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

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Tact

Learning Everyday
Joined
Oct 28, 2009
Messages
336
Reaction score
112
Hey all, first time poster, and first time grower, with some questions.

I am putting together a grow in my basement (see attached pictures below), the grow area is in a cool basement, poured concrete floor, 6x6x6.5 is the dimensions of the area. Two walls are concrete (behind, and right), one is 1' partition wood (left), with the other side being open, I figured I could seal off this area with heavy plastic and perhaps Mylar to keep all the light in the grow area, cut a slit down the middle to access the grow. I live alone (except for my female Akita :rolleyes:), in a small 1000 square foot house. The grow will be Serious Seeds White Russian (from seeds), I have 12 seeds, plan on germing 6-8. I am going to use either a 1000w HPS/MH or a 600w HPS/MH (feedback on light size for this grow area, which do you think would be better?).

Now to my questions, if you can quote sections and respond to those, it will make it easier to follow and respond back to :D!

1) Either way, I am scared of heat, I am paranoid of a fire, and my subsequent arrest and seizure of my home! Therefore I absolutely plan on getting a high-quality vented hood with whatever light I get. In regards to passive/active exhaust and intake, how does this work exactly? I see that vented hoods have your typical 6'-8' flange, allowing for you to put on a (scrubber) -> Can/Vortex -> exhaust, and drive the air AWAY from the grow. How then would you be bringing air INTO the grow to cycle the air?

Is the exhaust through the hood simply to remove heat/odor, because I do not see any hoods with a second flange to bring IN air? I was looking at the 750 CFM Vortex 8' blower, this would be attached to a scrubber that would be attached directly to the hood, then I was going to drive it through an 8' (or 6' if people seem to think 8' is overkill) and into my dryer ducting that then dumps outside (see pictures for the ducting area), perhaps by putting an elbow with an additional opening to allow for another duct to be connected to the existing dryer duct work.

2) But! My dryer duct work looks like it is only 6', but when it dumps outside is actually only 4'. So would an active exhaust of 6'-8' dumping through a SHARED 4' exhaust be a potential fire hazard due to the light fluffy dryer dust that gets expelled outside through this duct work, though dryers exhaust air is hot itself..? The distance the blower would be pushing would be about 20 feet, really is quite a straight shot with minimal turns in the duct work, see pictures below.

3) Power. There is limited outlets in my basement, and the ones that are there look very very old. One near where my dryer duct work exits my house is a 3-prong, which makes me assume it is grounded, but who knows? I attached a picture of my circuit breaker box if anyone can derive any information from that. Should I expect to contact a licensed electrician, and what exactly should I tell him I need if I need to do so? I don't want to tell him "HEY MAN, GROWING WEED, HOOK ME UP THERE BUDDY", how much power would I expect to need by way of outlets with a 1000w HPS, (1-2) 6'-8' blowers, an oscillating fan to cool the canopy, etc. Again, I am very paranoid about a fire, I plan on getting a smoke detector and several fire extinguishers.

4) Slightly moldy basement. My house is older, the basement has cracks down the walls, and is generally humid with a sump-pump. Every time it rains these cracks in my walls accumulate SOME moisture, but don't ever reach the floor. This is an environment that seems prone to a bit of mold in these crack (dark, damp, etc). How much of an issue is this with the plants? I can seal off the grow area (but not air tight) by putting heavy-plastic around the 6x6x6.5 (LxWxH) area.

5) The ceiling is only 6.5" feet tall, the ceiling is also old, dry, wood. Again, I fear a fire, should I put FIREWALL (with nails) up on the ceiling and on the left 1' wood partition? I could nail it up and suspend the grow light from that, that would reduce my height to about 6".

So to recap:

How many blowers should I buy (an assumption of a 1000w or 600w), what size 6'/8'?

Is it a good idea to put an elbow onto my existing dryer exhaust and attach my grow active exhaust to that? If so, what size scrubber should I get to ensure that what dumps outside (right into my neighbors driveway) does not have a smell issue?

