Grow Shed questions

Treehouseman

Treehouseman

Active Member
I have an 8x7(approx) treehouse that im planning on setting up a grow room inside of. Im planning on making a room inside the treehouse 30in x 30 in and 7 feet high (to the rafters in the treehouse). I plan to make a false ceiling to the grow that can be raised and lowered on chains. My lights (150w HPS and 100w HPS) will hang from short chains from the false ceiling. for ventilation I have a 3 inch computer fan and a larger 5 inch one.

The only issue I have is that I'd like to be able to grow all year round, but the temperature fluctuations outside might make it hard to maintain optimal conditions inside the grow. In the summer it can get very stuffy up there, like upwards of 80 degrees, and in the winter it can drop as low as 30. Obviously I want to insulate the room, and I want to be able to control my outtake to vent either outside of the treehouse or inside it right? What i mean is in the winter, to help keep the heat I could vent the grow cab into the treehouse and in the summer I could vent it outside the treehouse to help keep from overheating.

The treehouse is about 10 feet off the ground, the underside of the floor is exposed to the elements so i will insulate underneath the grow room as well. Im thinking that I want my intake fan to pull air from underneath the treehouse up into the growroom. also how much insulation should I use?

well lemme know what you guys think, im open to any and all suggestions about how I can build my room to keep conditions optimal. i know from there, alot of it's gonna be trial and error before i get the perfect balance.:Namaste:
 
1st off I wouldn't focus much on the insulation at the floor, heat rises and you seem to be in the same temp range as me. My shed was insulated on the sides and tops so as to keep heat in.

You'll need elec and water. Depending on the size of the plants, the amount of water could be a lot. If your goal is stealth, you still have to get the water up there. You might be able to mix and test on the ground, then use a pump get the water up there or use small buckets.


As far as insulation, I used 2x4 fiberglass in the walls and ceiling. Then covered everything with 1.5" foil backed styro with 2" on the top.

You could run a fan at the top to remove heat on an as is needed basis. At those temps, heat doesn't seem to be the issue, fresh CO2 would be the issue.

One of the issues I had when I was building an outside shed grow, was the temp. You need to replace all the air about every 5 or 10 min. if the outside air is 30 deg, how will you bring it up to 70's? and repeat that every 10 min? That's when I decided to grow inside.

Keeping fresh air at the right temp range was going to be tough.

That's why you need the most insulation at the top, but that's going to still be of limited value.

Run a test, grab a fan that will exchange ALL the air in that space every 10 min. Then run a heater and check the temps overnite or on a cold day.

It's like heating your house with all the doors / windows open... doesn't work well, even with thick insulation. It's the air temp that's the issue.
 
ok sounds good, I can't grow indoors, stealth isnt an issue at all it's just that Im still living with my parents and they're fine with me growing so long as I don't do it in the house anymore.

The treehouse has full power, and getting water up into it is no issue. Basically the only thing I haven't got covered is heat. what if I use a passive exhaust system in the winter, leaving the fans off but allowing the rising of the heat to pull in outside air?
 
Ok, the simple solution is to find out IF you need heat. If your in the US, you're coming into spring/summer, so that will be less of a problem.

General rules: Heat from elec source costs the most, heat from gas is much cheaper. Insulation won't mater much during fans on time because you MUST get fresh air in there.

_IF_ temp becomes a real issue, you can make/buy a heat exchanger these are used in a closed system floor heater. They heat fluid and pump in thru the exchanger. This is what your car has to defrost/heat the cab. You can grab some auto parts (heater core, fan, pump) and make one.

Basically what it does is use the warm temp you already have, to help heat the incoming air. This can be done with water in a tub pumped thru a heater core.

I was going to do this because I didn't think I could get what I needed from a 1500W space heater, also, space heater drop humidity. You can get a humidifer, but that's even more wattage going into heat that's NOT going into lights.

Plants grow because of light, I didn't want to waste the limited wattage in my shed on heat/cooling.

One other option is to run some 4" PVC tubes and booster fans to get air from the house to the shed. My shed is about 3' from the house, I can run PVC pipes to under the shed with little problem.

Again, this is ONLY if you light doesn't put out enough heat. You can run your lights at night, when it's coldest and then maybe a small heater will do.
 
I grow outside in a shed & I have the same problems you have.Firstly you need to insulate the floor as well as the sides & roof.Not insulating the floor is like going outside in winter with no shoe & socks on.
Next you will need to get some kind of fan controller that will turn the extraction fan down during lights off to retain the heat & then turns it up to full power if it gets too hot.I use an Ecotechnic Evolution Controller but I don't know if you have them in the States,or you could get an extraction fan with temperature control.If you need additional heat during the winter have a look at getting an electric underfloor heating mat,or you can use a good quality electric blanket.
 
