Attic Grow Room, looking for advice

[CollegeGrower]

My roommate and I are building a grow room in our attic and I wanted to lay out my plans to see if everything sounds like it will function properly.

The room will be around 5X5X7. Its going to be built with 2X4's for the frame, with plywood on the outside of the 2X4, which will then be layered with insulation and then covered by another layer of plywood on the inside of the 2X4.

Do i need to insulate the roof of the room?
What kind of material is best for the floor? more wood, or maybe tile?
can i use the insulation thats already in the attic for the walls? there's a ton of it. or would something else work better?

It's an attic, so i'm buyin an A/C unit for the room. I'm envisioning basically building an airtight box around the unit and cutting a hole in the back and running an air duct to an opening in the attic.

will the A/C sufficiently pull enough air through that duct on it's own power?

i would put the A/C unit basically on the floor of the room, and then on the other side, at the top, put in a 6" fan with a carbon filter pushing air directly into the attic itself. that way fresh air would be sucked in from the outside, cooled, then put back into the attic, where it may even cool off the attic itself, considering it'll be 100+ degrees.

I have a hydrofarm Daystar AC reflector and a 600 watt high pressure sodium bulb.

can i simply run two more ducts on either side of the room that take in air from the attic and vent it back into the attic for the cooling of the light? or do i need outside air for that? or can i even just have it sucking in cool air from the grow room itself and venting it out into the attic?

Hopefully the A/C and insulation will keep the temperatures low enough for the plants, but my next question is about mylar. should i line the room with mylar for the benefits of the reflected light, or will it produce too much heat and therefore i should just paint it a very bright white? It may end up being trial and error with the mylar to find the right temperature, but any thoughts?

Getting my Cannabis Card on friday, so i figured why not grow my own!
Hoping to get it right the first time.

 

[PencilHead]

I can't give you very sound advice on your grow methods but I think I probably qualify as an expert in construction.

Why not put ply wood on the inside for durability, batt insulation between the 2x4s, then tack 3/4"x4'x8' insulation board on the outside for economy. Paint the inside flat white, as in ceiling white--most "white " paint you buy off the shelf is actually what's called B2, meaning 2 shots of black to kill the starkness of pure white. Ask for and get pure white.

Yes, you definitely need to insulate the roof--that's where the majority of your intrusive heat will come from. Again, use insulation board over batt. Do not pull the insulation out of the attic--you're home cooling bill will go nuts.

3/4" plywood for the floor. Paint it white or, Lowe's sells a 4'x8' sheet of white plastic about 1/32" thick but tough (that's what I've got over the tile in my grow room.

AC: unless you're buying a portable unit, condensation from the window shaker type will ruin your ceiling. I got my portable at something like Compact Appliances online for about $250. It's an 8000BTU and doesn't do a terrific job but keeps my temps a couple of degrees below 80F. The portable kind has 2 fans--one to push the cool air into the room, and another to pull exhausted air across the cooling unit and out. It's about a 5" exhaust but pretty much handles its own heating issues and not much else. But, yes, I exhaust the hot air from it into my attic. By the way, regular AC units don't pull air from outside--they pull room air inside them and then over the cooling fins, and back out. The warm air you feel outside is from another fam blowing across the coils. MO you'd never get that attic air very cool no matter what you did with it. I'd be more likely to pull incoming air from either outside ambient temp air or, better still, from inside your home. I've got a carbon filter for my portable but I've never hooked it up because the AC seems to eat the smell somehow. I do run filters before my lites, so I pull house air through the lites, out the ceiling and through the fan in the attic. Fans are much more efficient pulling air than pushing it. Pulling attic air through your lites will surely help as those lites really put out some heat--but house air is optimum. Temp control should pretty much counter the neccesity for CO2 or other fancy stuff.

I think I answered the Mylar question some but here: Films are a pain in the butt, virtually impossible to clean, and your in-room fan (you need plenty of oscilated air blowing on your girls to make the stems tough) will push them around unmercifully. Flat white is great in that you can go in between crops and Clorox down everything in there, eliminating mold problems.

Sorry I couldn't be a lot of help with your indoor grow issues--I'm still in the learning phase myself. Maybe my bump will get one of the old timers to jump in. Peace and luck.

 

[PencilHead]

Sorry, CeeGee, you ask me what time it is, I tell you how to build a clock. Just like the scorpion on the turtle's back--it's just my nature.

