New CGE construction

[stonedidiot]

Greetings fellow stoners.

I am in the process of building an 11' x 7.5' x 9' space in my garage for a LEGAL grow operation. I'm also a rank noob, although I have been reading extensively. From what I've seen of Don Piano and Bud Nukem's rooms I'm pretty sure I want to go ahead and spend whatever is necessary to achieve a true CGE. I have many questions, but the first is how to air condition the room without having an intake vent. I spoke with a rep from one of the distributors of portable air conditioners and he told me that all such units must vent the hot air outside of the space being cooled. The obvious question then, is if 400 cfm (or whatever the figure is) is being extracted by the AC unit then how is the air being replaced?? Do you CGE guys just rely on air leaks for your intake or is there something I'm missing. Been reading threads but have not yet found the answer to this rather obvious question.

Thanks in advance for any insight, all input will be greatly appreciated.

-Idiot

[Don Piano]

A CGE will mean no air leaks. Stay away from portable air conditioners, get a window unit. They will just recirculate the air in the room and remove the heat. You will need Co2, no doubt. I ran an AC unit in an attic, but my light cooling fan was blowing the hot air off of the back of the window AC unit.
Yes the AC does need to be hanging out of the grow room, but no air will exchange with the outside. Installing it in a window or through an existing wall to the outside is an easier way to do it.

You may have done reading, but my thread will explain everything you want to know for the most part. CGE means totally sealed, vented lights (air drawn from the exterior, through the light fixture/s, and back out to the exterior, no room air exchange), air conditioned, dehumidified, co2 enriched, hepa room filter unit, circulation fans, and a way to monitor temps and humidity from the outside of the room. If i missed anything let me know. I am just now making a comeback on here after a long break due to injury and illness. I'll be glad to help.

[stonedidiot]

Thanks Don;

For the quick and thoughtful reply. Stealth dictates that unit be sticking out inside of the garage rather than out the side of the house, probably in my "secret passage" space from which the grow room will be accessed. That will be quite small, and will also house my sink, work area, ballasts, possibly reservoirs, controls and such. I dunno, could get pretty hot in there, might have to stick it out into the open part of the garage and risk the attention it could attract when the garage door is open. Unlike Bud Nukem I'm going to need to continue using one side of my slightly-wider-than-normal two car garage as a garage for my bikes, motorcycles, workbench and when necessry indoor wrenching on my car. The utilty space and grow cab will be the area behind the overhead door tracks and app. 1/2 the width of a 2 car garage. It will be insullated and sheet rocked. I'll try and make some drawings on graph paper and post photos of them soon. There'll be just enough room to park two motorycles head-on under the overhead door tracks in the front of the garage, ahead of the Room. The whole shebang is currently concealed behind a dead motorhome in the driveway that I hope to give away on Craig's List once the construction is complete.

I'm going to go back this evening and try to find where B. Nukem described the problems he was having with his AC, as I believe he was hanging his out inside his garage space as well. Got to wonder if the trade off is going to be worth it in my particular circumstance.(?) I have been trying to avoid having to install a powered attic vent by planning a CGE where a constant flow of fresh air is not necessary.

So the advantages of total control; enriched CO2, filtering and deoderizing the sealed room air (lights will be air-cooled using ducted outside air and a 400CFM fan from and back into the attic, not intermixed with room air). Killing disadvange; the butt end of a goddamned window unit dumping hot air into the garage and my attached house during the hottest part of the summer. That said, I live in a pretty temporate area; high desert mountains where the nights are considerably cooler than the days, even during the peak of summer). By only running the HID's at night, I wonder how much AC a maximally insullated space of 745 cubic would require during the hot part of the day when the HID's are off? Seems that it might come on for a couple of minutes each hour, if that. When the lights are on (I envision two 600W, on tracks eventually) I'm sure it will be a different story, but even accepting the possibility of skipping a harvest or two during July and August, wouldn't the advantages of total pest control and optimal CO2 flavoring, temp and humidity outweigh the disadvantages of fresh air and bugs? Or is just freakin' weed that shouldn't be so obsessed over?

These are questions only those with experience can answer. Blessings to all who stop by and especially to those who drop pearls of wisdom down upon this humble thread.

-Idiot

[Don Piano]

I ran my ac with the rear of the unit hanging out of my box in an attic where temps get to 120 on their own so I know the problem all to well. Now... with that said, you could draw air from that secret passage into the lights and into the attic, that coupled with a circulation fan blowing on your AC and ballasts. you can still cool the AC this way, as well as cool the lights. The way i figure it, you would be circulating the air through the light within the attic space. You would have to make an intake on your secret room for fresh air to enter it.

