New Loft Grow Room - Input Appreciated

loftygoals · Jul 4, 2016

Will Thayer said:
There is definitely a lot of ego driven poo-poo to wade through in the LED sub forum but also some really helpful and innovative folks as well. Over time you learn who to listen to and who to ignore.

I knew nothing about COBs last year and now I can not stop making them. If Timber or the Cutter kits were around when I started looking into COBs I would have went with them because they provide almost everything you need to build your first light.

There are cheaper COB options if you just wanted to dip your toe in the efficiency waters. Something like a DIY veg light with CXA2530 would not cost all that much and still blow t5 out of the water. My first build replaced a 215w T5 veg light with a 150w dimmable LED that produces more photons per watt and no regular bulb changes.

Cheers,
Will

I agree the LED sub forum is filled with little diamonds but also has some ego mixed in. If you're critical of everything you read you can still get a lot out of it. There's nowhere else on the net with as much technical info on grow lighting IMO.

Indefinately said:
You have explained it in laymans terms for me to understand.

When you talk about efficiency, what are you referring to?

I have spent hours over the last few day reading about cobs and it's very confusing and a little off putting as there are a heap of RIU advertisers ( Manufacturers ) that are just arguing back and forth about design and output and who's idea it was originally.

Lol

You have explained it better than all of them could alltogether.

A 100% efficient 3500k LED would emit 324 lumens/watt of light.

A 50% efficient 3500k LED would emit half that amount of light... so 162 lumens/watt.

You can measure the amount of power going through an LED and the amount of light it emits to discover how efficient it runs. The more efficient your light is the less heat it emits. In an ideal world we'd all be running 100% efficient lights which emit just light and no heat. In the real world

Lumens are a measure of light available to human eyes to see, PAR measured in umol is a measure of light available to plants to photosynthesise. Plants don't take up light in the same way as human eyes which is why PAR is a better measure of grow light brightness than lumens. Having said that if you only have lumen data available then you can get a rough idea of how different lights might compare for growing.

coreywebster · Jul 4, 2016

Firstly.... GO UK!!!!
Secondly I love reading your posts lofty, you always come across as considerate, educated and well researched without been a dick like some folks can be prone to. Plus I like your ingenuity in your grow room.

@Indefinately When folks talk about efficiency with cobs or hps, they are referring to the amount of heat to light ratio, if you have a 600w hps that is 35% efficient then you have 65% of the watts creating heat and 35% light. With cobs at best, or so I have read that can be reversed, although a lot seem to be 40+%-50% from what I can gather. I read supre had made a 65% effiicient cree cob fixture.
Also cutter.au do some good kits, they don't need much more than a screw driver and you would have to buy some aluminium L shape for the frame. That vid I linked to you before, he has a vid assembling them so you could see how simple it is. I have to say the thought of building frightened me to start with.. The kits are named after him but he isn't the guy selling them.
Anyway will leave that there, before someone shoots me down for not owning one but praising them...lol

Looking forward to joining team efficiency one day in the not too distant future.

Happy grows everyone!

Will Thayer · Jul 4, 2016

My go to flowering fixtures consist of 8x CXB3590 3500K CD driven @ 700ma I run three of these at the moment. That should put them around 64% efficent. The drawback is initial cost for more COBs. I also add deep red mono leds but that is just to tinker with spectrum and not a necessity. The trend at the moment seems to be less COBs driven a bit harder which is more cost effective and you still get around 50% efficiency.

I pay the same per KW as Lofty @ about 11p. Leds do put off heat and photons not used by the plants eventually convert to heat but compared to a HPS for me at least leds are the way forward.

In Lofty's example above about 4000w of DE HPS you would have to factor in cooling which would add to the financial outlay. Even in the U.K. with our somewhat uninspiring summers loft spaces are massive solar heat stores. With only roof slate and kingspan between your grow and the sun we are talking some serious BTUs even before you fire up a HPS system. I think we all would prefer to use available watts for photons not air conditioning.

Side note: Lofty I apologize if I am stepping on your thread. Since I share nothing about my hobby with anyone in real life you folks are my best bet for a good natter on my favorite subject.

Cheers,
Will

Indefinately · Jul 4, 2016

coreywebster said:
Firstly.... GO UK!!!!
Secondly I love reading your posts lofty, you always come across as considerate, educated and well researched without been a dick like some folks can be prone to. Plus I like your ingenuity in your grow room.

@Indefinately

Looking forward to joining team efficiency one day in the not too distant future.

Happy grows everyone!

Your on the money Corey, Lofty is definitely one of few growers ( new growers especially ) that are so well educated and helpful without being cocky/arrogant when explaining things to people.

Big Respect to Lofty, amazing first crack at growing. Pro level effort and will be pro level harvest for sure!

