Growroom/box general setup

[keeprofthepiece]

OK, heres my situation. I live in an apartment, and would like to start growing 2-4 plants here. The most practical location for this would be a walk-in closet in the apartment, about 10x8 feet. my roommates idea is that we would buy seeds, and have the following growroom setup: plants on the floor in pots, fluorescent lighting above them, a fan blowing on the plants to strengthen the branches, and one of those humidifiers you put in your room when youre sick. Ventilation would be occasionally opening up the closet door. My idea is to build a plywood growbox with a carbon filtered ventilation outtake at the top, lights hanging from the top by rope or something (to adjust the height accordingly as the plants grow), and im not sure on how I would regulate humidity (just a spray bottle, with a humidity guage on the inside of the box?). I tried to explain that the plants need ventilation, and it would be impossible to cut holes in the wall, or install any form of ventilation directly to and from the closet. Would just having the plants sit in the closet with a fan blowing on them be adequate ventilation, or would the growbox work alot better for that? I also said it would be much better lighting in the box, because its a smaller area and it would be very easy to provide the right amount of lighting (2'x4' area = approx. 400 watts?), but hes convinced it would work just as well to have the plants in the open closet, under some lights, with a bent piece of cardboard with tinfoil to reflect light back at the plants. For whatever reason, roomie is basically just opposed to us having a growbox, despite the fact that it would be easy to make and I would do it; he says growboxes are just for people who have to like hide it from their parents or other people, but that since we wouldnt have to worry about that, a box is unnecisary. I just think a box would be way more convenient, and produce a higher quality and yield. SO, experienced growers, please enlighten me as to which of these would be better and why.
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[Dan42nepa]

this is a closet in my office. Your big concern should be lights. At the point of flower you need 12/2 with 12 of total darkness. For me I can just keep the office door closed during that period. I only use a fan pointing in because i can utilize the who room.

[toastybiz]

It is unclear from your description how the grow box idea would have better ventilation than the closet idea. Having a fan blow around the air in an enclosed space is not ventilation, you need fresh air intake and exhaust.

Lighting can be equally close to the plants in either area, depending on how you set it up.

A grow box might provide more security because if you lock it a landlord would not have the right to open it. As discussed elsewhere, landlords in some circumstances do have the right to enter (or allow someone on their behalf to enter) your apartment, in which case the closet is not secure.

[KamelRedLight]

Personally I think growboxes are just more complex. Like you said you have to install ventilation for fresh air, you need to vent any hot HID lights you'd use (400w is a good size and makes good heat, but I think putting the ballast outside would help a lot), plus it's more cramped. I grow in a closet where all I have are plants, lights, and a fan to blow air around. I leave the door open most of the time, especially when I'm home, so that takes care of fresh air. I just vent the smell out the window if it gets too stinky, no carbon scrubbers necessary since I don't have anyone to hide it from. And I can fit a good crop into my closet, any reasonably sized grow box would be too small. I guess I agree with your buddy, I think grow boxes are for people who need to hide it, or who just don't have any available closet space. If you'd rather make one though, I wouldn't tell you not to.

[keeprofthepiece]

I know the whole light cycle deal and everything, I just think it would be easier to have a very specific lumines to cubic foot ratio if using a box. Also, the way the ventilation would work is I would have an outtake fan on the top of the box on one end, and several holes on the bottom of the other end ( the box is elevated about 4" off the ground), with PVC pipes leading out to right inside the closet on the floor, bringing in air from outside of the door or even just pulling in air from the closet. I think even just circulating the same closet air from the closet into the box and out again would help, since the lights would produce heat inside the box, the fan would push the hot air out back into the closet, giving it a decent area to cool off and circulate before the same air is pulled back in. If the plants were just in the closet, it would be the closet air blowing around all over, no real circulation. I wouldnt want to just have my unventilated closet just heating up from the HPS or metal halide lights, and try and figure out how to circulate all that air instead of just a small box with air being constantly exchanged. Thanks for the advice guys, keep it comin

[KamelRedLight]

I definitely see where you're coming from with the lights, it'd use it more efficiently than a large closet. But I don't quite get how circulating closet air through a box is any different from circulating closet air throughout a closet. I just use a fan to blow on my lights cuz i have them right in the plants, it's the only way they don't burn. My fresh air is brought in by opening the door. If you were gonna make a box, it just wouldn't make sense to put it in a closet. I think I'd put it near a window so when it's open, all the fresh air in the world is at the box's disposal. If you're gonna set up a nice ventilation system, don't ruin it by keeping it in the closet. Even just being in a closed room would have more fresh air available than a closet, and that's what you're trying to maximize right?

[keeprofthepiece]

I think it would be better to circulate closet air through a box then the whole closet because if it was just blowing all around the closet, it would be the same hot air being blown around, and the heat from the lights would stay in the room. With a box, however, the contained lights would only be heating up the contained space, and the hot air is getting immidiately blown out of the box, back into the closet, where it doesnt stay hot; it cools down before being circulated back through the box, keeping my plants at a good temp. After doing alot of reading up on this subject however, I think ill put the plants, box or not, in my bedroom closet as opposed to the big walk in closet i have. My bedroom closet is wide but shallow, so I could have a nice little line-up of plants there; 4 or 5 plants of the strain "lowryder". I would generally leave the sliding door open to increase air flow, unless I have people over. My overall reasoning for a box is just that I think it would be easy to regulate environment, in terms of light, temperature, and humidity, in comparison to a room or large closet. My bedroom closet is very close to a window, but I dont know how I would get an intake from outside without arousing suspicion from the neighbors.

