Hey everyone! This will be my first grow and I'm looking forward to it in more ways than I can count. However, I'm in need of some advice on building my growbox. The space I have is this creepy attic type space accessed by a small door in my room. The environment in their is pitch black with coool attic air. It also has a bunch of exposed insulation and smells like an attic. For this reason, I planned to build a grow box and have an active air intake pulling seemingly fresher air from my bedroom. The question is, would I be fine with creating a passive air intake instead of active. My worries are the attic smell and maybe air quality. Dimensionally, I have the growbox conceptually designed to 33" tall x 29" wide by 80" deep. The plan is to run t5ho down the roof and have some cfls on the sides. This shorter room height I was thinking of just autoflowers but am now reading that some grow a lot bigger than the 33" I have to work with. Also read that autos don't necessarily respond well to height controlling techniques like topping, lst, and scrog. Any advice on what to do? Don't want to start building and spending until I'm concrete with my plans. Thank you so much in advance. And happy 4/20 day
Is it fairly easy to access the room? When I tried my first one I had a pretty good sized closet, but the air was stuffy and it got too hot. You're on the right track with the t5's and cfl's. They're great for keeping the heat down. Just remember you will be in and out of this room several times a day. Also the plants will double or triple in size during flowering. They call it "the stretch". If you're plant is 12" when you start, it may finish at 24" or 36". My first I started flowering at 15" and it jumped up to 45" or 48" at the end. I had to rearrange everything at the end because there was no room. I assume keeping it low key is the thing with this grow.
Are you exhausting to the outdoors, into that room or into another room? Passive intakes should be fine if the air is fairly cool in there if your venting outside i would think it would clear that musty air out in no time. I'd clean the crap out of that area too, make sure you don't have much in the way of living mold spores or anything like that up there.
Looks like a dope spot. How many plants you want to grow? Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Thanks for the reply DanGro420! Its fairly easy but you have to duck into the space given that its an attic type area. Pretty much crawl space only definitely no standing. I thought for the height restriction that autos would be perfect. But it doesn't appear that you can do much height control with them? I'm not too worried about the low keyness of the grow. I just wanted to use the extra space I had for some autos. In the near future ill have a 4x4 tent setup but wanted to have another grow before hand/during for more trial and error...more learning!
The plan was to exhaust back into that musty room with a carbon filter. I was going to completely square off the area and design a whole grow box so that I didn't have to worry about the surrounding environment, but I definitely will clean it up as much as possible. If I'm exhausting into that room then I'll probably definitely want to intake from my bedroom right? Is some ducting ran from the box through the bedroom wall enough (passive) or should I need a fan on the end of the ducting to take the bedroom air into the box? I wanted to get as many autos in the box as possible. I read about one per square foot is perfect and I did some calculations and found that about 12 would be prime. I guess we'll see when the box is built and all lights and fans are in how much actual usable space I get though
I would remove the old insulation and clean the fuck out of that space. Then I would put in new insulation, cover it with some plywood sheathing, set up your ventilation, and put on a few coats of flat white paint. Don't really need the box. I literally scrubbed my entire basement with a deck brush and cleaner to get rid of the unique odor that was down there. Ditched anything that absorbs odor like cardboard (or in your case, insulation), and ventilated the area. Now it smells like a fresh breeze.
yeah and also consider even with a carbon filter if you vent back into a room in your home at the very least that room will smell during flower, it builds slowly over time the little bit of odor that gets through the carbon filter. venting into such a small room will cause heat issues probably if you have hot lights, i don't know much about t5's other than they're pretty good lights. Consider the odor buildup though especially if your in an illegal place, it really does happen. The carbon filters work great but they're meant to be vented to the outdoors. i have the issue in my place to grows in a row now becasue i can't vent ouside but since it's legal here i don't have to worry about people smelling it i only use the filters out of respect for my neighbors.
Thicken Dense: Yeah I'm now thinking just cleaning it up and finishing the space would be actually easier than building a box with such confined restrictions. it will also give me more usable space and accessibility. PNWClosetGrower: With my new plans of just refinishing the room it won't be an obstacle to vent outside. So I will definitely be doing that. Also, I'm in California so everything will be legal (medicinally) of course. Thanks for the replies and advice!
I don't know much about autos. I've only used bagseed. I know autos start flowering when they're ready. you don't have to change the light cycle. How many t5's do you have? I have one but I use it for starting seeds and cloning. You can use t5's and cfl's start to finish but you need to have a few of them. I have a 150 watt with two CFL's on the side for supplemental lighting. My problem with the t5 is that growth seems to slow when you get to a certain point. Same with cfl's. My Hps I found for under $100. When they're young they need blue light. When they get older they need amber gold colored light. The HPS can do it start to finish no problem. The problem with mine is heat. I want to see that all cleaned up. You got a nice spot.
Cleaning it up would probably be a lot easier. Then you could just block off areas with panda film and you a veg/flower room for a continuous growing cycle Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Now that I've decided on cleaning her up, I've got some extra height to play with. I was just going to use the T5 due to lack of height. Now I'm thinking I might have to run an hps in there. Might be more productive? Thee space I have now is approximately 5x7.5.
No doubt. You could run 2 lights with cooltubes and get a nice spread. Maybe 2x 400w? 600w dimmable? I've had buds growing right up against the glass of a 1kw, they aren't hot at all when properly ventilated. ^Zero heat damage.
With a small fan running over the top of the HPS it barely puts out any heat. Without the fan the heat just stays around. I've heard attics can be good spaces to grow but I've also heard that the stuffy air and the heat makes it hard to grow. I remember last summer I was keeping some seedlings growing in my attic. I must have left them for one day too long. They all died. Be aware with summer approaching that attic will get hot. I would hate for you to have to move your girls in the middle of flowering. I had to do it once. IT was a Major Payne. I've grown twice in closets but it seems it always gets too hot. Buds are airy and not dense. Just something to be aware of. It's great that you're thinking about all this beforehand. I too did a lot of planning before starting anything. It's not something you just jump into. Plan, plan, plan, and then plan some more.
The plan is to just do it right the first time and have a formidable grow room for many many crops. I've been doing a lot of research on attic ventilation and what not. Turns out what I have is called a "knee wall attic". This is turning into a carpentry project more than anything at the moment. Looks like I'm going to have to run some proper ventilation through the attic, properly insulate and seal as well. Doing a lot of learning. I wanted to start growing as a hobby more than anything. And it's is turning into a very educational hobby. In more ways than expected. I'll keep this thread updated as I make changes but the process is slow with finals and school being the number one priority at the moment. Thanks for all the advice!