New Office Grow Room

Hey Guys. Been a long time since I have been here. About 4-5 years or so. I do believe. Could not access my old account. Don't remember my user name or email address used to register. So I created a new account.

Anyways. I am in the process of building a new office space for my business and wanted to incorporate a grow room withing the space that I have for the office. I want a room not a closet for growing this time.
The room that I have is an attic that is unfinished and needs a floor put down. slanted roof with a chimney a little off center. I do plan on using the chimney for all venting purposes. As it is not used for anything else and will not be in the near future.

The usable space that I have available is roughly 40' x 16'. So I am sure there will be room for a pretty good sized grow room as I do not need a huge office space. However what I wanted to do was build the office with a walk-in closet that will have a hidden door in the rear to enter the grow room.

Here are a few pics of the space I have available.
Needs flooring but that will be done within a few weeks.


What my idea was for the first grow in this new room was a 4-8 plant DWC style grow. Had enough of soil grows.
Once I have the floor plans done I will know more about what space I will have and see how many plants I can fit in this space and decide what lights I will need.
I was thinking some where around 8'x6' or 8'x8' room. Roof hieight aries with the rafters and such and a few support braces that are in place. lowest part of the space is 6' peak is 8'. 5 foot where I will end each end of the room on the slant.

Plans will change depending on how the room is built.

I will be working on the plans here in a little while. I will upload the floor plans once completed.

I have only done CFL grows 2 plants at a time and I think it is time to kick it up a bit and build a real room.
Pretty much starting from scratch.

Let me know if you guys have any ideas or comments that you would like to share. Would be greatly appreciated.

welcome me back and let me know what you think.

Here is the floor plan for the space.

May be adjusted a little here or there but its the basic.



Let me know what you think and if things should be moved a bit.

No one has any comments or suggestions?

it will be nice i bet

I looked at your pictures of your attic and the first thoughts were that you had an empty canvass to build a great grow room. Then I looked at your floor plan and dimensions. Obviously you have use the space for other things and I understand that....but I don't think you're allowing enough room for a decent grow room, or one that you would wish you made bigger not too far in the future. The 2x4 veg room is big enough for maybe 3 plants...(disclosure: I have never grown in a DWC set-up), and your flower room (I have a 5x7) can hold 6-8 comfortably...more in a pinch.

One BIG consideration you should have is water containment. There will be a day that something goes amiss and there's a spill. Your grow-room being in the attic can really ruin your day when a spill occurs. You may want to design in some sort of flooring that has the ability to hold a quantity of water.

Other than that....welcome back to RIU and I'll be following your progress as I love watching how other people build grow rooms.

Thank you for the replies. This is project that will take some time to complete. and those floor plans can change. May actually turn out completely different from what was shown.

I want the biggest grow room I can manage without it taking over the space completely. I am use to growing in those Rubbermaid utility cabinets. So any room will be a improvement.

Do you think a 8x8 or so would be a better bet for the room. As this would allow 64sq feet of floor space. Height varies because of the peaked roof

Here are other floor plans I made before. Do you think this would be better. I can always veg somewhere else that is not a problem. My main concern is the bloom room.

I was interesting in semi hiding the space but if not that is not a problem either as the office is mine only. No one needs to be in there but me. and no one comes over except for 1 guys witch i trust entirely anyways.

The other plans are 8x8 and I may just put a grow tent up there after the floor is in place to see if 8x8 would be good for the bloom room. So I can continue to grow until the room is done. But then again if I were to put a tent there I may also just build a room around the tent. Would leave an air pocket around the tent so a temp controlled insulator. remove hot are from the top and pump in cooler air threw the bottom. Then vent all air out the top of the tent to the chimney. Would be a way to control the temps with proper venting in and out. I have a few small air conditioners I could use for cooling if needed for the summer months. These are all just ideas. But the tent idea would be a way to help with the contaminate issues that you brought up. Most of the tents have a spill proof lining so that would solve that problem. Would also be easier to clean and I wouldn't have to worry as much about what materials were used to build the room. I think the main issue would be humidity and mold. But that would be about it. Another thing I was thinking about what the heat signatures that would be emitted. having a room around the tent would lessen the sigs if a flyby would to occur. Again just ideas but may be worth it in the end. Would pretty much have the cooler air surround the tent while the hot air was being pumped out the chimney threw the tent like a hot water heater or such was running or even a boiler. with an additional vented fan outside the tent to purge the air around the tent if needed.

