear with my words.

Thoughts?

Tact,

Like I said in my edit of my last post, you're doing great. Your explanation and thoughts were easy to follow. Here are my thoughts and hopefully they are as easy to follow as yours were.

If you keep the ceiling open like it is, paint it white before you start. It will add a lot to the appearance of your room and also seal any dirt or other things that might be up there now. I wish I had taken the time to paint mine before we started installing lights and moving plants in but my son was way over his legal limit and needed to get them out of his house because he was told that someone had narced him off. In fact if I remember correctly they were already in my wife's car so she could claim them if the LEOs showed up (I hadn't obtained my prescription yet at that time because we were having difficulty getting medical records).

On the ceiling issue, sheet rocking it right to the rafters without framing it the other way will only lower your ceiling by 1/2" and would take care of both the light tightness and enable you to control the air flow better. I'm not sure exactly what you meant by radiant heat, but yes it would cut down on the heat transfer immediately above the grow room but if vented back into the basement the heat would spread throughout the basement somewhat evenly before transferring up through the ceiling/floor into the living area. What ever you do to the ceiling, paint it white and put plenty of paint on. I think a gallon should probably cover all of your walls and ceiling.

Either way would work and if you are careful stapling the plastic it would be both air and light tight enough. Make sure you can't see any light through the plastic you use even with your grow light on and close to the plastic.


Another approach to that and similar situations is to buy some 1/2" or thicker styrofoam insulation board (anything under 1/2" gets fragile enough that it is hard to work with -- I find either an electric carving knive or a jig saw works pretty good if you take your time. I have even used my circular saw and table saw, but that was because we were working with 4" x 6" logs and cutting them down to fit in the walls of my shop.) at one of the home improvement stores and carefully cut out pieces that are tight enough to wedge into the holes. That solves all of your issues with the open rafters.

Everyone --This is also a good way to close off a window into a grow area, just put some kind of curtain between the glass and the foam board so the styrofoam isn't noticeable from outside. It also cuts down on the sound and heat transfer through the blocked off window and is easy to remove if you decide to use the window in the future.

On the vents, they have several different sizes and at least 2 colors, brown and white. They will just barely let you put small nails/screws into the studs. If you get one of the 6" vents and just cut a rectangular hole slightly less that the height of the vents between two studs, that will give you nearly twice the intake area of a 6" round fan. If you decide you need more intake area later it is easy enough to add it later. It would be better if you could have your intake and exhaust openings nearly opposite each other rather than on the same wall, if practical. If you already have the flexible ducting, then just fasten a short piece of it between the opposite corner of the room from your intake, then run it through the vents on your light and then out the exhaust hole. Although if you have an exhaust stub on the air scrubber, mount the scrubber as close to the ceiling as practical and hook your exhaust hose to it so that ALL of the exhaust air has been deodorized immediately before being exhausted. But if you don't have a stub, then just use the scrubber as close to the open end of the exhaust hose as is practical. If you vent the scrubber through the light and then outside of the room and find that the hose is restricting the airflow too much you can always put a booster fan in over by the partition later.

Everyone -- at least locally here in Spokane, WA, both 6" and 8" insulated flex ducting is available in the build supply. If memory serve correctly, it was about $1.00/foot in 25' lengths

If I have missed any thing just remind me. My suggestions do NOT mean there is anything wrong with your ideas, just that there might be a more effective and simpler way to handle things, and I freely admit that I'm frequently way off base.

Are you going to grow in soil (including dirt or the commercial soil substitutes) or go hydro? IF you are considering hydro, you might want to consider the various 5 gallon bucket threads in the DIY section.

Good smoking brothers and sisters!

Tact,

Like I said in my edit of my last post, you're doing great. Your explanation and thoughts were easy to follow. Here are my thoughts and hopefully they are as easy to follow as yours were.

If you keep the ceiling open like it is, paint it white before you start. It will add a lot to the appearance of your room and also seal any dirt or other things that might be up there now. I wish I had taken the time to paint mine before we started installing lights and moving plants in but my son was way over his legal limit and needed to get them out of his house because he was told that someone had narced him off. In fact if I remember correctly they were already in my wife's car so she could claim them if the LEOs showed up (I hadn't obtained my prescription yet at that time because we were having difficulty getting medical records).

On the ceiling issue, sheet rocking it right to the rafters without framing it the other way will only lower your ceiling by 1/2" and would take care of both the light tightness and enable you to control the air flow better. I'm not sure exactly what you meant by radiant heat, but yes it would cut down on the heat transfer immediately above the grow room but if vented back into the basement the heat would spread throughout the basement somewhat evenly before transferring up through the ceiling/floor into the living area.

What ever you do to the ceiling, paint it white and put plenty of paint on. I think a gallon should probably cover all of your walls and ceiling.

Either way would work and if you are careful stapling the plastic it would be both air and light tight enough. Make sure you can't see any light through the plastic you use even with your grow light on and close to the plastic.


