bathtub/shower grow?

A steady supply of fresh air will go a long way to prevent mold.

 

I have a very similar set up. It is a stand up shower which is a little over 3x3. All white reflective surfaces which is very nice and much better than a metallic surface. Another advantage is that there is a drain right in the center so you don't have to worry about any mess. In between every grow i wipe everything down really well with bleach water and just do an over all cleaning of the entire bathroom. i hang my hps from the drywall above the shower and everything fits nicely. i have a fan pointed at the light to lower temps, and an oscillating fan to keep fresh air moving around. I'm sure you have a vent in your bathroom as well, i'll flip that on every now and then. Also i cut out a piece of carbon filter to fit the exact size of my vent and it works well.

I have never battled mold in the shower grow. Just keep fresh air flowing. It's not a bad idea to triple fold a piece of window screen to place over your drain as well to keep loose soil from going down, and some bugs from coming up. Get a humidity guage from your local pet store and stick it your shower at plant level so you keep an eye on your moisture level.

Good luck!

 

Sounds like a good plan. just curious, what strains are you growing in there? are you going with a hps? i was able to comfortably fit 2 plants in mine the first time, 3 was a bit crowded and i think affected my yield on my last grow. but then again i never tried a sog or scrog method. i'll check in on this, let us know how it works out

 

yeah i hear ya, it can add up for sure..lights, nutes, soil, etc.

but we have a similar set up. all i run is a 150 watt hps, you can buy them at your grow shop for about $80. you can find them on ebay for cheaper. you will significantly increase your yield and the density of your buds. 2 BAGSEED plants gave me nearly 5oz dried and super funky under 150hps and a few cfls. well worth the cash, and you won't even notice it on your electric bill. your DVR or Xbox use more electricity.

with all the money you save from not having to buy weed anymore you should consider adding a HPS on your next grow

 

I've used several different bathrooms as grow rooms, over the years

As they are, before any pre grow fix-uppery, they're better than basements, closets and bedrooms when it comes to preventing mildew and mold... not worse!




The last time that I used a bathroom for anything besides drying my crop, which is another great use for a clean, and dark spare bathroom with ventilation ( ), was just a few years earlier.
I was growing in a high-rise apartment building in a large master bathroom off my bedroom, and as well as in the side-to-side closets on either side of the hall, leading to the bathroom.


It was great, where both the shower stall and the floor had drains, and it still left the master tub to use for occasional soaking and relaxing... which was fantastic with all the plants around!



....Picture walking down a well lit hall, with tall flowering plants on either side bending just over your head, before entering an open bathroom with more and taller plants all around except for a very narrow (and rapidly narrowing) path that leads to a large mirrored garden tub....

Very relaxing... it was one of my 'more decorative' indoor crops.




The hallway closet floors were carpeted, so we raised them with planks, then covered and lined them in pond plastic and black & white poly on a downward slope leading into the bathroom, to let the run-off get down the drain, with a little silicone-sealed and curled 'lip' at the edges of the plastic to direct the flow and prevent carpet spills, where the hallway leading to the bathroom was not tiled.

The sink even held a short plant for a cycle (after the first cycle I didn't do that again, and opted for the convenience of a functional sink in the room), and I even kept a short plant in a grow bag resting on a screen, over the toilet, for most cycles, and just flushed it once a week or so.



The vent ducting was hooked up along the ceiling, connected to the vent fan conveniently already in place, and supplemented with a spare can fan that held a homemade carbon filter between the two, to prevent any odor from roaming around in the vent shafts of the building, potentially tipping off other tenants if the building was poorly designed.
With a 1,000watt HPS in the bathroom, and 430w in each closet, I'd pull a little over two and a half pounds from just the bathroom, and about a pound each from the closets each cycle, running four to five cycles in a year with between eight and twelve plants per cycle. During the late fall through winter cycles, when I could replace the 430w closets with 1,000w, the total yield would nearly double.