I will definitely give them ( COBs ) a try in the not too distant future, although I will spend a few more months watching and reading. Learning from others succes and failures.
That's why I enjoy spending time speaking to like minded growers on This amazin forum.
Just going the LED section of the forum the most "hostile" part of the site. Not directed towards me, but in general.

Technology will continue to change the way we do things in all facets of our lives.
Growing Dope is no different I guess.

I'm still a few months from having my op up and running, but am enjoying catching up with the New trends and following all the grows in the mean time.

Indefinately
" Let there be Green in 2016 "

JJARTS · Jul 4, 2016

loftygoals said:
Hey guys,

I've been planning my new loft grow room for about 3 months and been working on it for about 6 weeks. I was aiming to get growing at the start of Feb but am a couple weeks behind as it's been a lot more work than I thought.

I'd been thinking of growing for a few years but never had anywhere suitable. It needed to be hidden away from prying eyes. So one night a few months back I opened up the loft hatch to see if it would be suitable... wow!

View attachment 3605422
Loads of room but dusty, cold and drafty! No way was it suitable like that. There was loads of junk up there. 4 TV aerials laying around, a garage door which had been broken into pieces and someone decided to store in the loft?! So I got cleaning, cleared the central area and started laying a chipboard floor. This was hard work with no proper lighting, dust was everywhere but I got there eventually...

View attachment 3605423

With a floor done I could work without being scared of putting my foot through a ceiling (came close a few times!). I ran 2.5mm mains cable off the upstairs mains electric supply in a ring. I wired up 5 double sockets for a start which should be able to supply 32A 240V (7680 watts max) in total.

View attachment 3605424

Now for insulation. I decided on celotex between the rafters. I've only gone with 50mm which I think is enough (I have my own FLIR camera arriving soon so I should be able to take a good look at the roof myself ). The U value of unfilled cavity walls of this house would be 1.6 W/mk while the celotex has a U value of 0.44 W/mk which means the roof should be loosing about 4x less heat than the walls (it's not quite that simple because I'm leaving the timbers uninsulated other than some aluminium tape but you get the idea... 50mm of celotex should be plenty in theory).

View attachment 3605425

This was quite a challenge! The rafters were all different widths apart and some were at wonky angles... but I got there in the end.

View attachment 3605426

I used expanding polyurethane foam to seal off the corners completely and aluminium tape on all joins.

View attachment 3605427

This week I've been building an insulated stud wall on the party wall to keep out any stray noise/smells from the neighbours. I'm almost done. Just need to tape up the studwork. It's been pretty hard work because I have a no power tools or hammering after 6:30pm rule (common sense IMO) and most days I'm at work during the day... anyway we got there eventually!

View attachment 3605428

So I'm almost at the point where I can get started growing. I didn't want to germinate anything and not have things setup properly then mess around with small plants in the room while I'm sawing timbers and insulation.

Today I went and cleaning up the house. I've even changed the bathroom extractor fan outlet to a larger grill (the old fan didn't work and the old grill was badly yellowed anyway). I've repainted the bathroom ceiling and loft hatch with Dulux Trade Diamond paint which is supposed to be 10x tougher than normal paint so can be cleaned to remove any signs that I've been using the hatch

I'm relatively limited for headroom particularly around the sides where the roof slopes in. So I've bought 2 8x4 foot Roof Qube tents. They'll go in the middle obviously and I'll probably link them together in the future. I'm planning a RDWC setup and have bought most of the bits. Then I'm a little stuck with how best to use the rest of the space? This was my thinking (grey lines are load bearing walls or massive 2x15 inch beams):

View attachment 3605429
So I'm thinking I can build 2x veg cabinets into the corners to get my plants started for 2-3 weeks and then move them into the central tents. The whole loft area is going to be supplied with air from a single side vent which was already in place and I'll be venting into the bathroom via an extra large extractor fan vent which is carbon filtered. The central tents are going to run their own 8 inch carbon filter too so any air going into the house will be double filtered from flowering plants. I'll be running a 265W dehumidifier in the grow room and then a 500W dehumidifier in the house to keep condensation down. I have an industrial Ozone generator which I'll run if I open up the tents.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments?

Planning something special for lighting too... water cooled DIY COB LEDs being cooled by a car radiator and a 16inch 1800cfm car radiator fan blowing over it

You could think about an central AC in the future, vents and extractors are good when is cold weather, but in a hot and humid summer?, with a central AC you dont need to blow nothing out side and if you do CO2, it will remain inside longer... if AC is intalled the carbon filter will be out side the room to clean any scape, but the AC must be a 5tons unit that will take care of the humidity and give you a 0.0 ppm water.