Another approach to that and similar situations is to buy some 1/2" or thicker styrofoam insulation board (anything under 1/2" gets fragile enough that it is hard to work with -- I find either an electric carving knive or a jig saw works pretty good if you take your time. I have even used my circular saw and table saw, but that was because we were working with 4" x 6" logs and cutting them down to fit in the walls of my shop.) at one of the home improvement stores and carefully cut out pieces that are tight enough to wedge into the holes. If absolute stealth is needed then seal the edges and any seams with the aluminum foil type duct tape -- it is a lot more light resistant than any color of regular duct tape. That solves all of your issues with the open rafters.

Everyone --This is also a good way to close off a window into a grow area, just put some kind of curtain between the glass and the foam board so the styrofoam isn't noticeable from outside. It also cuts down on the sound and heat transfer through the blocked off window and is easy to remove if you decide to use the window in the future.

On the vents, they have several different sizes and at least 2 colors, brown and white. They will just barely let you put small nails/screws into the studs. If you get one of the 6" vents and just cut a rectangular hole slightly less that the height of the vents between two studs, that will give you nearly twice the intake area of a 6" round fan. If you decide you need more intake area later it is easy enough to add it later.

It would be better if you could have your intake and exhaust openings nearly opposite each other rather than on the same wall, if practical. If you already have the flexible ducting, then just fasten a short piece of it between the opposite corner of the room from your intake, then run it through the vents on your light and then out the exhaust hole. Although if you have an exhaust stub on the air scrubber, mount the scrubber as close to the ceiling as practical and hook your exhaust hose to it so that ALL of the exhaust air has been deodorized immediately before being exhausted. But if you don't have a stub, then just use the scrubber as close to the open end of the exhaust hose as is practical. If you vent the scrubber through the light and then outside of the room and find that the hose is restricting the airflow too much you can always put a booster fan in over by the partition later.

Everyone -- at least locally here in Spokane, WA, both 6" and 8" insulated flex ducting is available in the build supply. If memory serve correctly, it was about $1.00/foot in 25' lengths

If I have missed any thing just remind me. My suggestions do NOT mean there is anything wrong with your ideas, just that there might be a more effective and simpler way to handle things, and I freely admit that I'm frequently way off base.

Are you going to grow in soil (including dirt or the commercial soil substitutes) or go hydro? IF you are considering hydro, you might want to consider the various 5 gallon bucket threads in the DIY section. DWC and waterfarm are very easy and inexpensive if you do it your self.

Good smoking brothers and sisters!

I picked up the insulated ducting already actually, the price was $26 for 25' feet, so about $1 a foot. Far cheaper then hydro stores online which charge $2+ per foot. As far as sheetrock going up on the ceiling, I will look into this, it would help seal the room in a bit more. The styrofoam idea if I do not go with sheet rock is a good idea, lightweight and tool less (save for cutting) installation.

This is a soil grow, I have FFOF and FFLW, already have my nutes, pH solutions and meter, and just got back from home depot getting more basic supplies like a tub to mix the dirt in, another for storing the nutes in, and having a tub to pour excess water runoff from water (from the saucers the pots will sit on) and then I will dump that dedicated runoff water tub down a drain near my washer/dryer. I have about all the pieces to the puzzle, 7am, tomorrow the electricians are coming over, then on the 30th the handyman will be here. Then I can put the puzzle together, this though gives me 19 days, or nearly 3 weeks to fine tune aspects of my grow area plans. Radically altering the handyman job might result in a new contract being drawn up is my only grievance with too much change, as it was already printed up and signed and the checks cut. I own three tools, a tape measure, a hammer, an electric drill. Dirtyolsouth showed me a nifty drill bit that can cut circular holes in drywall, so I can cut more holes in needed in the partition, or where needed in the future with that.

Edit: BTW regarding the carbon filter, I got a Can combo filter/fan. They fit into each other seamlessly and the plan was to let it sit in the corner (or mount it high in the corner) and let it scrub and dump the air back into the grow room, not duct out anywhere. It is a 449 CFM blower, while the active exhaust (not for the hood to keep the lamp cool) is a 409 CFM blower. I have a speedster fan controller and can lower the fan speed of the active exhaust if it is letting stinky air escape prior to the scrubber getting at it. I also added a picture of the partition wall, and where I asked the handyman to make some cuts. The the top left 6" hole is the active exhaust hole (near the top), it will connect to a 6" flange that is a 4"x12" square duct on the other side, I bought the appropriate vent cover for the hole. The 10"x10" hole on the bottom right will be the passive air intake, I bought a vent cover for that as well. The 6" hole at the top right is what will run the duct work out of my house, dumping the hot air coming off the light. I have large piece of screen that I can cut the appropriate size and staple gun the screen to the studs/drywall. I also mentioned to him to let me know the prospects of getting sheetrock nailed to the ceiling. The electrician came this morning, all went well.