Maybe I am over thinking this but I know I want a room that I will be happy with and have room to grow. What would be a good plant number for an 8x8 space for one. I am guessing I will need at least a 600watt possibly even a 1000w for the correct lighting.

What are your thoughts on all this.

and here is the other floor plans.

Nice room to work with.

Take the time to do all the insulating you can in the space to give yourself the best start to an even keeled room. Nothing worse than temp swings to piss the Ladies off..lol

Looking forward to the rest of the story.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

Thanks man. As I said will take a little while to get it all done. But first things first. I need a floor.

I will post as I get things done here and there.

Suggestions will be helpful at this point so I dont go to far and do something I wish I wouldn't have done.

Yeah.....I've read many post of those that grew in their attics and battled high and low temps. I don't know where you live, but attics are hotter than shit during the summer. Zoned central A/C may be a consideration.

Another question I have....what are doing for water up there? I'm assuming that there's nothing running up there now. You'll hate life having to drag 5 gal buckets up and down stairs on a daily basis.

Well there is new electric up there so the electric is covered. Just have to make sure that the breaker is of the correct amps to sustain a grow up there. May have to change that.

Yes I was worried about the temps in the summer. I have a few trees around the house that cover part of the roof so its not always direct sunlight. I will be venting the attic itself this coming summer aswell. Just to keep airflow and see how it is going to be.

Water isn't going to be an issue either. at the top of the stairs where the new room is going to be if I go with the second plans that I posted. The bathroom is right below the room and right next to the stairs. I was going to add in a water line that ran up to the attic so I would always have water up there without having to run and get it everytime. I already have everything I need for the extra tap for the water. Just need to install it that is all.

As to where I live. Pennsylvania. So sometimes high temps in the summer while sometimes really lows temps in the winter. So the hot and cold will have to be taken care of. I will prolly end up insulating the attic.

I have been growing for a while now. Prolly 6 years in total I do believe. Think its time I get more serious about it and get a room started. That is why I came back to the forums and started thinking about supplies and what I will need for DWC and all that other great stuff.

Now questions for you guys.

If I were to build an 8'x8' room.

What lights would you buy? 400, 600, 1000, 2x 400, 2x 600 ect.
How many plants would you bloom?
What type of system would you use besides DWC?

How would you go about building a room like this?


Just curious that is all. Interested to see what others would buy, do, or build.

Ammastor

Just went threw all my strains and picked the first strain I want to grow in this room once finished.

Classic- Master Kush (Nirvana)

Love the smoke. Early to pick but this will be the first grow in this room since its a hardy strain and can withstand a lot until the room get modded and tweaked after built. Think the strain will be well suited for the first grow. Help me tweak the room to perfection.

-Ammastor-



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I'm subbing to this. Sounds like you have a decent plan!

My room is basically in the attic of my garage. It's a loft but still attic. floor area is 8x12 divided in half Veg/Flower

Summer time temps are HOT and winter is COLD. I have both A/C and a heater that are both on all of the time. The settings allow for them to work somewhat in unison. We are getting snow today so the heater needs to be bumped up a bit since I go from 59.7-77.4 degrees from day to night. My area is not insulated other than the 1 inch rigid insulation the room is made out of.

Things I needed to address this year were:

Heat
Cold
Humidity
fresh air in
stale air out
room for fans, A/C, humidifier/de-humidifier....
Water on the floor ( leaks, overflows, ect...)
plants overgrowing the space (8x6 flower room with 9 plants up to 47 inches tall)
Hauling water up and down (DWC,Flooded Tube)


I installed a sink so I have running water/drain and a central wet vac for cleanup. I am also going to insulate soon to help with the temp fluctuations. I run two 600 watt cool tubes horizontally without the reflectors that seem to be enough for my needs. The entire room is reflective rigid insulation including the floor.