Get my drift?

The way I look at it, if you treat your grow like a "clean room" in a lab, you have free control over every aspect of the grow, in fact, more control that any other method. No pests (providing you do not bring them in with you), no molds and pollen blowing in from outdoors, full temp control, .... eveerything you named. No need for stopping in july and august, insulate the wall that the house shares and make a secret air intake that draws air from the house into the secret room when the lighting fan is on.

[stonedidiot]

Interesting system you got there. To maintain a cold chamber in a 120 degree attic is, well, cool. How often does your AC come on? Do you only run your HID's at night? I'm guessing I won't have to run the A/C too much if the rooms - including the floor - are well insulated and I don't run the lights during the hot part of the day. In that case I could justify sticking the butt end of the A/C into the top secret utility closet and ducting a big sucking fan to the ballasts and A/C and sticking it into the attic. If the A/C is only run infrequently then I might still be able to get away without a powered roof vent for stealth considerations. And the more I think about it...condednsation moisture collecting in the attic...better be off to Lowe's to look at roof vents. Anyway, thanks again Don and I hope your recovery continues to go well.

Idiot

[stonedidiot]

Okay, back from Lowe's. Nice brown low profile roof vent that an 8" duct will slide right into. Stick it right above the grow room and put an 8" inline fan a few inches down from the roof. Could use a rigid duct with no bends straight from the room. Would work for either a CGE or a fully ventillated room. In the CGE example it would vent the utility room and only run when the A/C and/or the lights were on, in a fully ventillated room it would vent the grow room and run continously. Put a passive vent in the utility room to compensate pressure and maybe a small charcoal filter on the way out and it's a done deal. Still got to cut a small hole in the roof and the neighbors may wonder but Hell, what I'm doing is legal and I'm taking great pains to stay within the law. Got to risk the drama to play the game. This thing is gonna be sweet.


-Idiot

[Don Piano]

Originally Posted by stonedidiot

Interesting system you got there. To maintain a cold chamber in a 120 degree attic is, well, cool. How often does your AC come on? Do you only run your HID's at night? I'm guessing I won't have to run the A/C too much if the rooms - including the floor - are well insulated and I don't run the lights during the hot part of the day. In that case I could justify sticking the butt end of the A/C into the top secret utility closet and ducting a big sucking fan to the ballasts and A/C and sticking it into the attic. If the A/C is only run infrequently then I might still be able to get away without a powered roof vent for stealth considerations. And the more I think about it...condednsation moisture collecting in the attic...better be off to Lowe's to look at roof vents. Anyway, thanks again Don and I hope your recovery continues to go well.

Idiot

My AC ran every few minutes. As a dehumidifier runs making more heat in the room the AC would defeat it. Dehumidification is key in a sealed room, especially when your lights turn off and the room cools. THe AC will run during the day if it gets too hot out. I run programmable thermostats that allow me to change the temps on my AC unit for lights on and drop them for when the lights go out. A sealed room will have to have it's 10degree temp differential done by the AC unit, and the unit will run to keep it there. Yes running at night is best, it is what I did (cheaper too), but the AC runs just as much during the day as it does at night during hot months, maybe more. You can get away with 90degrees if you pump the co2 at 1500ppm, no problem. This cuts down on the ac usage during llights on. Keep my dehumidifier at 35%-40% (my box was for flowering only, I had another area for moms). My room was insulated r-13 plus an infrared barrier. Top to bottom, floor and ceiling. I did put an attic ventilator on, and it did help, but I am glad I no longer have to use that setup. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but I can't crawl around anymore and need an actual room. It will be the same, but on a larger scale, and i plan on venting during the winter and drawing (sub zero) air in through a hepa filter, and being sealed only for summer time. I will have motorized dampers to control the flow of air.

[stonedidiot]

I'm wondering how much different my room will be from your attic, given the fact that it's fully self contained within an insullated garage. You raise a good point about using conventional ventillation in the winter, seems nuts to run A/C then. Then I'm also concerned about the butt end of the AC hanging out in my garage generating heat in summer. So you think it would run quite a bit, 'eh?