[toastybiz]

Your ventilation idea for a box in a closet will not yield a very different result than the closet idea -- you still are just blowing the same air around. I wouldn't count on drawing much air through the crack under the closet door unless you had a way to channel the intakes to pull only from that crack, not from the closet near the crack (if the intakes are only inside the closet near the crack then the intake will draw the air with the least resistance, which is the air in the closet, it won't pull much air from under the crack). You need fresh air -- MJ needs to breathe like we do (except they need CO2), so you need to provide a constant fresh air supply.

You could easily channel the lighting to an area of the closet with one or more cardboard panels sheathed in mylar, doing that might be easier than building a whole box.

Temps probably would be harder to control in the smaller box than in a larger closet.

Can you buy a cheap door for the closet and cut holes in that, then replace the original door when you move out? If so you could get fresh air circulation for either idea.

[firstgrow]

My grow room is my closet. I have a shelf up top where im going to start the seedlings off and once they get bigger and i eliminate the males ill move them down into my 4ft tall box. I covered the floor with plastic bags taped them down. also i have 3 fans in my closet. I'm not ready to grow yet but im still working on it. hopefully by the end of next week ill have my seeds planted.

[keeprofthepiece]

@firstgrow: Looks pretty nice, but wouldn't you want a much stronger light? That fluoro doesn't really look like it would do the job.

@toasty: The closet door is the kind that like runs along those tracks on the top and the bottom, and when you open it, the doors kind of slide up accordian-style. If I got a new door, I would need to also install hinges and shit, and even then its a really deep doorframe so idk. Also, that closet is in my kitchen, so it would look sketchy to anyone who just saw a door with some holes with pvc pipes sticking out a bit. The only people who really come to my appartment are my friends, and mom occasionally, but she wouldn't care, I just don't even want the majority of my friends to know. In terms of ventilation from under the door, I would caulk all edges of the growbox so my intake is the only place to draw air from. also, I wouldn't just set the pipes NEAR the crack of the door, but I have an idea that could work well for that. I think I could use one of the vacuum cleaner attatchments (pics below), and put one of those on the end of each PVC pipe used for intake, and have those going under the door.

I think I might have said this before, but I think I'll go for a different approach, using the closet in my room. Theres a shelf about 3 1/2 feet off the ground, and another shelf 4 feet above that. I could hang lights from the bottom of the top shelf, and basically just build a simple makeshift box around the shelf. Ill try and get a friend with a camera over here and upload pics soon, maybe by that point ill already even have started setting up.

[toastybiz]

That vacuum cleaner attachment is a clever idea, but you are narrowing down your intake too much. Generally you want the intakes to represent at least twice the area of the exhaust. So a 4" diameter exhaust would require one or more intake holes totalling at least 12.6 square inches, and if the slot in that vacuum attachment is about 1/4 inch high then it would need to be over 4 feet long.

[firstgrow]

Originally Posted by keeprofthepiece

@firstgrow: Looks pretty nice, but wouldn't you want a much stronger light? That fluoro doesn't really look like it would do the job.

@toasty: The closet door is the kind that like runs along those tracks on the top and the bottom, and when you open it, the doors kind of slide up accordian-style. If I got a new door, I would need to also install hinges and shit, and even then its a really deep doorframe so idk. Also, that closet is in my kitchen, so it would look sketchy to anyone who just saw a door with some holes with pvc pipes sticking out a bit. The only people who really come to my appartment are my friends, and mom occasionally, but she wouldn't care, I just don't even want the majority of my friends to know. In terms of ventilation from under the door, I would caulk all edges of the growbox so my intake is the only place to draw air from. also, I wouldn't just set the pipes NEAR the crack of the door, but I have an idea that could work well for that. I think I could use one of the vacuum cleaner attatchments (pics below), and put one of those on the end of each PVC pipe used for intake, and have those going under the door.

I think I might have said this before, but I think I'll go for a different approach, using the closet in my room. Theres a shelf about 3 1/2 feet off the ground, and another shelf 4 feet above that. I could hang lights from the bottom of the top shelf, and basically just build a simple makeshift box around the shelf. Ill try and get a friend with a camera over here and upload pics soon, maybe by that point ill already even have started setting up.

I just got 3 CFL lamps. and i put em in my closet all turned on with the fans on but my only problem is, is that my closets temperature with the lamps on (& the heating in my house since its winter) is 100 deg. F (35C)
thats wayyy toooooo hotttt!!!

what can I do to cool it down???
what can I do to get fresh air in there besides having the door open???
I cant have thoes ventilation tubes going thru my room. I am now considering growing next to my window.

[MaT420InSaNiTy]

Originally Posted by firstgrow

I just got 3 CFL lamps. and i put em in my closet all turned on with the fans on but my only problem is, is that my closets temperature with the lamps on (& the heating in my house since its winter) is 100 deg. F (35C)
thats wayyy toooooo hotttt!!!

what can I do to cool it down???
what can I do to get fresh air in there besides having the door open???
I cant have thoes ventilation tubes going thru my room. I am now considering growing next to my window.

sounds like to me you should be doing alot more reading befor you even start those babies... otherwise it could be a big waste of you're time

[toastybiz]

Firstgrow, don't hijack someone else's thread, post your questions by starting your very own thread.

[keeprofthepiece]

the 4" diameter for the exhaust is about right, but there would be at LEAST 5 or 6 pvc pipes with the vacuum thing for the intake.