Big smo · Jul 4, 2016

JJARTS said:
You could think about an central AC in the future, vents and extractors are good when is cold weather, but in a hot and humid summer?, with a central AC you dont need to blow nothing out side and if you do CO2, it will remain inside longer... if AC is intalled the carbon filter will be out side the room to clean any scape, but the AC must be a 5tons unit that will take care of the humidity and give you a 0.0 ppm water.

You are 100% correct here. It's not as much heat for most people it's more the humidity. Watering 2 gallons per plant is like pouring 2 gallons of water in the floor. I water on average 20 gallons per day between all my plants. In and out air works like you said in colder months but when temps hit 70+ al the way to 95+ here the Ac needs to run.

Will Thayer · Jul 4, 2016

Central AC is not as popular here in the U.K. for residential homes. I run my lights from 23:00-11:00 all year round. That gives me time in the morning for garden maintenance before I go to work. My CO2 is generated for free by my family as they sleep. I have an active air intake that draws from our landing central to all the bedrooms. The CO2 monitor shows a 1100 ppm just from a family of four getting their beauty sleep. Also in the winter warm air is pumped into the loft grow space to keep the ladies cozy. To keep humidity in check I exhange air constantly and have one of these as a failsafe
.

It has a maximum draw of 230w but never goes anywhere near that. It is a set and forget unit, you dial in your desired humidity and it kicks in when needed. We are pretty fortunate (or not) that British weather is rather mild all year round. I spent last summer in Texas visiting my Mum and 95f with high humidity is no joke. I could not live there without AC nevermind the plants.

Cheers,
WIll

Indefinately · Jul 4, 2016

loftygoals said:
This is my first grow... so roughly... er... a few months

How you doing Loft,
How is your first grow going, any updates?

You should start up a journal .

I'm still blown away this is your first grow!
:clap:

Indefinately
" Let there be Green in 2016 "

loftygoals · Jul 4, 2016

lol thanks

Now on Week 5 (Day 35 since flip)

These are the 4 Pineapple Express girls:

The 2 Blueberry are too big to get a shot of without going round to the other side of the tent now

I'll try and get a shot later in the week...

Here's one of the PEs (don't mind the wind burn from the fan):

Here's a Purple Afghan Kush:

And finally Viper Cookies:

They're all coming along nicely.

Checked my runoff after watering the PE/BB tent and found it had crept up to pH 6.7 and EC 2.6

Have just watered the other tent with calmag/pH'd water and got pH 6.2 EC 1.2 which is perfect. Will do the same for the PE/BB tent tomorrow. That's probably why I'm starting to get some tip burn again. I'm only using 0.5ml/L of PK 13/14... can't imagine what EC would be if I was using 2.0ml/L like the bottle suggests! Now I see why everyone's so wary of burning their plants with the stuff!

loftygoals · Jul 5, 2016

Day 35 for the VC/PAK. I call this tent the jungle :lol:

The negative pressure from the extractor fan was sucking in the walls quite a bit. I'm probably loosing around 10% of the tent area at canopy level... so I did some research on how I could steal the area back without using a rigid structure... and I'm going to be using bungees attached to the tent poles. Already ordered myself some bungee cord and hooks to make up the correct size bungees as it would be insanely expensive to do it properly with premade cords. Every little helps

Also scared myself for a second thinking I had a smell leak in the house earlier. Eventually figured out it was me I could smell

I have "grow room" specific clothes and shoes. They smell so strongly now I was catching the scent off my own clothes lol

Will Thayer · Jul 6, 2016

loftygoals said:
Also scared myself for a second thinking I had a smell leak in the house earlier. Eventually figured out it was me I could smell I have "grow room" specific clothes and shoes. They smell so strongly now I was catching the scent off my own clothes lol

LOL,I do that all the time! No one in my house knows what I am up to in the loft and I am so paranoid that smell will give me away I end up smelling cannabis everywhere. I had a slight leak once and my other half mentioned it, I shamelessly blamed our neighbors because I am a craven sod.

Lofty, your project is looking fantastic! I still have trouble wrapping my head around this being your first foray into the hobby. Cracking job!

Cheers,
Will

loftygoals · Jul 8, 2016

Day 38 since flip and things are plodding along.

Purple Afghan Kush is staring to go a little purple... who'd have thought?

Closeup of PAK

Also the veg room is starting to get a little crowded

I've done some topping and LST but they're ready for the flip already! (5 weeks since going into hempies) Somehow they've got to last 3 more weeks until I can think about chopping the girls currently in the flower tents. I think I'm going to have another jungle on my hands!

Will be going with 6500k COBs when I upgrade the veg lights later in the year to try and control that stretch.

loftygoals · Jul 9, 2016

Done my weekly veg+mum maintenance tonight.

Mums desperate for me to take some clones!

They'll have to last until after next weekend. That'll give them 14 days to root before I get round 3 planted up (crosses fingers).

