Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
nice harvest. pretty extreme defoliation, hope it works out for you
New Loft Grow Room - Input Appreciated
- Thread starter loftygoals
- Start date
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
It is indeed extreme! 
Based on three a light:
I'm hoping for the same yield with more manageable plants and easier trimming as all the buds should develop to roughly the same size... That's the theory anyway!
If it works great, if not I can always try something else on the next run
Based on three a light:
I'm hoping for the same yield with more manageable plants and easier trimming as all the buds should develop to roughly the same size... That's the theory anyway!
If it works great, if not I can always try something else on the next run
TigerSquad
Active Member
I am extremely jellious. That place looked like a dungeon in a castle great job. I'm a carpenter myself and it right work.Hey guys,
I've been planning my new loft grow room for about 3 months and been working on it for about 6 weeks. I was aiming to get growing at the start of Feb but am a couple weeks behind as it's been a lot more work than I thought.
I'd been thinking of growing for a few years but never had anywhere suitable. It needed to be hidden away from prying eyes. So one night a few months back I opened up the loft hatch to see if it would be suitable... wow!
View attachment 3605422
Loads of room but dusty, cold and drafty! No way was it suitable like that. There was loads of junk up there. 4 TV aerials laying around, a garage door which had been broken into pieces and someone decided to store in the loft?! So I got cleaning, cleared the central area and started laying a chipboard floor. This was hard work with no proper lighting, dust was everywhere but I got there eventually...
View attachment 3605423
With a floor done I could work without being scared of putting my foot through a ceiling (came close a few times!). I ran 2.5mm mains cable off the upstairs mains electric supply in a ring. I wired up 5 double sockets for a start which should be able to supply 32A 240V (7680 watts max) in total.
View attachment 3605424
Now for insulation. I decided on celotex between the rafters. I've only gone with 50mm which I think is enough (I have my own FLIR camera arriving soon so I should be able to take a good look at the roof myself). The U value of unfilled cavity walls of this house would be 1.6 W/mk while the celotex has a U value of 0.44 W/mk which means the roof should be loosing about 4x less heat than the walls (it's not quite that simple because I'm leaving the timbers uninsulated other than some aluminium tape but you get the idea... 50mm of celotex should be plenty in theory).
View attachment 3605425
This was quite a challenge! The rafters were all different widths apart and some were at wonky angles... but I got there in the end.
View attachment 3605426
I used expanding polyurethane foam to seal off the corners completely and aluminium tape on all joins.
View attachment 3605427
This week I've been building an insulated stud wall on the party wall to keep out any stray noise/smells from the neighbours. I'm almost done. Just need to tape up the studwork. It's been pretty hard work because I have a no power tools or hammering after 6:30pm rule (common sense IMO) and most days I'm at work during the day... anyway we got there eventually!
View attachment 3605428
So I'm almost at the point where I can get started growing. I didn't want to germinate anything and not have things setup properly then mess around with small plants in the room while I'm sawing timbers and insulation.
Today I went and cleaning up the house. I've even changed the bathroom extractor fan outlet to a larger grill (the old fan didn't work and the old grill was badly yellowed anyway). I've repainted the bathroom ceiling and loft hatch with Dulux Trade Diamond paint which is supposed to be 10x tougher than normal paint so can be cleaned to remove any signs that I've been using the hatch
I'm relatively limited for headroom particularly around the sides where the roof slopes in. So I've bought 2 8x4 foot Roof Qube tents. They'll go in the middle obviously and I'll probably link them together in the future. I'm planning a RDWC setup and have bought most of the bits. Then I'm a little stuck with how best to use the rest of the space? This was my thinking (grey lines are load bearing walls or massive 2x15 inch beams):
View attachment 3605429
So I'm thinking I can build 2x veg cabinets into the corners to get my plants started for 2-3 weeks and then move them into the central tents. The whole loft area is going to be supplied with air from a single side vent which was already in place and I'll be venting into the bathroom via an extra large extractor fan vent which is carbon filtered. The central tents are going to run their own 8 inch carbon filter too so any air going into the house will be double filtered from flowering plants. I'll be running a 265W dehumidifier in the grow room and then a 500W dehumidifier in the house to keep condensation down. I have an industrial Ozone generator which I'll run if I open up the tents.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments?
