I was curious as to how much reflectivity a white garbage bag would supply. I'm doing a small indoor grow on a VERY tight budget and looking to see if this is an efficient replacement for Mylar and such.
White paint would be your best bet there. Not as good as mylar, obviously, but it's cheap and a good alternative.
Not to be discouraging, but to be successful, it takes commitment on all ends,.... $$, time, attention and education. You may want to reconsider this till you're able to do it right.
^^^Agreed. You dont need a ton of loot but just a bit to get you what you need to start. Read around man, you'll see some real budget grows here with good results.
Using a plastic on the walls could easily lead to mold and ickiness, unless it could be removed and cleaned. White Paint as stated would be best, IMO.
i think light can travel through white trash bags, so some of your light would go through the plastic, hit the wall, reflect off the wall, go back through the plastic, and then back to your plant. after all that, i'm sure a lot of the light would be lost.
I guess to be more to the point,....what I'm saying is,......if you can't afford paint, how are you going to afford seed pots soil veg lights flower lights multiple fans electricity nutrients hardware (a lot more of it than u think) wood mylar PH PEN!! 7.0 calibration solution carbon scrubber ducting fittings ph up & down solution temp/humidity meter (a/c and/ or heater) This is the list to get started, forget about once we are rolling.... Just keeping it real man. Yes, you can grow a plant with tin foil and 1 single bulb but you get what you give in this game and if your picturing dank weed in your head, recognize that that takes lots of time, money, trial and error, patience, attention, organization, and resources.
Don't kill their dream of growing bud at home for pennies! Let them find out the hard way that it can be hard work and can be expensive. It just depends on your goals. If you want to grow lbs of skunk then you need lots of resources but if you just want a few popcorn buds to fill the bong bowl for 1 week then you can do that on next to nothing.
Not killing anyones dream. This advice was given to me early on and it's probably been the biggest asset in helping me to achieve that dream. (along with "don't overwater & don"t overfeed",lol)
You can use white trash bags. Paint is cheaper though; 1 gl of paint covers much more area than trash bags. If you are stuck with trash bags, I suggest using some sheets of cardboard or wood, and some spray on adhesive; I do this with mylar as well. Spray the sheets of wood/cardboard with the adhesive, then use a broom stick or something similar and roll the trash bags around it so they are smooth. Take the loose end of the trash bags and roll them onto the sheets so they are smooth. Allow a few days before placing them in the grow area so the adhesive fumes dissipate. This works well with mylar as well. You can get a small roll of mylar for like $20 shipped, or a cheap gallon of flat white paint for like $8; so I would consider this instead. Trash bags are thin, so they have to doubled up to cover an area well and supply sufficient reflection.
seriously good advice LBH. Its good to keep it real. i bought a roll of mylar that was 48"x25ft. 2mil thick. It was $20. Considering the other shit i had to buy. The mylar was a "cheap ticket item" You cant get to you point of what to use for reflecting light and skimp out. Its just bad business