How MANY LIGHTS WILL IT TAKE

I am building a grow room out of a warehouse that is 17,000sq ft so if anyone has any ideas how many lights that it would take, half of the space will be for vegetative growth(M.H. bulbs) & the rest will be for flowering (HPS Bulbs) Thanks For all the feedback.


I take two tokes and feel the stress go!!!

wats the dimentions sorry little high here and your cutin it to do a double room correct...but i think around 600w or more

I'm gonna split it in 2 8,000 sq ft sections figuring your gonna need 1,000 for other bullshit.

500x 1000 watt hps flowering room @ each light covering 4 x 4 direct light. If lights are horizontal.

As for the veg it really depends man...

This warehouse is it on private land or no?

If you do go for it I hope its zoned industrial because all that power pull is something mean.

Heh you gonna do one huge crop and then retire for life?

all I can say is that if you need to ask that question you have no business in growing on that scale.

growin4myhead said:

all I can say is that if you need to ask that question you have no business in growing on that scale.

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Word....Seriously that's quite the endeavor and down right stupid. If someone is planning anything on that type of scale you don't want to post it on the internet and you should damn well know what you're doing.

wow a 600 watter, people crack me up. this place is toooooo big, ive seen 4 lbs in a walk in closet that used 1800 watts, ur setup needs 150 plus 1000 watt lights thats too much money for you to setup, i promise

Is this the same guy that was asking about his 15,000 square foot warehouse?

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/280983-starting-warehouse-need-help.html

I do know what I'm doing, its all legal first of all so don't come at me like that. I just was looking for some feedback to critique my own plans.

And no i'm not the same guy asking about that other warehouse and oh yeah its in a commercially zoned area and its a group of us doing all of this together so the funds are no problem.

OOPS and i listed the wrong dimensions its 1,700 sq ft so yeah blame it on the white widow lol

TheWIzKT said:

OOPS and i listed the wrong dimensions its 1,700 sq ft so yeah blame it on the white widow lol

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Big Oops, wasnt being a dick just thought it funny two "warehouse grow" threads so similar posted so close in time to eachother but now that I see its 1,700 I say awesome and happy growing. Thats gonna be saaweet!

growin4myhead said:

all I can say is that if you need to ask that question you have no business in growing on that scale.

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i agree wit him all i can say its gonna take a lot of lights

1700 sqr feet.... put aside 300-400 square feet for a hallway.... you'll need two doors for the two rooms, and the hallway needs to be able to fit all the soil, nutes, and any other big thing you might want to take in there, while giving you room to maneuver it around....

so technically it's a little less than 1400 feet of actual grow space....

TheWIzKT said:

OOPS and i listed the wrong dimensions its 1,700 sq ft so yeah blame it on the white widow lol

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haha - that's funny... yeah - we were all trippin on a 17,000 sq ft grow - haha! I was stoked for you!!!! I'm still happy for you!

Lighting is pretty straight-forward... use a good electrician. Hopefully you have enough juice at the building. If you need to get more power from the grid, there are often permits associated with such work... this can be a deal breaker for some circumstances. I'm sure you've checked the panel. How many amps do you guys have to use for the total grow? 1000 watts per 4 x 4 is the industry standard for lighting density - but more is always better if cooling is not an issue.

Here are a couple other items I have found helpful... You have likely considered some or all of them - but it msy still help you critique your grow. 1700 sq foot will still cost a pretty penny to do right. You really have unlimited budget? Good!

For environment cooling - utilize commercial chillers with air handlers, along with your commercial AC splits (which are outfitted with dehumid option).

275 gallon plastic totes are great cheap reservoirs. Septic tanks are even better (sink em in the ground if you like!)

Utilize commercial greenhouse benches/tables rather than lining up 4 x 8 trays.

A lung room, ducted to the flower zones, with concentrated gas (from multiple gens) and cool air is a great way to deliver CO2.

Bulk media and nutes may be purchased or 'sponsored' directly from the manufacturers.

Slabs of coco or rockwool are often utilized in large commercial ops. The media is cheap to ship, quick to clean up, and quick to transplant.

Contractors will always take longer and cost more than their original quote.

Finish the zone before starting or moving in plant material.

Be patient.

LionsRoor said:

haha - that's funny... yeah - we were all trippin on a 17,000 sq ft grow - haha! I was stoked for you!!!! I'm still happy for you!

