I've got a brand spanking new 10x6 empty space just waiting to be filled with some plants and gear. I'm going to try to make the room multi-use (ie, more than just weed).

I will be splitting the room into two sections: one for vegging and one for flowering. I'm currently thinking that I will have one entry into the whole room, via the vegging section. Getting to the flowering room means going through the vegging room. I considered a door/entry for each section separately, but I don't want to bother with the expense or risk someone opening the flowering room accidentally. It's not out of the realm of possibilities yet, but I think I can make the single door thing work.

Each section will be wrapped in black & white poly. I'll make a couple of flaps for the entry between the two sections and keep them down via some velcro. Nothing fancy.

The idea is to have enough space for lots of experimentation. I'm going to start with ebb & flow, but I'd like to try DWC and perhaps some other techniques as well.

There are three main things I'm trying to work out at the moment.

The first is ventilation. I'm going to need lots of ventilation and I will probably want some odor control as well. I can vent the air outside, so I'll probably hold off on a carbon filter or something until I know what the odor situation is like. I don't plan on having many weeds plants on the go, so it should be somewhat reduced.

I've been thinking about the following idea for ventilation, but I'm looking for some input. I was thinking that I could have a single inline duct fan that draws air from both sections. This air would be sucked through a carbon filter (if I need it) and then vented outside. Here's a horrible sketch of what I'm thinking:

Provided I had a powerful enough fan, would this have any chance of working?

The second and third issues are related - lighting and table setup. My original thought was to use tube fluoros for vegging and flowering, even though I know that an HPS is likely the better choice for flowering. Based on that assumption, I was thinking of doing the following:


Basically the two walls of each section would be lined with (approx) 4x2 or 4x3 tables. This would give me some space to move around and I could easily suspend the fluoros over the plants.

As I continued to read, I became more convinced that a 400/430W HPS was the way to go. The problem with that, though, is that it's got limited reach. I've seen claims of 3x3, 4x4, and 4x2, which doesn't give me a lot of room to play with. At 3x3, I could still get away with one 4x3 table (or 5x3), with a little left over (supported with additional lighting - CFL maybe?). The hydro shop I went to suggested I build a 4x4 table right in the middle (or at least centered along one wall). Given that I'll have the poly on the walls, I would think I could get a little more light by being closer to them. In any case, it's what I'm going to start with. It may turn out that I just don't need any additional lighting.

Any thoughts on any of this would be greatly appreciated.

__________________
First "serious" grow
New grow room

1nce again the same problem just like in a other post posted today most air will be sucked from the first room leaving hardly any air getting sucked in the second

__________________
*Everything i say is a lie, they are just stories from my old man, and pics are from the internet to prove the lie*

Second problem with one air exhaust is that when you're running exhaust you'll be sucking out valuable Co2 from both rooms when you may only need to cool one.

Let me do you a favor, erase the thought of flouroso from your head, the only place for them in growing is cloning. Otherwise put them over your workbench in the garrage.

Also, remember when designing a grow room, think in 3D. Rooms can be split top to bottom as well as front to back, and side to side. You might want to allow more room for flowering then vegging depending on what type of growing you're going to do. If you're going ebb and gro you're probably looking at a SOG or SCROG in which case top to bottom might be a good way to go. Two 5'x6' rooms can produce a lot of herb. Hydrofarm drip ring systems will work very well in that size room. I produced large amounts of herbs in a 5x5 closet with that system. See my pic "have a bowl" under pics, those buds were grown with that system in a 5x5 closet. Depending on ceiling height anything can happen.

Hope it helps
FFF

also keep in mind a carbon filter only has 1 end with a duct on it the other end is sealed and all air is pulled in via holes in the side of the filter so that all air entering the filter passes thru the carbon

All valuable information.

I hadn't considered the fact that air wouldn't be pulled through equally. Two fans it is.

Good point about the filters. If I need them, I'd need one for each room.

Regarding fluoros, I've seen enough examples here of using fluoros for vegging and flowering to know that it can work. Having said that, I'll try fluoros for vegging first and if I don't like the results I'll switch to something else. As I've said, this is sort of a multi-purpose room. From what I've read, lettuce, for example, works very well with fluoros.

Excellent points about thinking in 3D. I'm just getting started, so a single level will be good for now until I get more experience. I have seen examples of stacking and stuff that are interesting. Something to think about in the future for sure.

