My dark room aint that big its 3ft x 3ft x 6ft. got five plants going. keeping them small enough though 12/12 from seed. Going well. No man the fan makes fuck all noise, Im living in ireland and the electricity is cheaper to run from 5 pm to like 7 am or somthing like that so i got my lights and fan running at night in my bedroom. But then i suppose it depends on what fan you get. cant think of what type mine is off the top of my head. not too sure about the cfl. I'm only fairly new to this game too so youd probably want to check out the grow FAQ. Theres a world of information out there thats not very hard to find on the internet. Research as much as you can. Hell i was on forums, buying books, reading strain reviews 12 months before i even started to grow. Anyhows. Good luck hope all goes well.