A lung room, ducted to the flower zones, with concentrated gas (from multiple gens) and cool air is a great way to deliver CO2..

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Can you explain this a lil?

NinjaToke said:

Can you explain this a lil?

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In general - you will be dedicating an entire little room as a lung room. Typically - a room 1/4 the size of the zone you want to cool works well - though bigger is better - if you can keep the temps down.

This lung room will receive all of your chilling power - the room will be a fridge (50F). Rather than duct from your split AC - you install ducts with electronic dampers and fans hooked up to thermo-controllers in the flower room(s). When the controllers reach their setpoints the dampers route cool air in from the lung room. CO2 may also be concentrated in a sub-division of the lung room - which receives enough cooling to offset the heat generated by the CO2 gens and then some. CO2 is ducted into the main grow room via more electronic dampers/air handlers hooked up to CO2 PPM regulators... rather than fire up the CO2 burner when your setpoint is reached, the damper opens and cooled, concentrated CO2 is piped in from the CO2 lung room.

This same concept can be done utilizing tents! 2 - 4 x 8 tents can be cooled with one 4 x 4 tent that is super cooled... I rolled this setup out for a buddy in his garage - works great... much easier than cooling the garage - and AC in tents is not efficient, as floor space is a minimum (and portable AC's suck - literally - they suck your CO2 out). One 12k BTU window mount unit rigged up in the lung tent handles cooling for both 4 x 8 tents, while a hydrogen in the lung tent is concentrated to about 2000 PPM - and naturally keeps both tents at 1200 as they receive cooling. As the 4 x 8's are setup identically - cooling is monitored in a single location for both.

This is not right for all layouts, and people, etc... It works really well for a flip setup - and setups with multiple rooms. I can't find any good threads right now - but there are a couple great examples of lung room execution on RIU... the best one being by this guy that actually built a zone with a lung room. He cooled the lung with a 5 ton split. You may have better skill with the search engine than I do. An article in High Times 2009 Best Of, called, Big Sur something or other, also utilized a lung room in a house op.

Awesome thanks I fully understand now. Future grow info begets good reps

You will need 2-48" x 1" Flourescent lamps per 1' x 4' of plant space. Will use 600 sq ft x 600 sq ft to represent your veg and flower rooms. The other 500 sq ft will be for equiptment and supplies which may or may not be to big, depending on whether your going hydro or soil growing. Hydro will require space for water tanks, pumps, fuse box system, ect. Dont forget a nice, but seperate cloning area as well in your plans...

A 600 sq ft room or 30' x 30' room will need around around 30-48" x 1" bulbs. So you will need a total of 60 or so bulbs for both rooms if my calculations are correct. You will need to use the correct light spectrum for each room for veg and flower stages. Try using a reflective material a few feet around the plants on all 4 sides to effectively increase lighting to a broader area of the plant and to reduce light drone. You can build a inexpensive dolly system with wheels using 2x4x8 and staple the mirror like plastic on their with wheels at the bottom. Then you can move the mirror walls around the shop and to easily move them to check on your crop.

Also, make sure you change out your bulbs every 6 months or at the very least 12 months regardless if they still work. They will lose their effectiveness within that time period if you growing full time, unlike HPS which will last longer without replacing but is usually 10x times the amount start up cost. Go Floro in my opinion, unless you got big pockets, cuz a good hps system will run you $5k for that size area not including installation. Good Luck!

Figuring the average PAR provided by HEI lighting you will need 50 watts of light per square foot of growing space. Even using just half the floor space your talking (850 sq ft)(50 watts/sq ft) = 42,500 watts or 43 1000 watt lights at 20 cents per kilo watt hour that means at an averge of 14 hours per day you will be paying $120.40 per day for electricity. At 10 weeks per cycle that means $8428 per cycle.. At a common gross return that means. $252840 worth of bud every 10 weeks. About $1.4 million per year at $10 per gram. You only need to produce 56.5 pounds every ten weeks. Say 600 square feet in budding area. 56.5 / 600 = 0.094 pounds per square foot or 42 grams per square foot. Quite profitable.

Lung rooms-commercial refrigeration units. Sheesh! Just move to a more hospitable growing climate.

fatman7574 said:

Lung rooms-commercial refrigeration units. Sheesh! Just move to a more hospitable growing climate.

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Isnt it easier to setup where you are then move the whole operation?