I live in canada, so we're coming into the warmer months now but it's still going to only be about 40-50 degrees outside for the next month or so before we start getting back up to into the warmer weather. I plan on running my lights at night during the colder months. The treehouse is much too far from the house for me to use any of the heat from the house effectively.

Ok so i feel pretty confident about this set up. Im going with flexible ducting for the intake and outtake so i can hopefully use the treehouse to my advantage for heat in the winter by venting out of the grow room into the treehouse. So ill be able to switch the intake from pulling air in from the outside or pulling air in from the treehouse so that i can recycle the warmer air from the grow that mixes with the fresh air in the treehouse back into the grow room.

Im going to look into some fan speed controllers, although i prolly won't really need them until the next winter starts up as it is beggining to warm up now.
 
One thing that might help would be to move the hot air from the light down to the plants. Most growers have too much heat, lights put out a good amount of heat. Instead of moving the air from the bottom up, you can move it from the top down.

I was thinking of taking a sheet of alum and mount it above the lights, then pass the fresh air over that before it gets to the plants.
 
yeah pulling the air down through the plants was an idea my dad and I tossed about a little bit but I wasnt sure. now that I think about it that might be the answer. i'll mount the fans so that I can easily flip them around if I need to, pulling the air down might be too hot in the summer but seeing as I don't even have the room built yet (in progress), i don't know how hot my lights will get. i'll have to test a bunch of different configurations with the fan and ventilation setup and see what works best.

thanks guys, lotsa good advice, i feel alot more confident in this grow now that i've gotten some info from more experienced growers
:thumb:
 
One idea I was looking at was to mount the lights and anything that makes heat to a thick alum sheet. Have that sheet become a duct where the air comes in it is passed across it, then the air goes straight to the plants.

It's a fine point and may not be an issue, but the ideal temps only needs to be at the plants.

The more heat you get from the exhaust (already heated air) the cheaper the heat is.

Same concept is used in most HVAC systems (I think). Your house heater might be heating fresh air or recirc air. Recirc air is already heated, the fresh air might be 40 deg colder, so it cost more to heat.

Remember all that heat that you make is being vented out in about 10 min.

Alum gets hot quick and releases that heat quick. It's also pretty easy to bend and shape. Copper tube works great too.

In fact if you do some research, you might find that you can get all the heat you need by adding more lights, and more lights is better for the plants, not to mention you'll need probably need more light as the plants grow.

Let us know how it works out. I'm always interested in DIY.
 
alright so i'm picking up some insulated flexible ducting. I've got one of those t shaped aluminum ducts on my intake fan as an air mixer, the exhaust hose will attach to the top of this in the winter leaving one end open to draw in fresh air and mix it with the heated air. This way i can recirculate the warmer air from the grow room in the winter and still have fresh air come in.

The room is built, The floor and walls are insulated. I scrapped the false ceiling idea because a fixed ceiling will offer more in the way of insulation and I feel like there is too much that could go wrong with the ceiling hanging from chains. Should have the ceiling put on within the week. I'll also have to go get some more emergency blankets as i don't have enough to do the inside right now. I'll start up a journal soon when the room is built, i have some bagseeds lying around that I feel much more comfortable sacrificing to the first trial and error run off my setup, after we see how that goes i'll get myself some genetics
 
Very interesting cant wait to see some updated information.

Is smell a issue or since your folks are fine with the grow you stay with that?... Was thinking about the possibility of you using a mixing room. A place where you drop of the hot air from your lights which has fresh air coming in and ultimately that mixing room supplies the grow room with the fresh and light air mixed.

Really fell in love with this thread... Awesome way to bring a tree house with you as you grow older :thumb:
 
Hey guys, new member here. I have a grow shed too, I lost 11beauties the first time it went to 15 below here in upstate NY,the girls were fine in both veg and flower rooms with a space heater in each room! I'm looking forward to this season, and have my new seedlings and 1clone of my original haze just chill in inside under small fluorescence, they are ready to go out,but the heaters cost to much any way I think about it even with some good insulation. I have a generator, but how often do I need to get gas for it?I would use the heaters again,but my wife will kill me because the electric bill will be astronomical!! So I'm just gonna weight it out for another month, I may just buy some gas and use the generator??I had some$$$to work with before the girls froze to death, but now on a limited budget until the first harvest! Any help or suggestion will always be appreciated! Thanks
 

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