Door placement is important. I can't walk into my room because there are plants in the way. I have to pull at least two plants out of the room in order to go in and look around for issues.

I am just throwing out what I have dealt with.

I havnt been up there in the winter or the summer. I know there is no insulation up there besides what on the floor for the upstairs area of the house.

I have a pretty good feeling that I will battle what you are battling to. The house was built back in 1894 so the insulation isn't all that good to begin with. I was thinking about getting a few rolls of insulation and filling the rafters where the room is going to be. Sooner or later doing the whole attic as it will be an office space of mine.

I already planned on setting up a thermostats with the heaters and also the a/c that I have has one built in already. So I was gong to try to help control the room with the thermostats. Pumping in the warm air when needed and cooling directly in the room when it gets to high. But never be running together.

The fresher air I planned on getting from downstairs. As the room is going to pretty much be above our bathroom. The bathroom has the exhaust fan in there already. So i will get there air from there. Maybe upgrade the fans or just use use it for a disguise for an inline duct fan. Plus the room is cooled in the summer and heated in the winter so I will be pulling air that is already treated from below. My exhaust was headed to the chimney so the air wont be circulated in the attic itself. But in the winter the extra heat from the light might be worth pumping back into the room. and the pulled out in the summer.

I know the whole system I have to work on but I will get it setup and completed. Just going to take a little while. Need the extra cash. Xmas is coming and at the moment I am currently on a tighter budget. A few months ago I would have just went out and bought everything needed in one shot but today have to pretty much buy here and there. I was thinking about selling a few things I don't ever use or even touch to help speed the process along. But I am not sure yet what I am doing. If sales pick up more then i am good to go. If they stay where they are at will take a little while.

I will keep adding posts here when I get anywhere on the room to show progress. Im sometimes inpatient. Want everything here now so I can build away. lol

I was going to go threw a few closets and see what I have laying around. I know there is a pile of lumber under the front porch. Not really sure what is there. Maybe able to get started and buy the rest when I can.

Thank you for sharing about your attic setup. Anything that is on the same line as what I intend to do is a great help.

-Ammastor-

Just an update. I am going to be placing a 3x3x78 tent in the attic for a temp room. Ill post the layout and design of how I want to do the tent grow.

I will grow in this tent until I have the resources and time to start on building the attic grow room. However I do need a few pieces of plywood for the floor before I get everything else to put in this space.

I will still be installing the water lines and all that so there will be water accessible to me up there. The only thing I will face is having to lug the water out when I have to change the nute fluid. I will have to figure something out for this.

Anyways.

Here is my layout and products I will be using for the temp tent.


The supplies do not include the nutes, air, lines, water lines, air ducts, or blowers/inline fans, and so on.

I will be using opaque air lines, 1/8 water line so a slow stead movement of water from control bucket to the 4 DWC setups.

This is almost a RDWC however I do not want a full on flow of nute juice. I was looking for a slow steady movement of water from the control bucket to the 4 plants.

The water pump is not going to be a drip system. Its just going to be a slow circulation in nute juice. Using this system I will be able to watch water levels as gravity will do the equalization for me but at the same time be able to keep a steadier PH, PPM between all 4 buckets.

The water lines that run from the control bucket will be all the same length being pushed threw a small manifold so that all DWC buckets receive the same flow of water from the pump. As distance does change the flow of water in smaller water pumps like the one I plan on using.

This is just an update. The room I am guessing will have to be done after xmas or even in the spring. But I can not wait that long to get back to growing. More updates will come.

Does the bathroom have a shower or tub in it? If so, I would not draw air from there unless you are ready to deal with the mold. That 3 way test meter is junk. I own one and wish I had not spent the $100 on it. It never calibrated right out of the box and the display stopped working within a few months. Spend the money on a quality meter and calibration solution. You will need to re-calibrate often. I went with A $45 Hanna ph meter and have been happy.

