Grow Shelter

Ten years ago I started designing a tornado shelter to bebuilt in our crawl space. My wife and kids hate thunderstorms. After severalmonths of thought and drawing the project ended. I was just too lazy and poor forall that crap. I was 35 at that time and had never seen a tornado yet, so whymess with it.
This summer (2011) I talked my wife into letting me build a growroom in the crawl space. I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and endedup with one hell of a secure grow room / tornado shelter. Here's how it went.
Westarted by digging a 10' long, x 9' wide, x 3' deep hole in the crawl space. (Thatsucked!) Then we framed and poured a footer with 1120 lbs. of concrete. (Thatsucked!) We then assembled a concrete block wall consisting of 112 blocks and720 lbs. of mortar. (That sucked!) Each concrete block was jam packed with sandthat came from the 270 cu. ft. hole we had dug earlier, except for the top rowof blocks which were filled with 240 lbs. of concrete. This added an awesomeamount of insulation and a lot of resistance from flying objects during atornado.
Then a top to the wall was built out of 2 x 6's. These 2 x 6's wereplaced on their edge, 3 thick, the entire length and width of the walls. Theywere attached to the top of the blocks using liquid nail and 28, ½” x 16” boltsthat were secured into the concrete that was poured into the top blocks. Then aceiling was added on top of the 2 x 6's that was made out of more than 60 2 x4's. These 2 x 4's were place on their edge and attached with liquid nail and3” screws. Each 2 x 4 was glued and screwed (10 screws each) to the 2 x 6 topand to the 2 x 4 in front of it. This created a solid wood ceiling 3 ½” thick. Adoor frame was created out of 2 x 8's and the door itself was created out of 2x 4's the same way the ceiling was, creating a solid wood door 3 ½” thick.
Asimple floor was added using 2 x 4's and 3/4” pressed wood. The entire room wassealed with silicone sealant.
An electrical system was designed using a single120 volt, 20 amp circuit on 12/2 romex, mixed with a 12 volt circuit. Thesecircuits consist of one 120 volt switched flo light fixture for basic lighting,a 12 volt flo light fixture which turns on automatically in the event of apower failure. (A green cover was made just in case a power failure happensduring the 12 dark hours. Can't have any light leaks coming from inside theroom. That would be really dumb.) Four 120 volt recepts for powering variousappliances, and an integrated heating and ventilation system. We wired a 120volt, 750 watt baseboard heater with a built in thermostat into a series ofrelays. These relays control the ventilation system, the 12 volt flo light andtwo hour meters, one for the heater and one for the fans. (I liked the idea ofknowing how well the room kept its heat.) As the three inline duct fans run(two pushing air in and one drawing air out through a carbon filter) thetemperature slowly drops in the room. When the thermostat turns the heater onthe relays turn the ventilation system and its hour meter off, and when thetemperature gets up to normal, the thermostat turns the heater and its hourmeter off, and the fans and its hour meter back on. This keeps the fans frompumping cool air into the room when the heater is on, saving electricity. Evenwith these cold December days the heater never runs for more than 4 to 5 min.at a time. We bought a nice dehumidifier and painted the walls and ceiling witha bright white moisture barrier to keep the humidity under control and reflectlight. We purchased a very nice 4', 8 bulb, t5 high output flo light fixturefor plant light. The fixture came with 8 warm bulbs for flowering and 8 bluebulbs for vegetation.
We germinated bag seeds in moist paper towel and now have5 plants that are 50 to 60 days old and 15 to 19” tall. Pre sex looks like theyare all female, but we'll see. I just switched over from 24/0 to 12/12 threedays ago. I can't wait to see some buds. This is my first grow. I have spent alot of time reading and studying. So far so good.
This room cost me $2000.00 and took 10 weeks to build! (That sucked!) Well, if I get trapped in the room aftera storm, I'll have plenty of bud to get me through, lol. Check out my pics andtell me what you think.

 

Get r done man. Always thinking 'slow progress is better than no progress' got me through it. Let me know if you need any advise.