I threw up a few studs today. The framed doorway will be the entrance from the garage into the boiler room / secret passageway. The area containing the motorcycle and the one next to it containing the propane tank will be the grow room, sectioned off into two roughly equal 5.5' x 7' rooms in these photos by the scrap lumber laid out on the floor. These rooms will be accessed by individual doors from the boiler room. Been thinking I could stick the A/C over on the outside wall about where the back of the motorcycle is. Garage air could then be ducted over it and sucked out a powered roof vent. I could conceal it with clutter and then there would just be the noise and heat to deal with. Anyway, there will be a sink where the boom is in the photo, as well as storage for tools and nutes and stuff to the left of the sink (broom). The boiler is between there and the green door, which is solid to assure the boiler room can be totally dark for night (day) access to plants under green light. This thing is going to be a fun toy.

Also been thinking of going cheaper, maybe not doing a raised and insullated floor (take advantage of the cold concrete?) and just doing a conventionally ventilated room. It is a difficult choice to make, given the fact that I never actually grown anything or even set foot in an actual grow room in my life. The fact that the garage is presently well insulated, the hope that such a cottage industry as MMJ will be allowed to fourish in my state and that I could actually pay my bills with a legal grow room of this size argue for spending the money now and building the ultimate CGE that I can in the space that I have. Arguing against it are my complete and utter lack of experience in the art and science of horticulture. Might it not be better for someone like me to build a more conventional room and scale up? I could hepa filter garage air through an inlet fan and blow it out through charcoal and up a powered roof vent toot sweet. It would get hot in summer and CO2 supplementation would be impractical, so yields would be reduced and problems with random solutions would be increased, but folks have been growing some mighty fine indoor shit 'round these parts for awhile. Might be time to hire a consultant?

-Idiot

[Bud Nukem]

Ah! I see you and Don Piano have made contact!

Don is quite versed in all aspects of CGE grows, and I will leave you in his most capable hands!

He helped me more than I can say...you will do just fine now.

I am off to do more trimming!

[stonedidiot]

I hope you are enjoying the well earned fruits of your labor Bud! I've about decided to build the room out for conventional ventillation, framing a 7000 BTU window unit into the outside wall of fhe room for the hottest days of summer. I'm thinking that with a huge amount of ventillation I'll be able to avoid allot of the pest and high humidity issues that are totally avoided with a sealed room. I'll build with the idea of evenually sealing it off in the future, but for now a 400 CFM exhaust fan sucking the 645 cubic feet of room air through a charcoal filter will keep the air turning over pretty fast. I'm also planning a seprate 400 CFM system for the lights, pulliing in attic air and sending it up the same roof exhaust as the room air. Intake will be via a 165 CFM 4" duct duct fan with a HEPPA filter that I will be able to mount on the boiler room wall to take advantage of its heat, or move to the outside wall to draw in cooler garage air, which can be further augmented by opening a window. Easy enough to add the extra ducting now before the drywall goes up.

I am also trying to plan for having two seprate light chambers within the same room, or in other words two rooms sharing the same HVAC space. I don't know how to produce and post a schematic diagram, but the partition wall dividing the room might make use of the space between the drywall and studs as duct work. A 180 or so CFM fan would be mounted at the bottom of the partition in a corner, with a 3" or gap left betweeen the top of the drywall and the ceiling on the other side of the partition to allow the forced air to exhaust. This would (I hope, haven't tried it yet) create a light barrier while allowing air to be forced from the side of the room with the ceiling exhust vent to the side of the room where the powered intake is located. The same drywall/duct system would be constructed on the oposite side of the partition wall and would be passive, allowing the filtered intake air along with the forced ducted air from the other side of the room to vent back into the exhaust side. The air would be further stirred fans in corners and under grow tables. Temperature control would obviously not be a precise as with a CGE, but this is dry desert air, almost always below 50% RH, and high/low spikes could be handled by a small electric space heater and the afore mentioned window unit sticking out into my garage.

And this leads to wheather or not to go with a raised and insullated floor. If the issue is to primarily to be keeping the room cool, the concrete would facilitate that. If, on the other hand, I would need to raise the tempreture, the cold floor would be counter productive. But this thing is going to have a couple of 600W HID's to keep it warm at night. Winter day, I don't know. There will be much to learn by trial and error.

As always, thanks for your time to whoever reads this, any feedback is greatly appreciated.

