Help me design my space, please

I'm looking for advice for my space design. My area is below part of a split-entry stairwell (sketch + dimensions below). It's just kind of an odd space given the height and cascading ceiling, especially for hanging lights, etc. My pre-advice intent is to grow 2 plants and/or get 1 to .5 oz/mo averaged over the year. That said, I really just want to maximize the space and can live with whatever that may allow. What would you do?

Of Note:
  • 65F / 37% humidity, as is (slightly below grade so there is some temp regulation there)
  • I don't have a budget per se, but I'm trying to keep costs down
  • I'm more comfortable with soil as my medium for now
  • Stealth is a factor, but odor and noise will be my main concern
  • I have no experience growing, but I'm not clueless
Thank you for your advice. If I left out any important details, just ask.
Stairs.jpg
 

Nizza

Well-Known Member
sea of green technique stadium seating style grow with CFLS can do what you want. as for noise and smell a quiet in-line fan with a carbon filter is what you need. make sure proper lighting is boughten; 6500K for veg 3-3500k for flower.
 

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
the first step would be to clean it up nice and paint or sheetrock it, then get some mylar or matte white pain. now you have the walls setup. no one can really tell you what the best way to setup your grow but you can get creative and have something you like.

a couple things i want to mention.

1: if you plant on harvesting 1 oz a month you will need a veg area. this can consist of 1 plant at a time, veg for 4 weeks then off to the flower. i suggest CFL's for this in the 6500k spectrum range (blue) you will need to have another plant ready to go in when the previous one goes into flower, this will give you 3 plants at a time total. 2 in flower 1 in veg. when one gets harvested you put the one in the veg room into the flower chamber and start a new one in the veg room, from seed or clone that is up to you, if you want to switch up strains i suggest placing a order through the attitude and getting some pick n mix seeds during a monthly promotion, spend about 100 bucks and you should end up with enough beans for a year or better of growing.

2: stealth noise and smell. like someone said a quality carbon filter and a QUALITY fan. the more you slack and try and cut costs on these the more dissapointed you will be. they make some relativly silent fans but they are a little pricy.

3: for soil i would use a quality pro mix and soem fox farm soil. or just straight fox farm soil. and while your at it pick up the fox farm lineup of nutrients. they are simple to use and i have seen many members get good results using them.

4: for your flowering light i would recoment a 400w HPS. with a cool tube or air cooled hood. this again is one of the things that if you go cheap you will get a dud ballast. that being said, Apollo brand grow light kits on amazon.com are fairly cheap and they are backed with a decent warranty. http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Electronic-Dimmable-Reflector-Hydroponic/dp/B00521B894/ref=sr_1_1?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1358610189&sr=1-1&keywords=apollo+600+watt+grow+light

i linked a 600w light because its the same price as the 400w and you can dim the 600w down to 400w you will just need to get a 400w bulb. or you can run it at 600w as long as you can keep the room cool.

as far as veg you will be able to dial in how long a seed takes to get to the size you want, if you have to start the seedlings a little earlier in a small cup to make sure they are the proper size when they go into veg. say from seed your happy with 6 weeks of vegatative growth. but you want to harvest every 4 weeks so you cant veg the plant for 6 weeks going by only having 1 in veg at a time. just start the seed 2 weeks after you harvest, this will give you 2 plants in veg, one smaller plant and one larger plant. then when you harvest the larger plant will go into the flower room leaving a 2 week old plant in the veg, 2 weeks later start another seed. this will give you 2 plants again and you will be able to have your 6 weeks veg (hope this makes sense to you)

as far as sectioning off the room...veg plants are going to be smaller than flowering plants. i think you could get away with sectioning off the room into 1/3 and 2/3 segments. but mess around with it and see what suites you best.

if sectioning off the room dosent sound like a great idea maybe consider going with some autoflowering strains, at least till you get the hang of it. people hate on auto's but i have grown them and seen others grow them and theres nothing wrong with them. and they would allow you to keep all your plants under the same light and timer. all you would have to do is start the seeds at the correct given intraval. (every 30 days)

i think thats all i have. ill be around
RMTB
 

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
stair room.jpg

heres a quick paint sketchup i did. this would be if you were doing photoperiod plants. if you were gonna go with autos you wouldnt need seperate sections.
 
Some great advice so far! With hps I was more worried about height, plant pot plus hood hanging plus distance away from plant won't leave me too much room. I'd love to do hps and I can get rid of the heat but just concerned about my lack of headroom. The partition suggestion is perfect!
 

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
training your plants will ultimatly be a common practice in your grow room :)

also use 3 gal nursery pots or grow bags to shorten up the pot height, alot of people use 5 gal homer buckets and they are pretty tall compared to a 5 gal or 3 gal nursery pot or grow bag.

i suggested CFL for the veg side but you may want to look into a T5HO as it will probabally be safer and cooler than a bunch of CFLs and some of them have remote ballast so you can take that heat aout of the room. the HPS will have a remote ballast as well so you can put that outside the room to reduce temps but i run the 1000w apollo ballast and it dosent really get warm, they have a nice heatsink and fan in them (at least mine does and the 400 or 600w judging from the image on amazon have fans as well)
 

joe blow greenthumb

Well-Known Member
Some great advice so far! With hps I was more worried about height, plant pot plus hood hanging plus distance away from plant won't leave me too much room. I'd love to do hps and I can get rid of the heat but just concerned about my lack of headroom. The partition suggestion is perfect!
If you want to grow with hps but don't enough room then grow vertical. If you still can't fit it all then go with autos. I had a few la diva seeds from delicious seeds and it was nice smoke. Dick in the dirt smoke, actually.
 
Top