My new grow room

Kinda like me, I always try to over-engineer everything I build just to be safe, it's better than having to build something twice because it wasn't good enough the first time.
That ventilation guide seems a good one, although I was always told to exhaust the volume of air 2-3 times a minute, accounting for ducting and filters, with hps lighting. My exhaust can pull about 2.5x the volume of my room per minute, is thermostatically controlled, and has to run most of the night to keep temps below 26c while the lights are on, so I'm wondering if once every three minutes would be enough tbh.
Oh btw, my intake is sort of a cross between active and passive. It's a light trap made in such a way that it sits behind an oscillating fan, so that's sort of helping the air through, while still allowing as much to come in as goes out, if you get my meaning?
Also one small thing, you say you want to avoid negative pressure as it makes air come out of the gaps, when actually it sucks air in through them. If the pressure in the room is lower than the pressure outside, air will be forced in, not out. If the intake fan were too large then it would create a positive pressure, which is bad. Small amounts of negative pressure are good, too much makes the air thinner and so the fans don't move as many air molecules per cubic foot/metre. You're good though, I can't wait to see it full of juicy buds.

Hairy Bob said:

My exhaust can pull about 2.5x the volume of my room per minute, is thermostatically controlled, and has to run most of the night to keep temps below 26c while the lights are on, so I'm wondering if once every three minutes would be enough tbh.
Oh btw, my intake is sort of a cross between active and passive. It's a light trap made in such a way that it sits behind an oscillating fan, so that's sort of helping the air through, while still allowing as much to come in as goes out, if you get my meaning?
Also one small thing, you say you want to avoid negative pressure as it makes air come out of the gaps, when actually it sucks air in through them. If the pressure in the room is lower than the pressure outside, air will be forced in, not out. If the intake fan were too large then it would create a positive pressure, which is bad. Small amounts of negative pressure are good, too much makes the air thinner and so the fans don't move as many air molecules per cubic foot/metre. You're good though, I can't wait to see it full of juicy buds.

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Thanks for that Hairy Bob... my mistake about the negative pressure, i read it somewhere and it stuck in my head as that. Never really thought about the meaning until you explained it there. sound daft, i know. Cheers!
I’ll go with the calculations i have at the minute for the extraction rate... once it’s complete i’ll see how things run and if necessary add another couple of fans. The grow room has been designed to be adapted and modified anyway so no problem at all...
Thanks again for the info!

Day 5

Wired in all sockets and added a few extra... definitely got enough sockets now for any future plans!!
Fitted the remaining framing around the top of grow room which will house the light ballasts and now extraction fan.

Fitted insulation for sound deadening on front face of grow room and sheeted with plasterboard to ceiling height.

Decided to remove the plasterboard i’d already fitted on the side of the grow room and add insulation behind it. Refitted plasterboard and continued sheeting and insulating to ceiling height.

Originally i never fitted sound deadening behind the two sides of the grow room which were against the wall. (thought it would have been ok) i decided i better just to be safe... i bored a number of holes and injected expanding foam into them. The whole grow room has now been insulated for sound deadening... happy days!

p.s. There's so many screws because there's been so much insulation squeezed into the cavity! had to use that many to hold the plasterboard against the frame...

fucking awesome i wish i had my own place i can do that too first of i dont own my house and my landlord comes around a lot.. and also i live with my GF and i cant do anything like that or anything ghetto and it has to be concealed ... blows ass... otherwise i would have my whole closet blown up at least....

Very nice indeed! It's unfortunately rare to see someone such as yourself who figures everything out beforehand, then does a truly professional job of constructing it.
In pic 4, is that flexi dryer ducting I see running up to the ceiling? I would have thought that on such a thorough build as this, you'd use solid ducting as it's less resistant to the flow of air. I use the flexi ally stuff myself with no problems, but I've read in several places that proper metal piping is more efficient.
If you find you need to ventilate more then a simple, effective way is to ventilate the light/s on their own separate system, with a cool air intake going through a cooltube/air cooled hood to it's own fan blowing the hot air out. Use insulated ducting after the light to get the best from it and stop heat leaking into the room.
That way you can run the light's fan on the same timer as the light, or on a 15-30min run-on timer to cool the bulb down after switch-off, and have the other fan on a thermostat to keep the temp as close to optimum as possible. If you want constant ventilation, you can wire a fan speed controller in parallel with a thermostat so it runs at half speed or so until the temperature gets above the desired level, then kicks up to full speed to bring it down again. A fan running at 9 tenths will create much less noise and prolong it's life compared to one that only runs flat out.

Hairy Bob said:

Very nice indeed! It's unfortunately rare to see someone such as yourself who figures everything out beforehand, then does a truly professional job of constructing it.
In pic 4, is that flexi dryer ducting I see running up to the ceiling? I would have thought that on such a thorough build as this, you'd use solid ducting as it's less resistant to the flow of air. I use the flexi ally stuff myself with no problems, but I've read in several places that proper metal piping is more efficient.
If you find you need to ventilate more then a simple, effective way is to ventilate the light/s on their own separate system, with a cool air intake going through a cooltube/air cooled hood to it's own fan blowing the hot air out. Use insulated ducting after the light to get the best from it and stop heat leaking into the room.
That way you can run the light's fan on the same timer as the light, or on a 15-30min run-on timer to cool the bulb down after switch-off, and have the other fan on a thermostat to keep the temp as close to optimum as possible. If you want constant ventilation, you can wire a fan speed controller in parallel with a thermostat so it runs at half speed or so until the temperature gets above the desired level, then kicks up to full speed to bring it down again. A fan running at 9 tenths will create much less noise and prolong it's life compared to one that only runs flat out.