Planning something special for lighting too... water cooled DIY COB LEDs being cooled by a car radiator and a 16inch 1800cfm car radiator fan blowing over it
TigerSquad
Active Member
Nawww should sprayed some dw40 in der suuun lol that's a lot of work for a say my floor.This afternoon I've spent a couple of hours working on the floor. I had to fit in new boards around 2 large 2.4mx0.6m boards which had been placed up there previously and had been hammered in with nails (prone to squeaks). Well the joins between the new and old boards were really squeaky and the old boards were coming loose in places. I had considered ripping up that section of floor and just replacing it with new but it seemed quite a waste of time and effort just to eliminate some squeaks. So... I bought some steel mending plates:View attachment 3606743
After an hour with my impact driver, 19 mending plates and 300 screws... the floor is completely squeak free
I also had another look at the layout and hit a stumbling block! I hadn't considered the space the loft ladder takes when it's up in the loft (as I'm never up there with it fully up). So I climbed up while the ladder was still up in the loft and checked out how much space it takes... Luckily with some juggling I can still fit my tents in
Here's the new layout:
View attachment 3606762
TigerSquad
Active Member
Is the cam to check the thermal temp out of the spaceThanks
Never done a grow before so a little apprehensive about it and defo don't want to get caught!
Have just ordered some pond liner for the floor. By my calculations the central floor area should hold over 1000 litres (If I have a barrier around the edges a minimum of 4 inches high) before it starts overflowing. Considering there's not going to be that much water up there in the first place it should survive a full on disastrous complete system water loss without damaging the ceilings below... that's the plan anyway
Gonna be starting with 8 Blueberry fem seeds. I'm setting Friday 19th Feb as my seed start date now. Should have the cabinets built and the roof tested with the FLIR camera by then *fingers crossed*
Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
"trimmigrants"....i like that...i see wondering tribes of gypsies that trim all day and roll finger hash all night
Cornishi
Well-Known Member
What's your hourly pay for trimming? Haha
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
10% of the weed you trim, cup of coffee and a biscuit? Any takers?!
I joke but it's getting *really* tedious!
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
If the guy is selling his book for $500 a pop he must think there's something in it. Only way to find out is to give it a go
I've seen some talk about it but no real results. Worst case is I get a smaller yield and use it as a learning experience. Best case I have a load of massive colas! I'm willing to take the risk
Moflow
Well-Known Member
My mate gets £200, as much as he wants to smoke and a 1/4 O for 5 hours constant trimming! Lol lol
Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
so whats up? how did the harvest turn out? what are we growing next? what are you going to do to modify those cobs?.....i told you, we aint used to 6 episodes a year
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
Hi
Lol!All is well here
First grow totals were:
Purple Afghan Kush 352g (4 plants)
Pineapple Express 617g (4 plants)
Blueberry 359g (2 plants)
Viper Cookies 751g (6 plants)
Total: 2079g from 2400w = 0.87gpw
I had thought it was only roughly 1800g, but I had counted the total up wrong in my head. Not actually too shabby from cheapo chinese COBs and a first grow.
The PAK is by far the stand out high quality bud. Anyone who's had a try has been in love. I've had very experienced people telling me it's the best smoke they've ever had. Bit of a shame it yields half the other strains I've been running.
Anyway since then I started my second grow pretty much straight away. I did some extreme defoliation and also upgraded my lights in the first 2-3 weeks.
I ended up removing the SCROG net to upgrade the lighting more easily and never put it back up again. Grow #3 will definitely be a SCROG with minimal defoliation to compare to previous grows.
Here's a pic of the lighting setup currently with 30 COBs at 600w per 4x4. I will be adding another 600w per 8x4 tent over the next couple of weeks as the weather should allow 2kW per tent from now on.
I have the tents running on a strict 12/12 via a homemade flip box (https://www.rollitup.org/t/cheap-diy-flip-box.913197/) which has worked really well.
I guess I'll go take some pics tonight... but in my 2 tents I currently have:
Tent #1 (8x4) (all 55 day phenos currently on day 37)
Pineapple Express x6
Purple Afghan Kush x2
Tent #2 (8x4) (all 10 week phenos currently on day 30)
Viper Cookies x7
Blueberry x1
Veg room (currently 30 days of veg - topped once)
Pineapple Express x8
Blueberry x8
Not sure what I'm going to go with on round 4. I'm thinking of adding Kosher Kush or Super Lemon Haze?