Also caught that mozzie that I posted a photo of a while back. Just 1 got stuck to the yellow paper and I haven't seen any since. Hopefully it was nothing

Indefinately · Jul 9, 2016

loftygoals said:
Done my weekly veg+mum maintenance tonight.

View attachment 3728212

Mums desperate for me to take some clones! They'll have to last until after next weekend. That'll give them 14 days to root before I get round 3 planted up (crosses fingers).

Also caught that mozzie that I posted a photo of a while back. Just 1 got stuck to the yellow paper and I haven't seen any since. Hopefully it was nothing

What maintenance do you do exactly?

They look very healthy.
Great job as usual Lofty!

loftygoals · Jul 9, 2016

Indefinately said:
What maintenance do you do exactly?

They look very healthy.
Great job as usual Lofty!

Autopot system just needs the reservoir filling. The 6 plants drink about 3L per day max so I just add 20L per week to keep it ticking over. Takes literally 10 mins to mix and top up. I also supercrop anything that's getting too close to the lights. For 6 plants it takes less than 20 mins per week. Insanely simple to maintain.

16 vegging hempies get trained once a week and I add also 1L of nutes to each bucket twice a week. I probably spend around 2h per week on them.

Flowering hempies need watering every other day for the first 3 weeks of flower and then the bigger plants need daily watering. I also remove any dead leaves and mop up any runoff. I spend about 1h per day on those.

Overall not too bad. The only complaint I have is that I can't leave the flowering girls alone for more than 2 days.

Will Thayer · Jul 10, 2016

Loftygoals,
Your systems appears to be working a treat. I envy your ability to tend to your garden when you wish. I have to deal with the schedules of two teenagers and my other half. I have to wait to have the house to myself so none of them find out about my secret hobby. :shock:

Maintenance can be a logistical nightmare at times.
You're not looking for a flatmate by any chance? :-D

Cheers,
Will

loftygoals · Jul 10, 2016

Will Thayer said:
Loftygoals,
Your systems appears to be working a treat. I envy your ability to tend to your garden when you wish. I have to deal with the schedules of two teenagers and my other half. I have to wait to have the house to myself so none of them find out about my secret hobby. Maintenance can be a logistical nightmare at times.
You're not looking for a flatmate by any chance?

Cheers,
Will

How do you do it?

Doesnt everyone get really suspicious?!

Will Thayer · Jul 10, 2016

Ninja skill level +85.

Most probably dumb luck.
I might be just kidding myself and they know and mock me behind my back. My other half may be implementing a "don't ask don't tell" policy.
You guys and one mate I have helped set up a small grow are my only outlets on the subject.

Sometimes I have bouts of mania and want to run around shouting
"I GROW,I GROW WEED EVERYBODY COME SEE!" kind of like when cats have that mad minute of running around the house in the middle of the night. I guess that would be silly though.

Cheers,
Will

loftygoals · Jul 12, 2016

Day 42 since flip and some of the girls (PAK and PE in particular) are starting to look ripe.

This is what I'm greeted with in the BB/PE tent. That's why there haven't been any blueberry shots in a while... can't get a good shot!

Here's a closeup of a BB sidebud. The buds have a lot of fattening up to do. They've only really started to increase over the past few days.

And... PE:

Closeup:

I think PE and PAK will be done within the next 2 weeks so I think I'm going to give them water only from now. I'm going to try and salvage/reuse as much of the perlite/vermiculite as possible so I'd like to get as much of the nutes out of the medium as I can. Runoff is about EC 1.8 so they should keep going off the built up salts for a few days anyway.

BB and VC look like they have another 3 weeks so I'll keep going with the nutes for them.

loftygoals · Jul 15, 2016

Mums were getting way out of control

They were starting to come up against the light despite all the training I could manage so I had to do some drastic trimming as I'm away all weekend!

Took clones for round 3 while I was at it. I've taken 5x Pineapple Express #1 (fastest finishing and frostiest), 8x Pineapple Express #4 (fastest growing, best fruity smell and biggest buds) and 10x Purple Afghan Kush #1 (quickest veg, best smelling and fastest finishing).

I'd not taken a mum from my PE #1 plant before as it wasn't as quick growing as #3 and #4 and had calcium deficiency early so I thought it wasn't going to be worth keeping... but turns out to be the frostiest and fastest in flower by a long way. Luckily I did have 1 clone vegging so I took clones off her and will make one a new mum. PE #3 mum is going to get binned I think. What's the lesson here? You need to flower a girl before deciding to bin/keep it for sure. There might be a gem hiding or you might have picked a wrongun.

PAK is getting slightly more purple. Supposed to be finished in 55-60 days. Here's a closeup from day 46:

New Loft Grow Room - Input Appreciated

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