Thoughts on my heat/mold concerns?

How many 3-prong grounded outlets should I expect to use for this one-light grow? Do I need to get an electrician out here to drill a hole in my concrete wall (behind my grow), or through the 1' wood partition on the left (in picture #1) and make sure my circuit breaker is capable of handing the load?


I appreciate any, and ALL feedback! I have been pouring over the information on the website and in the forums but have some clarification questions, as well as specific questions regarding my grow in particular.
 
In that size of room you should be using 2 1000watt hps, at least. I would have an electrician run 220 to the basement. It will reduce the chance of your wiring burning up from too much heat. Tell the electrician you are going to put a hot tub down there so you need 220 with large gauge wiring. You can have him wire up a 220 timer at the same time and a couple of outlets. I use 220 for my flower room and it has a dedicated circuit. Make sure you use large enough wiring to handle the amperage that you need. He can also run a dedicated circuit for 110 at the same time to run your fans and other devices. Have him put in lots of 110 outlets around the room for ease of use. Also have him put your outlets above waist level for safety. I do my own wiring but you should have a professional do it if you don't know what you are doing.
 
Kasgrow thanks for the response man I really appreciate it :)!

kasgrow said:
I would have an electrician run 220 to the basement.
Isn't this the same size outlet used for plugging in things like a dryer? I thought your typical 1000w HPS has a standard 110 volt plug. One of the 1000w lamps I was looking at sais it comes standard with a 110 volt plug, that can be upgraded to a 240 volt.. for 10 bucks, but I didn't see 220 volts anywhere. I will copy paste the details, but I can't link to the lamp because I need 15 posts before I can post a link.


1000W HPS System /w Bell Washington LR 1000 Reflector $469.95
  • 240V Wiring Upgrade - This option will allow you to run your ballast at 240 volts. The ballast will arrive to you wired at 240V with a 240V plug instead of the standard 110V house plug.
kasgrow said:
You can have him wire up a 220 timer at the same time and a couple of outlets.
What is a 220 timer, and what is it used for :confused:?

kasgrow said:
Make sure you use large enough wiring to handle the amperage that you need.
How much amperage would I need for just ONE 1000w HPS? I want to make sure I have no heat issues before going to (2) 1000w HPS :D. If an electrician asked for example, "So how much amperage are you going to need here, and what size wires would you want?", what would I say, a hot tub is a good idea but how about a number?


kasgrow said:
Have him put in lots of 110 outlets around the room for ease of use.
Great idea, what do you figure something like this would end up costing from a pro-electrician, $400+?

Any input on the ventilation, mold, etc.

I am still confused regarding the basics of push/pull ventilation.

Again, thank you mucho for responding!
 
kasgrow said:
In that size of room you should be using 2 1000watt hps, at least. I would have an electrician run 220 to the basement. It will reduce the chance of your wiring burning up from too much heat. Tell the electrician you are going to put a hot tub down there so you need 220 with large gauge wiring. You can have him wire up a 220 timer at the same time and a couple of outlets. I use 220 for my flower room and it has a dedicated circuit. Make sure you use large enough wiring to handle the amperage that you need. He can also run a dedicated circuit for 110 at the same time to run your fans and other devices. Have him put in lots of 110 outlets around the room for ease of use. Also have him put your outlets above waist level for safety. I do my own wiring but you should have a professional do it if you don't know what you are doing.


great response,i was going to give advice on the spa idea,or sauna idea.good to see people using their heads.another excuse for basements is a pottery kiln.my kiln runs 5000 watts at 240.
 
HI Tact...

GREAT post... very well put together... WELCOME to MP!

