Ok so me and my friend are growing for the first time, and the set up we have at the moment is less than ideal. We are in an attic/crawl space above a large bike garage/shop. We have florescent lights, good soil, a fan and heater, and we are hanging blankets around the growing area to help insulate and hide the plants. One of the problems we have though is its pretty cold up there and we need some advice for keeping the plants warm. We also would like some strain suggestions and a good website for buying seeds. we were thinking about starting with purple power or Durban poison. Are those good strains?
Temps are very difficult to manage in an attic. Best approach is to build an enclosure inside the attic, insulate it, and provide it with heat for winter and cooling for summer. You'll never keep the plants at proper temps if they are in the open attic.
OK, I have a less than ideal set up myself. It's a lot like yours and have the same problems. It's a corner of an unfinished basement and it's cool, about 50 - 55 F. I use a pair of T-8's ( 2 bulbs in each fixture) and 2 23w CFL's to veg 4 plants. I lay foam panels on the floor for the planters to sit on to keep them off the cold cement. I also lay the white foam panels around the shop lights like make shift walls. I cover the entire set up with a cheap tarp. You cut slits in the tarp for the chains of the lights to come up through. Fold the remainder of the tarp (the stuff all over the floor) under your planters to seal off any air cold air flow. Now, here's where you have to be careful and watch the temps. If you pull open the slots that you cut for the chains to go through and lift a little section of the bottom of the tarp on the floor, you create a natural draft. Right now the temp inside my set up is 82 F. The temp on the floor is 70 F. You can also use an old moving blanket over this set up to help fend off colder temps. I have. You do get heat from the floros, the idea is to trap it. This is my second grow. This is what I did the first time. Both are with ditch weed. I pulled 50 grams of some one hit wonder dank stuff off 3 plants. Nothing to rock anybodys world in weight but for me, this will last a very long time. For a first time floro grow, it's good. I do one digger of this stuff and my world becomes perfect. It's been 2 decades since I grew. Things have changed a lot and I learned a lot from my vegtable garden. I just used anything I had around the house. (Lights, buckets, etc.) Soil is the key for me. I'm going organic this time because I kept screwing myself second guessing with nutes, not because I'm Mr Green. IMO I would focus on the soil if I were you. Sucks to get into flower and your now finding yourself doing CPR on the girls. I forgot to add, LST and topping are musts IMO for a floro set up. And this set up works for cooler temps and a low first time budget to get you off your training wheels. The post above notes it's an attic. If you have the money then yeah, by all means build something. The summer is a whole different animal.
White Label -White Widow is awesome! I've been growing mine for a year. Its extremely potent (many friends claim best they've had), heavy indica stone, covered in trichomes. Good yield (3 to 3.5oz per plant at 29"). And best of all I finish it in 42 Days! however an extra week it will reach its peak. As long as you go easy on the nutes its pretty easy to grow Good luck