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yes it it flexi dryer ducting i'm using... reason being, the route it has to take would be nearly impossible if solid ducting was used. i realise the resistance is greater if flexi duxting is used but if pulled tight enough the ribs are nearly flat...
i actually constructed a DIY cool light from an industrial sodium light i acquired from a job a while ago... i was having heat issues within the grow room i have at the minute and didn't want to spend the money on a whole new light set up so made my own! works a treat! the reflector isn't amazing but it'll do for this crop... pic attached (the duct tape is just sealing all the holes)

regarding your ventilation setup, I'm assuming your thermostatic controller is really only used for fluctuations in outside tempretures? (air which is forced into the grow room may be hotter or colder depending on the temperature outside) i'll assess the temperatures once my set up is complete and fit a controller if necessary.. thanks again for the info...

Yeah the 'stat is just there so my fan isn't running all day if the intake temp gets low, which it does quite often around here. We can have 80 degree heat all one day, then it'll get down to the 60s for the next, so I wanted something to keep the temps more or less constant. I also have a heater on a separate 'stat that kicks in if the temps go below 65.
If your temps stay fairly constant and you can just set the fan at the desired speed to keep the room ventilated, lucky you! I wish my setup was that simple .
I like the diy cool hood, looks like the one I made for the mh in my veg room. They are a pain with all the holes everywhere, I don't like the way they end up looking all ghetto but looks aren't everything, and a bit of duct tape never hurt anyone!
Looking forward to your next update.

Hey guys. I am designing my own grow rooms based on your awesome setup Jim. I am planning on haviving 2 grow cabinets either side of a chest of draws with the carbon filter and fans up the top of the centre unit. unfortunately due to space constrictions I can only make the rooms 1000mm deep and max 800mm wide. due to this size would it be advisable to drop my planned wattage of 600w down to 400w?
Looking forward to seeing your setup running Jim.

Depends how good your ventilation is. A 600 provides optimal lighting for a 3x3 area, so long as you can keep it cool. A 400 will run slightly cooler, but only gives about 50,000 lumens as opposed to 90,000 from a good 600.
If you have a fan that can comfortably move the volume of air 3 times a minute, after accounting for filters, ducting, ambient temp/humidity, then you may as well go for the 600 imo, they aren't much hotter than a 400 in my experience, and I know plenty of people that got a 400, then after a crop or two started saying things like, "I just wish I got a bigger light!". But I've never seen anyone buy a 600 and say, "It's just too much, dude. I should have got the next size down!"

lol, all i have to say is, Well played, sir.

Hairy Bob said:

Depends how good your ventilation is. A 600 provides optimal lighting for a 3x3 area, so long as you can keep it cool. A 400 will run slightly cooler, but only gives about 50,000 lumens as opposed to 90,000 from a good 600.
If you have a fan that can comfortably move the volume of air 3 times a minute, after accounting for filters, ducting, ambient temp/humidity, then you may as well go for the 600 imo, they aren't much hotter than a 400 in my experience, and I know plenty of people that got a 400, then after a crop or two started saying things like, "I just wish I got a bigger light!". But I've never seen anyone buy a 600 and say, "It's just too much, dude. I should have got the next size down!"

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I was planning on using cool tubes to keep the room temp down. therefore I dont think the 2-3 times air movement applies does it? Here is a plan I threw together. keep in mind it is all 1 metre deep. or 3 foot to those in the US. I am in Australia so in the summer months I may need to do something with the cooling side of things. as we have a lot of days in the 30 deg celsius sometimes hitting 40+.

berry berry cool beans, I like the more compact grow rooms, can't wait to start mine once the cash hits.....gj

looking good bruv nice d.i.y work

If you have 40+ degree heat to deal with you are going to need a fair old heat exchanger to keep it at 25ish how your plants will like it! You might need ice boxes on the intakes for the light cooling, and probably an ac (can't help you with size, I'm in England so I've no need for air con outside my car)
As far as I know, the best way to keep your room temps below the ambient is to have a sealed room, run the lights in cooltubes/air cooled hoods with their own cool air intake so that light heat is not so much of a factor, and have a recirculating a/c to keep the room temps within acceptable bounds, but don't take my word for it, as I said I almost never come across ambient temps above 27c, so this is pretty well beyond my area of expertise!

Hey Jim hows tha room comming along?

new2diz said:

Hey Jim hows tha room comming along?

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Hey, sorry for not updating the progress of my grow room recently... some work came in and i just couldn't say no.

I’ve been doing things to the grow room when ever I've have time.... I can't really do anything major to it at night when I’m home in case the neighbours hear... (just being extra safe! )

I have however been doing a lot of research on air extraction setups, light reflectors and heat control methods, all of which will be integrated into the new grow room.

i got kinda side tracked when i decided to design my own air cooled light reflector matched to the specifications of the grow room i've been building. It’s designed around using 2 x 600w MH/HPS lights and from the angles I’ve set the reflector to sit at, bounces the light around the grow space beautifully! I got the idea from Hairy Bob... He was talking about air cooled lights and that got me thinking. I posted a pic of the HID light i’d modified to become air cooled but just wasn’t happy with the light reflection.

I searched the internet for a while trying to find a reflector that would suit my new set up (reflect light into the grow room space of 1.5m x 1m x 1.7m) but couldn’t find anything with the correct reflection angles so i decided to build my own.... how hard could it be???
Well it turns out it wasn’t too difficult after all...
I’ll post a step by step guide to how i designed and created my light reflector once i finish it tomorrow.
I’ll also post my updated pics of the grow room.

lets see! i love this room!

Your precision is making me feel like such an amateur