That's GREAT info from Kasgrow... There's a bunch of helpful growers here but don't forget all the info from past posts on just about any topic so sometimes the search function will pull up threads that go through many scenarios. I like to use Google's 'advanced search' function and use it to 'search within a domain or website' for marijuanapassion.com

It sounds like you're going to have a very nice personal grow setup and you're thinking about ALL the right things... Ventilation ventilation ventilation.... You're going to have plenty of fresh air in your grow room and you're already going to be one up on the odors by not ever letting them build up with your good air exchange going on. I grown in a small 2 x 4 x 8 closet in a spare bedroom. I have a 1K switchable Quantum digital ballast in a 6" cool tube built into a reflector. I have a 40 lb carbon filter first in my ventilation chain, then a 6" chunk of the semi rigid, bendable 6" duct about 18" long going from my filter that's hung high in my closet to the intake side of my cool tube... then out of the cool tube into a rigid elbow connector and it then goes up an 8' piece of 6" semi rigid duct. I have my fan mounted in the attic, hung on rubber straps to reduce vibration and noise and a 630cfm Eclipse/Ostberg fan does all the work.

My system keeps things in the mid to upper 70's as long as the temps in the bedroom where the closet is are in the lower 70's... I have a passive 4" intake that is adequate for cool air supply from fall til spring and in the summer I use a window a/c unit to keep temps and humidity under control and a 4" inline fan to blow cool air into my intake... Since your grow will be in your basement you're gonna be one up on the temps already...

Another thought.... Carbon filters and ventilation work amazingly well to control odors. I grew for many years with only ventilation, always piping it out of the rooftop so that it would dissipate and be minimal outside the house. It worked pretty well but I never had peace of mind growing weed until I bought my first carbon filter. I swear it's going to be the best investment you make other than a HPS light... I think something around a 40lb filter will be more than adequate for your 1K grow but it's better to get one too big than too small. You could separate the filter from your exhaust and just run the filter constantly from within the room with another, lower powered fan... one rated for the filter probably closer to 300cfm... If you hook up a filter to an inline fan and keep it constantly exchanging the air in the room thru the filter odors never get a chance to build up at all... period... And you can hook up your exhaust for your lights independently... You could even pull fresh air from outside to the intake side of your light's hood/cool tube and pull the heat off the bulb and exhaust it outside... This is probably the most efficient way to set up your system...

ONE more thought... For $29 you can buy a 'Speedster' motor speed controller and have your high output exhaust fan plugged into it for precise control of air flow cuz when it's cooler outside you'll be able to back off on the fan speed/noise made by the exhaust. The fans are pretty quiet especially if you don't couple them with your structure and use heavy duty rubber straps (next to bungee at home depot) to hand the fan from. Most of the noise however is from the w-h-o-o-o-o-o-s-h of air going thru your ductwork... If you can use insulated duct it helps cut the w-h-o-o-o-o-o-s-h down quite a bit...

I'll read back thru your post... but this may give you some info to start with. hit me back if you have more questions...

Peace!:cool:
 
dirtyolsouth said:
HI Tact...

GREAT post... very well put together... WELCOME to MP!

Thanks bro, I appreciate the hospitality! :smoke1:

dirtyolsouth said:
I have a 40 lb carbon filter first in my ventilation chain, then a 6" chunk of the semi rigid, bendable 6" duct about 18" long going from my filter that's hung high in my closet to the intake side of my cool tube... then out of the cool tube into a rigid elbow connector and it then goes up an 8' piece of 6" semi rigid duct.

So do you have duct work going in, and out of your lamp? The lamps I have been able to find only have one flange, allowing for only one duct piece, which I assume is for exhaust? This is what I am not getting about ventilation, when people are bringing in active air, are they just dropping a piece of duct work on the floor that is somehow bringing air in from outside. Like a blower by a window pushing air 20 feet into the grow room itself, then the exhaust coming off the lamp and going outside?

dirtyolsouth said:
You could separate the filter from your exhaust and just run the filter constantly from within the room with another, lower powered fan... one rated for the filter probably closer to 300cfm... If you hook up a filter to an inline fan and keep it constantly exchanging the air in the room thru the filter odors never get a chance to build up at all... period... And you can hook up your exhaust for your lights independently... You could even pull fresh air from outside to the intake side of your light's hood/cool tube and pull the heat off the bulb and exhaust it outside... This is probably the most efficient way to set up your system...

