I'm a first time grower and have a small room in the basement I thought may be ideal for a grow room but it's a fairly dank and musty room. Does anyone think this would be a problem and if so could I compensate with a dehumidifier or heater?
I'm in Oregon. It rains here a lot, like 7 months out of the year. My room is in the basement of my house. The house is on a solid basalt foundation and I get seepage into the basement very often. Right now, in veg, my RH remains around 60 to 65%. In summer, I have to work pretty hard during veg to keep it up there as it should be. The additional moisture actually works out pretty good for my grow and raises the RH by 10 to 20 depending on how much seepage. This is fantastic for veg! For flower I mainly just need to turn down or turn off my humidifier to have it remain at around 25 to 35% RH. My advice is to scrub/bleach the hell out of the area and make sure they is no mold growing anywhere. You need the environment as sterile as possible at the beginning of each grow. Get many fans to continuously blow in the basement to keep it as dry as you can outside of the space where you intend to grow AND inside that space too. I've found that carpet dryer floor blower style fans work great for this along with a mix of standard fans. Use your heater and fans and s filter fan to help control the room and air flow into and out of the room. Temps should be pretty easy to maintain in the basement with hardly any fluctuations throughout the year. Good luck! Happy growing!!
If the temperature inside your grow space is hotter than where the air is taken in from, then the humidity inside the grow space will naturally be much lower than the humidity outside. Growing with air temp around 80 F will probably lower humidity greatly, and you might need a cheap heater unless the lights do it. MJ loves high humidity, and humidity in the 60s typically produces optimal vegetative growth. Google "Vapor Pressure Deficit" (subtract about 5 F from air temp to get leaf temp) Only if the high humidity causes mold problems would I use a dehumidifier. I do hydro with humidity in the 60s (only possible for me using humidifiers) thru harvest without any problems. StickyBudHound has given good advice.
Get a temp/humidity meter n let it sit in that room with ur lights n fans goin for like a week that’ll tell ya if u can grow in their or not. Depending on the #s ya come up with you’ll have to tweak the environment or scratch the idea.
The only time I can maintain correct VPD is when it's been raining a lot and I've got a fair amount of seepage coming through the cement floor. It's like trying catch a unicorn otherwise.
Producing enough humidity to follow VPD chart can be a problem. I've got 2 ultrasonic humidifiers servicing sprouts right now with humidity in the upper 60s, and temp in upper 70s F. Without the humidifiers, the humidity would be in the 30s.
I grow in damp basement for years, in the winter need heat cuz types get 52 ish at night and my growth was slow, heat fixed that. Nothing on walls like mylar or what not, you will get mold, dehumidifier and 2 2 fans run nonstop to maintain 58-65 humidity at 72 -82 degrees depending on season. The fans on the plants are a must to keep air flow, manicure and lollipop to help breathing. Have fresh air in and at least exhaust air out of that room if not outside. Mold is the enemy in the damp. I agree, I bleach floors and scrub walls between grows and every thing goes just fine as long as u are attentive and willing to learn your environment. I have a tent too, but the room is the way. Good luck Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk