Basement growers question

What ways have you guys found is the best to do if you plan on putting your set up in the basement? As far as what to do with the exhaust?

You need to vent outside when you aren't using heat in the house, at a minimum. You need to keep the pots off the floor during the cold months. You need a dehumidifier.

I would set up intake & exhaust through a window unless it’s a finished basement.

Yup, agree with the others. Basements are notoriously damp, add in plants, you'll have a problem.
Exhaust out a widow, cut a hole and add a dryer vent to the outside if there aren't any windows. I wouldn't even bother to grow if you cant exhaust outside. Got an old unused chimney? You may have a clean out in the basement you could vent up through. Not that you should do that if it's a chimney still in use.
I'd also think about trying to wash walls, floors ( I'd use bleach on the floors,probably the cheapest) and paint everything. Most paints today already have a mildewcide in it, but you can buy mildewcide ( any paint store) and add it to your gallon(s) of paint.

I don't think you can go overboard with cleaning a basement for a grow.

^^ Def can never go overboard. I would add renting a fogger and blasting the walls/floors/cracks with Concrobium or something similar.

Then, Power wash, air dry.

Brush/roller paint with Drylock paint to really seal nooks and crannies.

Every comment so far is assuming that your basement is wet and cold. I'm lucky enough to have a completely dry basement that stays about the same temp as the rest of the house. I just use a MERV 8 filter on the intake. The color of the used filters is pretty gnarly, I couldn't imagine what it would be like if I had a gross moldy basement tho...

nygaff1 said:

Every comment so far is assuming that your basement is wet and cold. I'm lucky enough to have a completely dry basement that stays about the same temp as the rest of the house. I just use a MERV 8 filter on the intake. The color of the used filters is pretty gnarly, I couldn't imagine what it would be like if I had a gross moldy basement tho...

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Haha that funny I was thinking the same thing but it can never hurt to have all the input I can get...I recently re tiled my basement so it's a pretty nice basement but it's still a basement so if I didn't have my dehumidifiers running it would get outta control

I've got a setup in my basement, and the room actually is "outside" the footprint of the house. It's a hidden room built for cold storage of vegetables. I can keep very good control of it with a dehumidifier and an AC infinity fan and controller. Fan vents into a carbon filter in the laundry room, intake air comes from the same thru a "mushroom" filter. Haven't had any mold or mildew issues at all, and with the controller, fan keeps the room right where I want it. Don't have any smell at all outside the room, I could vent out an old extra chimney stack I've got from an old coal burner, but wife had a fit about the ducting because it's about 12ft away.
All in all, it's the ideal setup for me, hidden from sight, no tent to deal with, no smell, and can control the environment fairly well.

Johnny Dro said:

What ways have you guys found is the best to do if you plan on putting your set up in the basement? As far as what to do with the exhaust?

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youre gonna want a mushroom cap or the intake so it will catch all the dust. dust is a massive player in basement weed. youll also want something mayeb to get ride of the basement smell also.

When I grew in my basement I had 6 600watt HPS.
That's a lot of heat to waste in the winter. I uses ducted hoods and plumbed the exhaust into my heat ducts.

Using my basement now. I'm in the like 20x30 room with the furnace and hot water tank. I'm using a big ass tent with that room as the lung room. Summer was easy with the dehumidifier running in the basement as usual, got to use the distilled water too. Winter and fall I'm having high temp low humidity issues. I'm exhausting all hot air through a duct to the other end of the basement.

I took one of my basement windows out and put in some osb with a vent on the outside and just vented to that with ducting same with my a/c In The room.