So hook up a carbon filter (40 lb. you suggested?) to a 300 CFM blower and just mount it to a piece of wood and put it on the floor for example? Then the air in the room itself would be getting scrubbed before the exhaust even has a chance to push the air from the room out of my house through my dryer duct exhaust?

dirtyolsouth said:
The fans are pretty quiet especially if you don't couple them with your structure and use heavy duty rubber straps (next to bungee at home depot) to hand the fan from.

Great idea :)!

Thanks so much for taking the time to help Dirty South, karma gods always find a way to smile on such things. BTW how do I thank people in forum threads? :ccc:
 
Tact,

WELCOME OT THE FORUMS. THEY ARE AN EXCELLENT SOURCE OF INFORMATION, BUT READ THE IMPORTANT MESSAGE POSTED AT THE START OF EACH FORUM AND SUB-FORUM.

Unless you learn a whole lot real quick you are going to get yourself into a lot of trouble blindly asking questions and following blindly following answers from the forums. Now before everyone starts pissing and moaning, I use the forums a whole lot for growing information, but without a GOOD basic understanding of electrical things, these Q & As will get you hurt real quick.

For your own safety and benefit, address electrical and heating/air conditioning questions to professionals in those fields, not your unknown grow buddy. Questions here on those issues should be more of the nature of "How much electrical power do I need for a grow room of a given size?" and "what kind of ventilation do I need?" then "How do I handle my odor problem?" and PLEASE SEPARATE THEM OUT INTO DIFFERENT THREADS SO YOU CAN FOLLOW THE ANSWERS AND THE PEOPLE ANSWERING CAN FOLLOW THEM TOO. If I know a lot about say heating/air conditioning (no I don't claim to know a lot about any one subject, but I do know enough about a lot of things to know when I'm getting good or bad advice and when I'm going to get into trouble) but little about electrical and even less about odor control, how long do you think I'm going to try to follow a thread that deals with several things besides the heating/air conditioning topic before I get frustrated and drop out?


The rest of this post will deal with the electrical issues because without electricity your dead in the water. I'll address your other issues in separate posts, that way they are easier to follow and comment on.

It is impossible to answer your questions about the electrical issues because you aren't giving us anywhere near enough information. Stop and think, has anyone asked you about what kind of electrical service your old house currently has -- like does it use fuses or circuit breakers, how far is it from you main box to your grow room, how much amperage will you current main service handle? If you have a 100 amp fused main panel, you are NOT going ot safely be able to add 40 or more amps to the load without having to shut down part of the house when you are running the grow room. Also her are 2 vital terms for you 110v = 120v and 220v = 240v -- they are just different ways of measuring the same thing. If you want a better explanation than that you are going to need at least a basic understand of AC electricity.

My following answers are based on the premise that you have sufficient residual available power in your main service after you subtract what you currently use from its total rating. For example I have a 200 amp 220 volt circuit breaker main panel that I use a electric water heater (30 amp, 220 volt) and a electric clothes dryer (30 amp @ 220 volts) and a 70 amp @ 220 volt sub panel for my shop running off of. That gives me a current 220 volt load of 130 amps leaving me 70 amps @ 220 volts or 140 amps @ 110 volts available to run the entire house off of. Now if I take 40 amps@ 220 volts for my grow room, which is the equivalent to 80 amps @ 110 volts or 4 20 amp 110 volt circuits, that leaves me with 30 amps @ 220 or 60 amps @ 110 volts to run the rest of the house off of. That is marginal for the average house but since you live by yourself, that would probably be sufficient IF you don't use electric heat or air conditioning.

In my case I'm in a lot better shape than the numbers show because my shop only uses the whole 70 amps @ 220 volts when both my commercial air compresseor and electric welder are running at the same time, which is very seldom.

Now do you see what the problem with simplistic questions and simplistic answers are?