Be prepared for water leaks! How much water will be up there and where will it go when it does leak??? Been there done that with 11 gallons! I ran a flooded tube for a year fed by a 350 gph pump. I walked into the garage to see water dripping from the rafters onto my work bench and no water in the rez. Your floor needs to be a giant drip pan! (remember mold)

I have a small sink with a drain hose that waters the flower bed for removing the used water. It was simple to set up. You said the chimney is not used. As in there is nothing using it? not even a water heater? I ask because if there are any gas burning devices using it for a vent, adding any fan forced exhaust to it WILL cause positive pressure and Carbon monoxide problems in your house. Keep the family safe!

ButchyBoy said:

Does the bathroom have a shower or tub in it? If so, I would not draw air from there unless you are ready to deal with the mold. That 3 way test meter is junk. I own one and wish I had not spent the $100 on it. It never calibrated right out of the box and the display stopped working within a few months. Spend the money on a quality meter and calibration solution. You will need to re-calibrate often. I went with A $45 Hanna ph meter and have been happy.

Be prepared for water leaks! How much water will be up there and where will it go when it does leak??? Been there done that with 11 gallons! I ran a flooded tube for a year fed by a 350 gph pump. I walked into the garage to see water dripping from the rafters onto my work bench and no water in the rez. Your floor needs to be a giant drip pan! (remember mold)

I have a small sink with a drain hose that waters the flower bed for removing the used water. It was simple to set up. You said the chimney is not used. As in there is nothing using it? not even a water heater? I ask because if there are any gas burning devices using it for a vent, adding any fan forced exhaust to it WILL cause positive pressure and Carbon monoxide problems in your house. Keep the family safe!

Click to expand...

Sorry it took so long to get back to this reply.

Yes the bathroom has a tub with a shower. The in coming air was going to be filtered and also there will be a UV light available to help with inbound containments. The UV lights may not be strong enough though to kill mold spores as they require much more power then any other bio air contam. However I figured with a good filter and the UV this should lessen the chance of mold. Also without anything up there and the bathroom fan running the humidity level stays below 20%. I have a monitor up there that has been recording temps and humidity highs and lows. Right now the temp outside her is low 30's or so and up there right now it is mid 50s. And that went up 20 degrees since blocking off one of the major windows that had severe draft issues. I still have one windows that needs to be tended to but otherwise things look doable from here. I do have heaters available and also a de-humidifier if needed to be placed up there.

Water leaks I am also prepared for. I plan on building a liner for the temp room that is being built up there right now. It will be built to hold what ever water sources will be up there. Just hav to figure out how high I need the walls. Its an old house and the water would prolly run all the way to the basement if I didn't do something to block or hold the water if there were to be a leak.

As for the chimney. There is nothing using it. There was a boiler for heat but it is no longer used. Hot water heaters we have are electric and are not vented. We have propane but that is only for our stove. There is absolutely nothing using the chimney.

I have been planning this for a long while now and finally getting around to it.

Here are a few pictures of the temporary area I will be growing in until I have the funds to build what I need to build up there.



There is currently no insulation up there but the temps seem to be pretty steady as the temps outside have fluctuated from 50s to 30's and anywhere in between. Currently pulling heat from downstairs up there so that may be a big part of it.
The pics that I posted are of one wall. I plan on lining the entire area with panda film including the floor and building a temp wall 8 feet from the wall to create the room.
After it i built I will have to monitor the area and see how the heat drops and pics up. I will be placing a heater with a a thermostat up there so it can help keep a steadier temp range.

Been so busy I haven't had a chance to work on the other walls. What I have so far is the ceiling of the area started but not finished. All corners will be lines with mylar tape so it should be sealed pretty well. Also will be adding a zipper door with velcrow overlap to help with light leaks. Leaks arent really going to matter anyways as I have fully switched over to autos.

I have purchased my seeds already and they have arrived. I got the northern lights fem autos and the KC45 fem autos. I plan on doing the first grow to see how it all turns out and the second will be a seed run. But I need to get some colloidal silver to force hermie to collect pollen from the fems. Then I should be able to produce enough seeds to keep the future grows going. That is the plan anyways.