I also have an appointment with an engineering firm next week to make up heated plates for a hydraulic Rosin press. I have all the parts together but need some holes drilled more precisely than I can manage by hand. The total should come to around £150 (already have a suitable hydraulic press) which is orders of magnitude cheaper than anything I could buy retail.
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
I just went and took some pics... damn peer pressure!
Here's a shot of Purple Afghan Kush at 37 days:
Here's a trichome shot with my new macro lens... I've been lusting over a proper macro lens for about 4 years, finally caved in last week! Gotta love new toys
Here's the Viper Cookies / Blueberry tent at 30 days, considering the defoliation they went through at flip they recovered well:
And finally the veg room (8 plants at the back are 30 days old, 8 at the front are 23 days old; all topped yesterday):
Here's a shot of Purple Afghan Kush at 37 days:
Here's a trichome shot with my new macro lens... I've been lusting over a proper macro lens for about 4 years, finally caved in last week! Gotta love new toys
Here's the Viper Cookies / Blueberry tent at 30 days, considering the defoliation they went through at flip they recovered well:
And finally the veg room (8 plants at the back are 30 days old, 8 at the front are 23 days old; all topped yesterday):
cindysid
Well-Known Member
Hi Lofty. Just got thru reading the whole thread! What a project! I have learned so much. I'm currently growing in soil, and I'm on my 4th round indoors. I just built a new 9x9 grow room and I was thinking of trying non passive hydro.. Now I'm glad I didn't! I did a hempy sog my first grow and had a good harvest, but with 49 plants in a 4 x 4 tent, it was a nightmare! I'm sold on hempy buckets though....just fewer plants! How do you feel the defoliation has worked out for you? Does it seem as if it might have set them back any?
Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
everything looks really good.
i was curious about the defoliation experiment myself. hows that going? seems like every time i strip any sun leaves off a plant it takes its sweet time getting over it.
i was curious about the defoliation experiment myself. hows that going? seems like every time i strip any sun leaves off a plant it takes its sweet time getting over it.
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
Defoliation definitely got rid of any smaller undeveloped bud sites. Everything has come up the same size all over the plants which will help hand trimming massively.
Defoliation definitely set the plants back significantly in terms of overall plant size. If you can veg for 6-8 weeks and you have strains which finish in 10 weeks they have the size and time to recover. But if you can only veg for 4 weeks or less and the strain finishes in 7-8 weeks then I'm certain yields will suffer as the plants just can't catch up compared to an untouched plant.
I'll not be defoliating any quick flowering strains in the future but Viper Cookies and Blueberry have both responded perfectly.
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
I'd say the plants get set back 3-5 days in early flower. We all know early flower is when they stretch so you end up with significantly smaller plants if they're quick flowering (strains that only stretch for 18-21 days). Longer flowering strains that stretch for 28 days can still recover size well and fill out the available space with the advantage of being all big buds.
I can see why some people are for it and some people against it.
For comparison the back 4 plants here are Viper Cookies at 4 weeks with no defoliation:
Compared to this run there is not much difference in overall plant size but there are more/bigger bud sites this time round.
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PDX Joe
Well-Known Member
Hi Loftygoals,
I'm a huge fan of SIPS for my outdoor vegetable garden. So, I'm going to try the Autopots for my cannabis grow closet because the system seems similar. How do you fill your reservoir? Do you let it get to almost the bottom and then fill it up again with water/ nutrient mix or do you top it off frequently? What's your overall system for managing the reservoir and nutrients? I think I'm going to try the Jack's 321 system with coco that Greengenes likes to use... seems simple and inexpensive. Thanks!
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
I have a schedule which includes checking on the autopot reservoir once a week. If it's under 1/3 full I add 20L.
I probably only need to fill it twice a month. These are not flowering plants though.
My reservoir is 47L and I have found my plants drink about 2L per day in flower. So 6 plants would drink the res dry every 4 days (2L x 6plants = 12L per day). You could use this rough calculation to add a bigger res and get more time between filling the system or feed more plants.