My advice to you is to get a couple of estimates on having a sub panel of at least 40 amps @ 220 volts installed in your basement with say 4 different 20 amps @ 110 volts circuits installed in your grow room with the plugins mounted from the ceiling. If the want to know why you need it, tel them you are going to start doing wood work in there and want each of your major tools on separate circuits. That is a totally normal set up for a hobby wood working shop and will be sufficient for your grow needs for ever. Use 110 volt lights and fans, it is a lot simpler that way. The reason you see so many people talking about 220v lights is because there was a time that 11o v HID (MH/HPS) light weren't available.
 
Now to the issue of the basic suitability of your basement for a grow area. IF if is always damp and musty down there, it is a good bet that you are going to have issues with MOLD, being too cool, and not enough fresh air.

First fix the cracks that you were talking about so that you have a cleaner and less moldy environment. Then figure out what you are going to do about heat in the winter because most basements without a heat source are going to be in the 50f to 60f range or cooler, which is really too cool to grow effectively in.

Next, what are you going to do to get fresh air into the grow operation because exhaust ventilation will NOT work without a suitable and equal source of fresh air. Also you are going to have to be heating that air in the winter. The plants need a lot of fresh air regardless of whether or not you have a heat problem and the warmer it gets the more fresh air they need. You will get all kinds of estimates on how much fresh air you need but I think everyone agrees you need pretty close to at least 1 complete air exchange per minute, and I think that is actually on the low side. To figure out how much many air exchanges you will get, you figure the cubic feet of your grow room and divide that into the Cubic Feet per Minute your ventilation system will move. the result is your fresh air/stale air exchanges per minute. In your case the volume of your grow room is 234 cf which would theoretically give you 2.8 air exchanges per minute with a 650 cfm fan. On a practical basis I would figure getting 2 exchanges/min because the 650 cfm fan will NOT move that much air through filters and tubing, especially the flexible kind or through elbows and Tees.

Without being able to see your house, I would suggest that you get the 650 cfm fan and vent it outside and try running it for a while to see if it gets rid of the stale musty odor before going any farther with your grow operation. One possible solution to the heat issue is what I do in my home. I draw the fresh air out of my heated area and vent the "stale" air back into the house and let the house heating and air conditioning take care of the heating cooling issue.
 
Now lets talk about the lighting issue.

Most people seem to sue 5,000 lumens/square foot as the standard in determining how much light you need. In your case your floor area is 36 square feet -- 6X6=36 ( the height isn't real relevant because you can adjust the distance the lights are above the plants by several different means). When you multiply that by 5,000 lumens/ square foot you get 180,000 lumens needed. Since 1000 watt HPS average around 135,000 lumens, on e 1000 HPS will be marginal. However, using the specs for Pulserite 600 watt HPS @ 90,000 lumens 2 600 watt HPS lights would be right on the money and 2 1000watt HPS would be over kill but not enough to hurt any thing except to generate more heat. In my humble opinion 2 600s is almost always better than 1 one 1000 because it gives you safety if you loose a ballast or a bulb since you will still have 600 watts available while you get it replaced instead of no light. Also, it lets you distribute the light a little better. Running all MH or a mixture of HPS and MH during veg seems to give a lot better results than just using HPS all the way through, or you could add the needed blue spectrum by adding several "cool white" fluorescent lights during veg.

In my opinion it it better to get 2 600s with switchable/autosensing ballasts so that you can run either MH or HPS because they are a lot cheaper than buying one MH ballast and another HPS ballast. Keep looking around for cool tube type lights that use 2 fittings, one for intake and one for exhaust with a sealed housing including a sealed glass lens because then you can control the light heat without having to worry about the odor problem. If you just start looking on the various hydro/grow equipment suppliers web sites they are readily available.

Now lest's see what kind of a hornet's nest I've stirred up.

The best of every thing to you. I don't want to discourage you, but on the other hand I do NOT want to see you make mistakes because you jumped in without thinking things through. It is a lot less expensive and safer to think things through before you start than to correct errors after you get started.