Oh and for the PH meter. I have a hanna PH stick. Just wanted something to help monitor the conditions that is all. I was not planning on fully using the 3 way tester for the exact measurements. Also need a new PPM stick though aswell. That I do have to purchase as I do not have one. Cross check will be with paper strips as I like to get a few reading to see if they are close to each other.

There has been a load of planning involved here and things are still changing here and there when I see an issue that I will have to work around. But every grow room has issues that need to be tended to.

One more thing. I will be putting insulation up there here in the near future. I have a buddy that does the foam insulation and that is what will be used in the entire attic. But I am not able to until mid spring or so anyways. He is going to help me out and do it at cost of supplies and prolly a case of beer. lol.

Sounds great! And your area looks like it will work out awesome!!

20-49% humidity is where I am at right now. Winter is great for low humidity for me but summer time it swings the opposite direction and I run between 50-70%. I seem to have the PM issue above 45%.

Insulating the entire area with the spray foam stuff would be a great way to help control temps and will help to seal the area. I have been working on sealing my room best as possible so the only intake is the one with a filter (bugs are a bitch!). So far it has helped dramatically with the temp fluctuations along with adding timers to all of the fans that pull air into or out of the room. It has been tough getting the heater and A/C to work in unison along with the intake and exhaust fans. My temps currently run between 58 and 80 degrees and 20%-49% humidity from lights on to lights off. The A/C is set to come on above 80 degrees and the heater comes on at 58 degrees.

Having a wet-vac handy has been a blessing when water ends up on the floor. My drain trays leak from moving them around so every time I water I get wet floor. I would imagine having your floor liner run up the walls an inch or two would be enough depending on how much area the floor covers. It only needs to hold the amount your res holds plus some.

Something else to think about is the sound made by fans... I have two pedestal fans in my room and I can hear the vibration on the floor from the garage and backyard. This is not a problem for me or my family but if someone else came over, they would probably ask what the noise is and I would have to make up something even though I am as legal as it gets here in Washington (everyone thinks I get my smoke from a med dispensary).

How soon do you expect to be up and running?

Just to throw my opinion in there. I would work on getting that entire attic insulated ASAP. Not just the roof but re-do the floors as well, its only like 2 inches thick there and probably as old as the house. It would help the entire house overall to have the attic properly insulated. I'm assuming you live in this house? Temps will be much better in winter and summer both. If it were my house and I owned it, I would work on getting any power/water ran, outlets placed, office lighting, insulating everything and hanging drywall. Do it all right the first time around.

I agree with Sup...


But I also know how it is at times. I started out with minimal supplies and now need to re-build the entire area around a bunch of plants. I did however start out with solid electrical (romex, boxes) because fire scares me.

Ya I planned on getting it insulated but unable to until spring.g if not mid spring. But the entire attic will be lined with panda film including the floor. The spray foam will be filled in behind the panda once the time comes. I wasn't sure if it could be done that way or not but my buddy said some of the.jobs he does the rooms are lined with plastic and all he does is fill behind the areas that are encased in plastic. He has been doing it for a few years now So I believe what he says.

Now the floor is already insulated. The entire floor is its only the 2 side walls and the peaked roof that are not insulated. This is what I will be covering to stop drafts. However only a small portion of the space up there will be the grow room. Either 4x4 or 5x5. For the temp room.

The internal temp will be controlled by the moving air while the outside of the room will be controlled by heaters and a small ac unit. So not all the work is being done inside the smaller area. I figured if I can stabilize the outside temp the internal temp would be easier to control.

I have already seen a drastic difference in temps since covering that one wall. 20 degree difference or so. Which is a lot better then I thought. Also the house it's self has been staying a bit warmer then I'm use to. So far what I have done seems to be working.

I will be getting more done on Wendsday as tomorrow I am pretty busy.

I will post more pics of what I get done.

Sorry if anything seems misspelled or weird I'm on my phone and it likes to change words on me.

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