Completely new grower. plans and some questions.

[Priestvalon]

First of all, I'll note that I've read hours upon hours of diaries and FAQs on the forums (but this is basically my first post.)

First a little background: my wife is a new medical marijuana patient. We own our own home, with a very generously sized basically unused and unfinished basement. We really do not have any kind of issues with privacy. Don't have to worry about people snooping in the basement, and normal traffic will never go into the place (plus the area could be cordoned off should we choose)

There are 2 (or 3) areas that can be used to grow... perhaps.

Boiler/Furnace area 9' * 8.5' usable

"Main" Basement area 27' * 13' (yep, bigger than it looks)

Crawlspace

Regular spaces are just about 8' to the studs, and the crawlspace is 4' to the studs.

There are a couple of horizontally sliding windows in the larger area (that I'd prefer not to deal with for venting if possible.)

----

Yes... its a nightmarish mess.. but the plan is to clean it up significantly... either into tidier storage or just out.

My plan:

I don't plan to grow a lot of plants... definitely just the permissible medical limit of 3 flowering, right now, so 350 square feet of space is absolute overkill. I was thinking of growing in the 1st (boiler/furnace) space, towards the far corner, away from the furnace.

To provide a closed system to control temps, humidity and lighting I was considering building a cabinet to grow within, and perhaps have a second area for germination, close by.

I was thinking of a 2' * 3' cabinet, using 2x4 framing, firecode sheetrock walls, a thick-ish plywood door on a hinge.

For growing/flowering I was thinking of a 600W HPS/MH unit suspended inside. I was considering a venting fan at the top pushing through vent pipe out into the crawl space (perhaps with inline active charcoal to scrub smell.)


Questions:

1) I'm wondering if venting into a largish (15*13*4) concrete walled space is appropriate. Do you "have" to vent output air to the outside?

2) Is 2' * 3' a large enough footprint for a few (3) flowering plants? Will my 600 Watt lamp be overkill for the space in terms of heat? How much clearance will I need on each side- 16" or so, perhaps? How do you handle the heat at the roof.. different material?

3) Is the plan for a cabinet versus a tent a bad one? Is there an advantage to a tent versus a cabinet (I'm not sure I "get" tents... other than the fact they are lightweight?) Am I completely missing something in my idea of cabinet building?

4) I've seen some in-box air scrubber designs. Is that preferred over an inline exhaust solution?

Basically.. if you had the space pictured above.. and the personal preference to limit the number of plants to 3 flowering, and didn't want to go crazy resource-wise... how would you set up?

P.S. I have reverse osmosis in the corner of the crawlspace.. probably accessible to my project.. but hydroponics are a complete mystery to me right now.

 

[Stakkur]

From what i can tell the only plus of having a tent VS close is that if you need to make your setup dissapear quickly the tent has a greater advantage. A closet is without doubt cheaper to make/buy than a tent ever will be and alot sturdier.
You probably migth want to look into getting a aircooled screen for your 600w lamp or a cooltube.
And absoloutly nothing says you have to vent outside, just remember that if you went inside it will raise the temps of the room you vent into.

About the airfiltration and size i'll leave that to more experienced pepole to answer.

 

[ol hippy]

Priestvalon, I'd love to have a basement like that to build a grow room !! Take advantage of your basement and give yourself plenty of room ,and maybe get a dedicated circut of at least 30 amps . If you want to keep your power costs down you could easily get away with a 400 watt hps for flowering and use cfls for vegging and keeping you mothers alive. I'd have my vegging room at least 4x6 and the same for the flowering room. You get by with much less space but the extra room makes taking care of your plants much easier. Plus if you decide to grow more your all set. I'd also go hydro and check out AN nutrients (advanced nutrient) there are plenty of great tutorials here depending on what type of grow you plan on doing. Good luck and do make use of that wonderfull basement !!

 

[Tyrone Hamilton]

600 watts is overkill for 24"x36", and that's too small for three plants too.

Go at LEAST 36"deepx48"widex96"tall... and you'll want a veg area too, 24"x36" is plenty for that.

You can vent into your house... but most carbon filters will still let some smell through, and you will smell it throughout the house. I use lemongrass oil in addition to a carbon filter, but I still have to vent outside to keep the smell at zero.

Check out my grow as it's similar in set up to what your are proposing.

 

[Roseman]

You are certainly getting some good advice here.

 

[Priestvalon]

Thank you again for all the input.

After looking at the ridiculously thorough walkthrough on Deep Water Culture I figure I'm going to give that a shot instead of dirt farming.

This (and most) water systems will, however introduce more height into the build. Obx mentioned a 96" tall cabinet height.. and I realize that there is very little exact science to this (apart from the lumen/CO2 aspect,) but I think I may need to consider a small amount of venting room, above, even if its just the amount of space to get a duct in above. I have to assume 96" isn't an absolute.. 84"-90" will probably work, right?

I also saw with much interest a crazy neat design for a cfl rig in the CFL Light Tutorial

(Credit and design @FryingPanFlyer posted in the CFL Light Tutorial)

Since I don't want to add too many variables I could screw up on my first grow, I figure a CFL rig that I could grandfather to a 2ndary seeding or whatever area would be a viable step... even if I did want to graduate to a HID lamp setup.

(Plus the low form factor on this CFL rig will likely alleviate possible height concerns.)

 

[ol hippy]

Go with the cfls for vegging that way you have a good month to decide if you want to go with a 400 hps for flowering !

 

[Tyrone Hamilton]

I started with CFL's... they were great for veg. No comparison for flower though - a 600HPS is a good light to have, generally the most lumens per watt.