In case you are wondering, I have a 12' x 6' flower room and a 4' x 12' veg room and it is already becoming too small, but then I'm trying to supply the medicinal needs of 3 patients. Currently I run 5 400 watt MHs but am updating as I get money.

Also, if oyu are going to try to run one grow area, you might consider growing one or more of the autoflowering strains because they are simpler to grow. You don't have to switch light schedules or light types and you don't have to worry about when to put them into flower because they switch on their own. They don't usually yield quite as much per plant/grow as the normal strains, but they are a lot more flexible and let you keep a perpetual harvest going in one room if that interests you. Also they run between 40 and 80 days from planting the seed to harvest so over the period of a year, you can get nearly the same or maybe even more yield because of the mjore crops that you can grow.

 
Hey Don, thanks for the reply I really appreciate it bro! Seriously, these forums are very warm, and friendly, I am truly impressed and grateful. Few sources of information exist in this world that help to alleviate the questions of the human condition like a website full of helpful people, competently, realistically, and supportively aiding people in the safe pursuit of fat buds :watchplant:.

DonJones said:
Tact,

WELCOME OT THE FORUMS. THEY ARE AN EXCELLENT SOURCE OF INFORMATION, BUT READ THE IMPORTANT MESSAGE POSTED AT THE START OF EACH FORUM AND SUB-FORUM.

Thank you for the welcome, after I made my post I started looking at the 'sticky' posts at the top, I did not even notice them before hand, I am not an avid forum poster on the internet. On that note I really appreciate people answering my questions when I clearly could of 'searched' some of my questions prior to asking them. Your advice on not taking hardcore electricial information as anything more then a basis before consulting a professional is a wise one, thank you for putting that in perspective for my own safety!

DonJones said:
Now if I take 40 amps@ 220 volts for my grow room, which is the equivalent to 80 amps @ 110 volts or 4 20 amp 110 volt circuits, that leaves me with 30 amps @ 220 or 60 amps @ 110 volts to run the rest of the house off of. That is marginal for the average house but since you live by yourself, that would probably be sufficient IF you don't use electric heat or air conditioning.

My house is extremely inefficient, and I am a bit of an energy hog, though I am starting to take steps to lower my carbon footprint. In the summers it gets extremely uncomfortable in my house, even with the AC running all day (until the sun sets). My AC can not get the temps below 75 degrees even when it runs constantly, it is like an epic battle between two elements, Fire and Ice (seen the movie anyone?), and my AC rarely beats mother nature. I have had my AC looked at etc by HVAC pros and they all say my AC is fine etc. Its just a poorly insulated house with a not-so-great addition the previous owner made, in my opinion to increase the square footage prior to trying to sell it. In the winters I do run my HEAT and I also leave a PC on 24/7 for networking purposes, given that I would rather have too much amperage available then too little.

DonJones said:
My advice to you is to get a couple of estimates on having a sub panel of at least 40 amps @ 220 volts installed in your basement with say 4 different 20 amps @ 110 volts circuits installed in your grow room with the plugins mounted from the ceiling.

So a sub-panel, I take it is a separate box, next to, or near my existing circuit breaker box? BTW the distance from the grow area to my circuit breaker box is about 10 feet, very very close. What you reckon a rough ballpark estimate would be for such a thing $300-$500 from an electrician? Cost is not an issue really, more so I want convenience to plug things in, the ceiling is a great idea for where to put the outlets, that should help keep cables off the floor. So one outlet for the lamp exclusively, one or two for the blowers, and then another outlet for an oscilatting fan/(de)humidifier/radio etc, which should all be able to share an outlet. That seems perfect.


DonJones said:
First fix the cracks that you were talking about so that you have a cleaner and less moldy environment. Then figure out what you are going to do about heat in the winter because most basements without a heat source are going to be in the 50f to 60f range or cooler, which is really too cool to grow effectively in.

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.

