Yet again... Our first grow room!

We (husband and wife) finally moved into a home suitable for the horticultural adventure we've long been wanting to undertake! We are renting, but our landlord lives out of state. Our grow room is in a 10x10 bedroom with a 2x4.5 closet. We've already painted the walls flat bright white and removed the carpeting. We are still deciding whether or not to tile the floor (the stealthiest approach) or simply cover with Visqueen plastic. The bedroom has two entrances, one from the hallway and one from a bathroom. We are aiming for a perpetual harvest set-up: utilizing the closet for moms and clones, and framing the room into two areas for veg and flower. The flower room can be accessed from the hallway entry door and the veg room from the bathroom. We will be growing hydroponically and using Sure To Grow medium.

Closet: We aren't 100% on this yet, so we will take any and all reasonable advice into consideration. Right now, we have a metro cart that fits pretty darn snug into the closet itself. Should we nix the metro cart and just build shelves instead? For lights, we are leaning towards a T5 Fixture with 4 4ft lamps (20,000 lumens). We also built a set-up with 6 23watt CFLs that we could use (can attach more CFLs if necessary). We're just not sure what exactly to do in the closet... Should the moms be on the top or on the bottom? Should we use a Bubbleponic system for the rooting clones? Bucketeer DWC for the mothers? We are planning on using Sure To Grow medium all the way from clones to flowering.

Veg Room: 3.5'x7.5' (26sqft). Ebb and Grow system with 12-18 pots. We're not exactly sure how many plants we need in each area at a time in order to have a consistent perpetual harvest. Will a 600w MH be enough light for 12-18 pots? Should we have 2 400w MHs instead? Is it necessary to vent the heat from the lights if there's only one or two lower wattage lights? We're just not sure if this air needs to be scrubbed or not. There's an AC vent in the flower room, but we are going to install another one in the veg room.

Flower Room: 6.5'x7' (46sqft). Another Ebb and Grow system with 18 pots. 1 1000w HPS on a 6ft light mover. There is a 4x4 window blocked off with MDF in the flower room. We are thinking about putting two 6-8" cutouts in the window to create a closed circuit air flow system to vent heat from the light. We are in Texas, so does it make sense to pull in air that can be 90-100 degrees? The flower room will have a charcoal can filter with either a 4" or 6" centrifugal fan (flange), and the door can open to the hallway to vent as needed.

We've allotted room for both 55 gallon reservoirs in the veg room, next to the entrance to the bathroom.

Since we have a charcoal fan filter in the flower room, do we need to vent in the veg room as well? This is our first grow, so we're not sure if the veg room will smell or not. Any and all advice

Your veg room will smell enough that surrounding rooms in the house can smell it. It smells herbal at first and starts to smell more like MJ as it matures.

So, would another (smaller) charcoal canister be in order for the veg room?

Browsing through Lowes today I saw a 4x8 section of 1/2 inch styrofoam with what looks like mylar-ish material on the back. Would this work to thermally insulate the external wall and ceiling, or would we be better off just using regular mylar?

i seen this same product at hd but it is not as reflective as mylar it has more of a dull alum foil finish if u got the cash and need the insulation u could put mylar on it with carpet tape then install

bigmindhack said:

Browsing through Lowes today I saw a 4x8 section of 1/2 inch styrofoam with what looks like mylar-ish material on the back. Would this work to thermally insulate the external wall and ceiling, or would we be better off just using regular mylar?

Click to expand...

For the closet I'd suggest you only keep the mothers in there. Your veg room is plenty big enough for a small table for clones. The simplest way to keep mothers is in soil or promix. No muss no fuss. You can use a 125W CFL or two to light them.Less heat.
A simple aerocloner is easy to build and should serve you well.
3x400W should light the veg area well. Pull intake air through the veg room into the flower room then out the window to control smell. A simple light trap with a couple duct elbows should control any light leaks. Spray paint the inside black to prevent reflection.
2x1000W on a mover should take care of the flower area. 4x600W would probably give better coverage and you save the money for the mover.
Be careful about altering the house (tile,new AC vent,etc.). Even though the homeowner lives in another state, if he comes to town to visit family or whatever, he'll surely want to inspect his house too. Have a good cover story ready.
You can buy a 12x12 pond liner at Lowes for the floor. That allows you a foot up each wall to contaon floods. That shits near impossible to rip, lasts forever.
When you divide the room, frame a rough door opening. You can get giant velcro with a sticky back at wallyworld. Make a door out of plastic so you don't have to do the chinese fire drill every time you go between rooms.
Hope this helps,
Fred

mylar.... EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!! you wont be sorry haha

So, question...

If price isn't really an issue, would it be better to have the flower room in a 4x9 grow tent inside of the 10x10 grow room as opposed to framing the room into veg/flower and using panda paper?

Probably so. That's almost a perfect footprint for 2x1000W lights. You do lose overall sq. footage, with the corresponding lose of yield. It also complicates venting a bit. Nothing you can't easily overcome.
Fred