I've been promising to share this experience...so here goes:
Myself and some other patients decided to start our own collective. I had been retired from growing for several years, but a visit to a friends grow room sparked the fire back in me. I had grown for about 20 years, indoor and out, hydro and organic, commercial and personal. The only way I was going to do this was the right way...both legal and technical.
I pitched the idea to a friend and patient who agreed to loan the money to the collective in order to get us on our feet. After a month or so of getting my head back in the game I came up with a plan and a budget of $60,000. He said yes, and away we went.
The first step was a visit to a cannabis attorney. After a 2 hour consultation we decided that a "Collective Association" was the right vehicle for what we wanted. The cost to form said association was $3,000. We also decided not to grow more than 99 plants. There were 2 reasons for this: I have a doctor's recommendation for up to 99 plants, meaning that even without using the collective's total plant numbers, I was still a legal grow. The other reason is that under 99 plants keeps us safe from the Fed's 5 year prison sentence.
Once the legal was complete, we found a location. It is a warehouse in an industrial park. The unit measures 24 feet wide x 65 feet deep. It has a small office in front and the all necessary bathroom. We decided to utilize the back half for our grow op...30 feet x 24 feet. The front half and office is used by my business.
I was able to utilize the 2 side walls and the back wall. All that needed to be built was the front wall and the partition between the veg and flower rooms. We made the ceilings 10 feet and sheeted the entire room with 1/2" OSB (similar to plywood). I had built enough rooms to know that attaching all that cool growing stuff to drywall SUCKS. Once the sheeting was done, we busted out the brand new airless and shot 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of white paint on everything.
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View attachment 1429153The electrical in the shop is a growers dream: A 400 amp panel. We pulled 4 - 20 amp 120v circuits and spotted outlets 4 feet and 8 feet high all the way around both rooms. We then put in 3 sub panels for the lights, and a future 50 amp 220v circuit for the split air conditioner coming later. Rather than trying to place outlets in specific places, we just put a bunch in all over the place.
It was just about this time that I got a phone call: My buddy had 30 - 12" Bubba Kush plants that he didn't have room for and wanted to donate them to the cause. The only condition was we had to take them in 20 minutes. Now, my original plan was to complete the room 100%, including atmoshpere testing prior to bringing in the first clones. That plan just got shot to shit. I grabbed a couple light settups I had from a previous grow, talked him into just bringing 20 until the next day, and we were growing.
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It was great to have this head start, but completing the room was going to be much harder now. Oh well...we were GROWING!
Over the next few days we transplanted, did some bending, and worked on the venting. For now, we're holding off on the CO2. I want to have a ductless split AC before installing CO2, and that won't happen for a few months. There are 2 1500cfm exhaust fans installed in the roof. We use one to exhaust the rooms and the other to route the light cooling ducts into.
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For lighting we currently have 2 - 1000 watt Hortilux Daylight Blues in Adjustawing reflectors lighting up a 4 x 8 table in the veg room. We have 2 - 1000 watt Sun Pulse Pulse Start 6.4k Metal Halides in Block Buster reflectors lighting up plants on the floor in the veg room. The flower room has 2 - 1000 watt Digilux HPS in C.A.P reflectors. For clones we have a single 4' T-8 4100k flouro. There is also a 4' T-5 with 4 bulbs for hardening off clones prior to goin g onto the 1000 watt table. We have just been adding lights as the plants need them while we complete the rest of the room.
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This will be the main vegatation area.
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The table will contain small plants prior to going into large containers
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Looking into the flower room from the veg room
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11 of the Bubba Kush in the flower room
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Bubba after to bending and super cropping
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The flower room will have 12 - 1000 watt lights when complete.
Once completed, the flower room will have 12 lights and the veg room will have 8. I have skipped many details, but will be happy to answer questions. I'll keep posting as we progress.
thanks for playing