I never thought about heat for the winter, hmm. To use a heat exhange from the rest of my house would mean either going up some stairs with duct work, or finding/increasing the size of a hole in the floor somewhere in my basement ceiling. Originally, I was going to exhaust through my dryer ductwork outside, and bring in air through a different, side window in my basement on the back of my house where a window opens up to my backyard. I was considering opening the window (it slides left to right), putting in a piece of wood cut to fit the size of the window (in front of the screen that is) and cut out a whole 6"-8" in the wood for the duct work to rest in, secure it, and use that for an active intake. This would be right behind my AC unit, well hidden and in my backyard. This however does not address the issue of bringing in cold-cooler air into the grow room, and then how to heat it for the MJ, Missouri has hot-humid summers, and cold-brutal winters. Very good point that I had not considered. Perhaps in the winter I could just use a scrubber in the grow room itself to scrub the air, but not exhaust it all? Using the lamp to raise the ambient temperature of the room. Somehow this seems like a bad idea to me. :D

DonJones said:
Without being able to see your house, I would suggest that you get the 650 cfm fan and vent it outside and try running it for a while to see if it gets rid of the stale musty odor before going any farther with your grow operation. One possible solution to the heat issue is what I do in my home. I draw the fresh air out of my heated area and vent the "stale" air back into the house and let the house heating and air conditioning take care of the heating cooling issue.

I will attach a few pictures of my basement, and make a basic top-down layout schematic.


DonJones said:

In my opinion it it better to get 2 600s with switchable/autosensing ballasts so that you can run either MH or HPS because they are a lot cheaper than buying one MH ballast and another HPS ballast. Keep looking around for cool tube type lights that use 2 fittings, one for intake and one for exhaust with a sealed housing including a sealed glass lens because then you can control the light heat without having to worry about the odor problem. If you just start looking on the various hydro/grow equipment suppliers web sites they are readily available.

Interesting, maybe I will do (2) 600s then, I could always reduce the size of my grow ares with a partition-like tent of Mylar/some reflective material to make my grow area smaller, and more proportionate to the lumens that a typical 1000w HPS/MH will produce. I was looking into the switchable ballasts, and was planning on getting an MH and HPS bulb to better harness the full growth of veg (20/4 or 18/6) before going flowering (12/12). Great info.

Thanks again for taking the time out of your day to respond to my questions!

:bong:
 
DonJones, I uploaded some photos.

Photo #1: This is the doorway that leads from the wooden partitioned side of the grow area, the back wall and right wall being concrete, with the last open area leading to my dryer/washing machine and HVAC/water heater. The floor is covered in carpet up to the sliding door, then is poured concrete beyond and in the grow area.

Photo #2: This is the window I was thinking of running the active exhaust to, it is directly behind where I was standing when taking photo #1. You can see some ductwork along the ceiling, that seems to dump outside, through I am not sure if cutting into that is a good idea??

Photo #3: This is the mold I was talking about, this is at the base of my stairway leading down to my basement. I do not seem to see any mold in the poured concrete side of my basement, but I don't go back there nearly as much either, it only takes one mold spore also is my understanding.

Layout schematic: I just wanted to give you a quick perspective of my basements layout, I would say the dimensions are roughly 15'x30', but I am guesstimating.

Photo #4: Movie poster of Fire & Ice (1983) :D.
 
Find a decent electrician and support his family, you really need his expertise, you know nothing and it could kill you. I did and i have had him come back a number of times to do more stuff, clearly worth every penny. Get the outlets that pop 'off' when water hits them... :) don't ask.

Choose another method of dumping the hot humid stinky air, you're clothes drier will smell like a skunk if you use the same ductwork as it, because it will permeate any ducting attached. It looks like you have a window available in that basement, use that? And you sure don't want fluff in your light...yikes!

An ozone maker will keep the basement smell free, for times when you open the room up to work with the plants. It will also kill off molds, yeasts, bacteria and viruses in your basement. I make mine, i have a few. Find an old neon sign and remove the transformer and make one, the internet is chuck full of diy ozone maker instructions.