-

[Don Piano]

Originally Posted by stonedidiot

I hope you are enjoying the well earned fruits of your labor Bud! I've about decided to build the room out for conventional ventillation, framing a 7000 BTU window unit into the outside wall of fhe room for the hottest days of summer. I'm thinking that with a huge amount of ventillation I'll be able to avoid allot of the pest and high humidity issues that are totally avoided with a sealed room. I'll build with the idea of evenually sealing it off in the future, but for now a 400 CFM exhaust fan sucking the 645 cubic feet of room air through a charcoal filter will keep the air turning over pretty fast. I'm also planning a seprate 400 CFM system for the lights, pulliing in attic air and sending it up the same roof exhaust as the room air. Intake will be via a 165 CFM 4" duct duct fan with a HEPPA filter that I will be able to mount on the boiler room wall to take advantage of its heat, or move to the outside wall to draw in cooler garage air, which can be further augmented by opening a window. Easy enough to add the extra ducting now before the drywall goes up.

I am also trying to plan for having two seprate light chambers within the same room, or in other words two rooms sharing the same HVAC space. I don't know how to produce and post a schematic diagram, but the partition wall dividing the room might make use of the space between the drywall and studs as duct work. A 180 or so CFM fan would be mounted at the bottom of the partition in a corner, with a 3" or gap left betweeen the top of the drywall and the ceiling on the other side of the partition to allow the forced air to exhaust. This would (I hope, haven't tried it yet) create a light barrier while allowing air to be forced from the side of the room with the ceiling exhust vent to the side of the room where the powered intake is located. The same drywall/duct system would be constructed on the oposite side of the partition wall and would be passive, allowing the filtered intake air along with the forced ducted air from the other side of the room to vent back into the exhaust side. The air would be further stirred fans in corners and under grow tables. Temperature control would obviously not be a precise as with a CGE, but this is dry desert air, almost always below 50% RH, and high/low spikes could be handled by a small electric space heater and the afore mentioned window unit sticking out into my garage.

And this leads to wheather or not to go with a raised and insullated floor. If the issue is to primarily to be keeping the room cool, the concrete would facilitate that. If, on the other hand, I would need to raise the tempreture, the cold floor would be counter productive. But this thing is going to have a couple of 600W HID's to keep it warm at night. Winter day, I don't know. There will be much to learn by trial and error.

As always, thanks for your time to whoever reads this, any feedback is greatly appreciated.

-

I must correct a few thing here, in the previous post you talked about the floor. Do like Nukem and raise the floor. The cold concrete will stunt the growth, basements and garages alike need to be raised. Sealed rooms will have more humidity to deal with, especially when the lights shut off and the room cools. A dehumidifier is a must on CGE IMOandE.
Use insulation between the drywall and studs as if it were an exterior wall, look at Nukems build and see that, it is well worth it. Follow Nukems build all the way for floor and walls, And do yourslef a favor and AC it and seal it. My AC ran during -20 deg (the setup is hard to imagine, but I had hot air blowing on the back of it from insualted ducting that carried the heat off of my HPS lamp), but my lesson to be given about growing is that no matter the exterior conditons, the interior will always need manipulation to keep everything proper. The only reason I am venting during the winter is because Ican draw clean ICE cold air into the grow. If it were 60 here for the low in the winter I would never do it, I would AC it year round.
Yeah, ain't Nukem's jars something?

[stonedidiot]

Thanks Don;
I'm off to the big city this morning to try and find a 7000 BTU window unit and get ventillation equiptment. I'm going to follow your advice and raise/insullate the floor and I found that white rubber roof paint at the HW store yesterday ($114 for 4.75 gallons). I'm going to go with an 8" inline fan mounted in the attic on a speed controller sucking through a charcoal filter straight out a roof vent. I will install two sealable inlets for a HEPPA filtered powered intake, one in the warm boiler room and another in the garage, where a window can be opened. I will put a passive vent in the dead-boltable door to the boiler room/grow access area for when that area is being used for air supply. I think I'm going to want that massive ventillation when applying that rubber paint! Anyway, that should get me pretty built out, and the room can be sealed by by simply blocking off the roof and inlet vents. I'm thinking of OSB particle board for the lower portion of the interior walls and the insullated floor, all sealed in white rubber paint, but may end up with just drywall on the lower walls. If the rubber paint is as waterproof as I envision it the room can be hosed down between grows and the water vacuumed up with my shop vac. Very cool. That will leave me needing a de-humidifyer, CO2 equipment, and more controlling electronics for when I seal the room off this summer.

I'm going to start growing in soil, as it is necessary to crawl before walking, but am looking ahead to the most practical hydro set-up for my factory. I'm restricted on the number of plants, so the big ebb & grow set is attractive, but flood tables look more user friendly. Anyways, that's a subject best left for another day.

Best regards,