All in all, if I didn't already own most of the equipment at the time... I'd say a grow like that should probably cost $400 - $500 for the lights, $40 in medium or tanks/bubblers, another $70 - $90 for assorted nutes, meals and guanos, and maybe $90 - $120 per month in electricity (on top of my 'living usage') depending on veg or bloom.


- Initial costs would be around $600, plus the $300 - $375 for three months of electricity, for a little over 4 and a half pounds... that's a little over $7.00 per oz.


- Subsequent costs, knowing that you don't need to re-pay for the lighting equipment or medium (most growing mediums will last for a year or four+ grows, up to several years), only need to cover your feed and power consumption... and that's only around $4.00 per oz!



That's with years of experience, but it's still not unusual for a newer grower to produce at a cost of only $15 - $20 per oz... which still saves you a ton of cash, versus buying off the streets or in the clubs.


And if you're only looking to grow a pound or so per cycle, your electric bill will hardly jump, and you can divide those initial and subsequent costs by about four... you can grow a pound or more, for about the cost of an oz on the streets.


Growing is very affordable, MUCH more affordable than buying!



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And the bathroom is just like any other room in your house... they are all susceptible to mold and mildew, with high enough moisture levels and the presence of spores, but even before any grow-room 'doctoring' the bathroom specifically is better equipped for handling moisture and venting!



Once it's clean and sanitized, which is easier to accomplish given the smooth surfaces and drains, you've got a better room for growing than most closets and bedrooms.





The only reason you don't often see water damage or mildew in other areas of your home is because on a day to day basis, those other rooms generally stay dry, while bathrooms are frequently fogged up... multiple times a day even, if you have a family or housemates and you share bathrooms.


And many bedroom and closet grow rooms do build up mildew and mold in the nooks and crannies, if they are kept too damp without proper ventilation.


Bathrooms on the other hand, already have fans to vent moisture and reduce the amount of airborne 'waste' left in the air after bathing and using the toilet, and they have smooth, hard surfaces (ie. floors, and ideally most if not all the walls, and the ceilings) that don't absorb and hold moisture quite as well as say, paint, drywall and carpeting.

Mildew and mold will only form because a vent isn't powerful enough, or it isn't left on frequently enough, with all the heavy and recurring moisture in the air, combined with the grunge people are washing off their bodies.



Compared to a bathroom used for showering and bathing, though, a properly run grow room does not cause nearly the humidity, moisture or fogging as showering, making a bathroom that is already equipped to handle a much more moist environment, an almost ideal space for a grow room... you can even replace the overhead bathroom fan, or use it in addition to something more powerful.



Like any other grow room, if your circulation and ventilation are good, and if the room is very clean to begin with (and cleaned in between grows) and if you try to limit the grime you bring in with you and the standing moisture, then your bathroom grow space should be, if anything, easier to clean and maintain than a standard carpeted or wood-floored bedroom, or even an unfinished basement.


Just so long as you leave the vent fan going, and you have a secondary bathroom for bathing (ie. you don't plan on dramatically spiking the humidity in the grow room on a daily basis, by bathing.. and remember that a shower kicks up more humidity than a bath), then you've got a great grow space.



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Whoops... Sorry for the long response!

I'm in a bit of a rush, and got a little repetitive towards the end there... we're also testing out a fresh batch of hash oil in some quick PB Canna Bombs..... I'm procrastinating against heading out to do the shopping I need to do.



In any case, hopefully this helps to give you a little 'inspiration' while forming your plans.

Good luck, and have fun!





(And remember, HPS lighting is almost TWICE as efficient as CFLs when it comes to lumen output... meaning that, for the same elecitrical consumption, if you're using CFLs you're only producing a little over half the useable light when compared to HPS.

In other words, for every single dollar ($1.00) in your power bill that goes towards CFL lighting, nearly $0.45 is wasted versus the lumen output of an HPS.. it's why reaching and even far surpassing the common 'gram-per-watt' goal, is so much easier with HPS. To many newer growers CFLs seem affordable to start with, but they're the more expensive option in the long run. )