Fire wall your ceiling so that you can stop worrying about it, but it probably won't be an issue.

Don't invest in the best switchable ballast that could light up Las Vegas and forget about all the other stuff needed to grow, balance your budget and don't forget to invest in the little things that get overlooked after the million dollar light... a decent ph meter, good nutes, decent dirt, decent seeds.

Good luck with your learning curve, it's a looooong strange trip.
 
hey if you got electrical questions pm me i can help you out.ive been an sparky (electrician) for a long time. subpanel is the way to go like don said. but keep in mind if you choose 240 your timers and stuff will have to match. you can still run 2 600 off a 20 amp breaker and be fine. the actual breaker will trip at 16 amps. a 1000 draws 9.5 amps on 120 so you could really only have 1 light per breaker with maybe couple fans.if you have room in box for more breakers and wanna stay cheap thats the way to go. either way you are safe. one is not safer than other just a matter of what you have left in your main box for spaces.
 
Hi Tact.

I wouldn't dare offer any suggestions. May I instead wish you good luck in your endeavor. I look forward to seeing your first grow.

Based on the quality of your questions- sounds like you'll do great. I'm sure you'll do the right things, and do things right. Welcome to MP!
 
For heat in the winter you can turn off your light fan. You can use a dehumidifier to solve any humidity problems. You don't need to exhaust your air in the grow room if you run co2. I never exchange the air in my flower room because I use co2. In the summer I run the fan to cool my lights when they are on. In the winter time I put the fan on a timer to control temps. A basement is actually a good place to use if set up right because it stays cool. With some on and off times of your light fan you can control temps. My lights have ducting from the outside through the light reflectors and up through the roof. Remember the plants take in co2 through their leaves and exhaust oxygen so you have no need to replace the air in your grow room if you add co2.
As for the electrical questions an electrician will have to make sure you have capacity to run the power. You can have the main panel replaced with one that can handle the extra panel. You do want to add a sub panel and an electrician will install a sub panel for your hot tub. I use a 50 amp sub panel in my garden. The electrician will be able to tell you what gauge of wire you need based on the distance from you main panel and your sub panel. You will have to get an estimate from the electrician because I do my own electrical wiring. The 220 timers are to control you lights on and off times.
 
If your room is sealed up and use co2 you don't need to worry about a carbon filter because you are not pumping your grow room air outside. .
 
Tact,

Thanks for the pictures.

The first thing I see is you have more than a mold problem there. You have a crack that is letting ground water seep through the crack in your wall. If you don't get it fixed correctly it will only get worse.

On the electrical issue, take Dr Pyro up on his offer. With his guidance and a little common sense you can probably do this your self. Forget about using 240/220v volts any further than the subpanel. It only complicates buying equipment. timers, lights, fans, pumps and what ever will all be more expensive and have no advantage. one advantage that you have is an unfinished ceiling so you have a place to run the wiring.

Let me think about the other issues. Oh yes, what is behind the wall where that round duct goes through?
 
I use a 600watt and a 1000watt hps in my garden that is 6x8. I plan on replacing my 600watt with another 1000 watt hps. I also am going to get a light mover so the light will cover my whole garden. I grow trees in my garden so I need more light to penetrate the canopy. If I could afford the electricity I would add two more 1000 watt hps. If you check out my sig you will see old pictures of my grow room.
 
CAUTION -- supplementing CO2 is NOT a thing to do lightly or a substitute for getting everything else right first! If you don't have everything else dialed in, the supplementing with CO2 is a waste of time and money. Supplementing CO2 is a very advanced technique and not to be used by anyone without good habits and information. If you are interested there are other threads dealing with the pros and cons, but it is NOT amateur hour if you don't want it to kill someone!

Even more important, supplementing with CO2 in a NON airtight room what abuts a living area is very dangerous as is forgetting to thoroughly ventilate the grow area before going inside.

That stuff will kill you or your loved ones if you aren't very careful!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top