__________________
First "serious" grow
New grow room

actually, if you're counting, i think you're going to need three fans, all with variable controllers. you are trying to pull a vaccum through a split vent and its going to suck most of its air from where the least resistance is. if you put a fan on the further room and it is too powerful you won't get any air from the nearer room.

much better to vent the second room to the first. then a totally separate vent from the first room out of the area. then put the carbon filter in the first room and you have treated the air from both rooms.

__________________
don;t trust me when i'm baked, i make shit up. bud stud in training - at http://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...ts-always.html and http://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...melicious.html

So having one fan in each room exhausting through a shared pipe won't work? I'll have to think about that one.

Also an interesting idea and requires only 1 filter instead of 2, which is good for costs. However, suppose I turned off the second fan to allow a CO2 source to kick in for a little bit. If the first fan was still going, wouldn't it also draw air through the vent into the second room? If so, I'd have to make sure I had some sort of valve. An inline would need something extra, but maybe a squirrel cage would already have such a thing? I haven't don't much research into those yet.

I'm such a n00b I can hardly stand it.

__________________
First "serious" grow
New grow room

if you are getting fresh air from outside co2 is a luxury and i would wait to add it until you've done a few grows. you will want to design to accomodate it in the future so i'll tackle it anyway.

first, i would reverse the air flow if you can vent it so that the air goes from the veg room to the flower room and then separately out of the flower room. that lets you put the carbon filter in the flower room where most of the smell is instead of piping smelly air all around.

second, you're going to want to add the co2 to the flowering room. you shut off both venting fans for whatever the recommended period is for your size room (there is a calculator somewhere on this site) during and after adding the co2.

that sound good?

other thoughts
- you may want to add an aircooled hood and ducting for the 400 watt hps -that will reduce your temps and let you get the light down on the plants. that light was a good choice for your space, btw.

- i would seriously consider doing your first grow in soil. you can get all the basics of weed cultivation and your room setup before you add the complexity of hydro. yes, hydro will give you higher yields if you do it right, but its more likely to give you nothing compared to the forgiveness of growing in soil. save hydro for grow number 2.

__________________
don;t trust me when i'm baked, i make shit up. bud stud in training - at http://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...ts-always.html and http://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...melicious.html

I strongly suggest running separate venting if finances are not an issue for several reasons. Sounds like you’ve made up your mind on going fluoro’s in the vegging room. I’ll put my two cents in again to try and persuade you to go HID instead. Yup, you sure can veg under fluoro’s but when it comes to growing it’s all about lumens and you just can’t get enough with tubes. Even a small Metal Halide will produce far more lumens then a tube. When growing indoors one of the most important considerations is node separation. With a HID light you will have tighter nodes and stronger plants able to support bigger buds. If your nodes are every three inches apart instead of every six inches apart under fluoro’s that’s twice the budding sites. Twice the budding sites are a good thing. You’ll end up there just depends how much you want to spend on what will become future cloning equipment. Enough anti-fluoro.
By vegging under fluoro’s and flowering under HID you are going to have two very different temperatures in your rooms. I will make the assumption that as money permits you’ll be running supplemental Co2. You don’t want to be sucking Co2 out of your flower room every time you exhaust your veg room. Get’s expensive and without a Co2 sniffer it’s likely you’ll be below optimum levels in your flowering room.
As your plants increase in size the levels of humidity will also increase requiring more ventilation. With only one exhaust you may have one very dry room and one very wet room, or exhaust that never sleeps which isn’t good.
Food for thought. I’ll include a pic of one of my rooms if I can figure it out. New here

Attached Images

Grow 1 214.jpg (56.9 KB, 101 views)

__________________
Grow to Live, Live to Grow

What would qualify as "outside"? I have an air exchanger in my house that sucks in air from outside and vents it all over the place. I also have another loose intake near my furnace that always has fresh air coming in. Both of these vents are close to my room and the room won't be airtight.

It certainly does.

Yeah, that's what worries me about the HID lights. However, I think I may have a way to do a passthrough from one room, through the light, and into another room, if that becomes necessary. The rooms aren't going to be airtight, so I'm hoping that the cooler air being sucked in from the other places in the basement as part of the ventilation we've been discussing here might help keep temps down.

I'm doing a soil grow right now, albeit a difficult one in a couple of rubbermaids. The soil has been giving me lots of problems (calcium deficiency, bad pH, etc) so I've certainly learned a lot from that. Definitely a good idea, though.

__________________
First "serious" grow
New grow room