 

[BBFan]

How many plants you planning? 25' is a big space. You'll definitely be on the low side for lumens (about 3700) with a 600w.
You may want to think about a slightly smaller space. I grew 8 plants in a 10 ft space that yielded 3/4 lb plus.

Very informative post Pencilhead.

 

[CollegeGrower]

That post was definitely helpful Pencilhead, thanks. I'm still trying to figure out the best place for air intake because i'm not sure if through the apartment is possible without doing some permanent damage, so i may just have to intake from above the attic, which will be quite hot this time of year, but i'm planning on buying a nice portable AC so hopefully we can keep the temps low enough with the insulation as well.

I'm planning on growing 12 at first, and then giving 6 of them to a friend when he finishes his grow room next fall, and then i think i'm going to switch to hydroponics, but i'll deal with that when the time comes.

as for size, i had no idea a larger room would make less of a yield. just because of lower amounts of reflection? i just wanted a large enough room so that i could walk inside of it and take care of the plants rather than feeling like i'm in a tiny closet, but if it'll make the plants grow better, then it wouldnt be hard to make it smaller.

i'm starting on friday when my roommate has time to help me build, so i'll be sure to throw up some pictures of what im working with/planning on.

it sucks having to wait until friday. i sit at my computer for hours researching things that ive already researched, and then lay in bed at night thinking about how to set it up. haha but everyone keeps saying patience is the key in this kind of operation, so patience it is.

thanks for the reply's!

 

[UKGr0wer]

sounds good

 

[CollegeGrower]

Got the card today
8 ounces of dried marijuana and 6 mature, 12 immature plants, protected by California State Law (i know there's crazy whack stuff that happens out there, but at least the card gives me a sense of legitimacy)

cant wait to go check out some club clones on sunday

The attic space is cleared out, and im purchasing all the box materials at Home Depot tomorrow morning.

it's gonna be more like an inside area of 4' by 5' with insulation and everything, and hopefully about 7' tall.

gonna get a 8000+BTU portable AC unit once the room is built and ready to go. everything's just gettin so damn expensive when you're tryin to do it right. long term investment tho

hopefully everything plays out right and i've got a nice little grow setup soon. i've got to head to best buy and get a computer cord for my camera, but i'll be taking solid pics.

 

[GreenThumbz99]

Also, dude, if you ultimately plan on doing hydro, I would recommend just going hydro from the start. Your plants are your projects. Projects which take multiple months to get actual production. So if you start soil and realize that maybe you want hydro half way through, there's nothing you can really do about it but wait until you're done. I've always found that you should just go all out. Make it the best grow you can or don't grow at all (well, actually, still keep growing anyways).

 

[CollegeGrower]

just purchased $450 worth of wood and $100 worth of insulation. hopefully i'll start building today and be finished with the box by thursday. then it's off to buy my entire intake/exhaust system. damn this project is expensive! lol.

 

[DirtySouthernAfficionado]

Dude, that is awesome.
I'm stoked, I am moving in a day and my new house has a shed in the back that is primo for a garden. Can't wait to get to work on that.
You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders as far as research and planning. And I'm dead on with Pencil. Solid advice...
I definately would not jump into hydroponics first if this is your first grow. It does time and money and is quite an investment, but to me hydroponics cost a bit more on the startup, and is quite unforgiving with mistakes. Best to keep it simple and learn the ropes, gain some experience, and then move into hydro. Just MO there though....
Good luck and good smoke

 

[Friend-of-a-friend]

I just moved my veg room to garage rafters. It gets blazin hot through the day up there though (with my room well insulated and ballasts outside room). I went out and baught a big used window unit and just saw-zawwed a hole in my gable and stuck the unit in. I gotta say that it's not super stealthy though to just have an A.C. unit sticking out of a hole leading to nowhere. Plus my wife was less than thrilled at the sight when she got home and seen what I had done........

 

[PencilHead]

Plus my wife was less than thrilled at the sight when she got home and seen what I had done........

Damn, FoF, our wives went to the same training camp, sounds like. Then again, sounds like you and I did too. People always say stuff like: it's such a nice place and it was the contractor's. I WAS that contractor for years and years, and every attic in every house I lived in looked like Brainiac had been up there. You have to do everyone else's work so far above par to maintain your rep that when you get home... well, it's the shoemaker's son syndrome.