collective gardener
Well-Known Member
Grow Op Update:
Ok, for those that have been following I have an update on what we've been doing the past few days. Construction is finally slowing down. I need to duct in outside air to feed the air cooled lights (currently drawing from room), put the carbon filtered exhaust fans on a speed controller, purchase and hook up another portable air conditioner, purchase and install a 150 gallon RO water storage tank, purchase and install another dehumidifier, plumb de humidifier water discharge into ne RO water tank, and purchase and install a 2500CFM 12" exhaust fan from Grainger to exhaust the air in the main warehouse. That, I hope, should do it for the major settup.
Basically, right now wer're cooling with a massive movement of air through the rooms. There are 2 - 750 CFM inline exhaust fans on carbon filters, and 3 - 750 CFM inline fans exhausting the lights. We're moving so much air that the air conditioners aren't too effective. The air moves through too fast to get cooled. By feeding the light hoods with warehouse air, we remove 2250 CFM of air movement from the rooms. Then, we can crank up the AC's and see what happens. We'll just play with adding AC's and adjusting the exhaust fan speed to find that sweet spot.
All of our exhaust goes into the warehouse. There are 2 - 12" exhaust fans in the roof. While they are pretty powerful, I feel we need more movement outside the grow and inside the warehouse. Grainger sells this bad boy 12" fan that moves around 2500 CFM. It's around $400, but should do what we need. If not, we'll get 2 of em. We need massive flow in the warehouse because the entire heat load ends up there. Fortunately, we have 14' ceilings. By drawing air from down low, and exhausting high, we can pull in cool air while the exhaust fans get the super hot air out of the warehouse.
So far, I've avoided having to go onto the roof and make any modifications that may call attention to our little secret...like installing the ductless split AC system that I had originally planned on. If three portable 10,000btu AC's can't keep us cool, I'll get the split system, but mount the compressor on the roof of the grow room, but inside the warehouse. The exhaust fans will get rid of the heat it generates. There is just no way that I'm going to mount that thing on the roof and draw attention.
Now that we have some room in the veg room, we're able to really treat our veg plants right. Before they were too crowded. Now, the LST plants have the wires moved out every 2-3 days. This keeps them really short. The Lavanders we're not topping or training. By having room, we're able to space them far apart and move them around often. We're getting nice even bushy growth all the way into the middle of the lower plant. These plants will be too large for overhead lighting by the time that there is room in the bloom room, so it will be time for some free hanging bare bulbs. I'm envisioning the bloom room having three sections of 4 - 1000 watt lights each. The first is 4 lights in air cooled reflectors about 4 ' high. The second is 4 lights in air cooled reflectors about 6' high. The last would be 4 bare hanging bulbs for plants too tall for the other light sets. This gives me alot of leeway as to when plants move into bloom. If we can accomodate any size plant, I can keep the bloom room full at all times. This is the plan, anyways.
Ultimately, we'll identify the most productive plant size/spacing/training method, and slowly modify towards that ideal. Right now, it's pretty much the brute force method. It wouldn't suprise me if a year from now we were doubling our yield.
Helper D is taking the weekend off. That DICK. So there will be no new pics until Monday. I'm going to have hard enough time watering AND taking pictures. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
Ok, for those that have been following I have an update on what we've been doing the past few days. Construction is finally slowing down. I need to duct in outside air to feed the air cooled lights (currently drawing from room), put the carbon filtered exhaust fans on a speed controller, purchase and hook up another portable air conditioner, purchase and install a 150 gallon RO water storage tank, purchase and install another dehumidifier, plumb de humidifier water discharge into ne RO water tank, and purchase and install a 2500CFM 12" exhaust fan from Grainger to exhaust the air in the main warehouse. That, I hope, should do it for the major settup.
Basically, right now wer're cooling with a massive movement of air through the rooms. There are 2 - 750 CFM inline exhaust fans on carbon filters, and 3 - 750 CFM inline fans exhausting the lights. We're moving so much air that the air conditioners aren't too effective. The air moves through too fast to get cooled. By feeding the light hoods with warehouse air, we remove 2250 CFM of air movement from the rooms. Then, we can crank up the AC's and see what happens. We'll just play with adding AC's and adjusting the exhaust fan speed to find that sweet spot.
All of our exhaust goes into the warehouse. There are 2 - 12" exhaust fans in the roof. While they are pretty powerful, I feel we need more movement outside the grow and inside the warehouse. Grainger sells this bad boy 12" fan that moves around 2500 CFM. It's around $400, but should do what we need. If not, we'll get 2 of em. We need massive flow in the warehouse because the entire heat load ends up there. Fortunately, we have 14' ceilings. By drawing air from down low, and exhausting high, we can pull in cool air while the exhaust fans get the super hot air out of the warehouse.
So far, I've avoided having to go onto the roof and make any modifications that may call attention to our little secret...like installing the ductless split AC system that I had originally planned on. If three portable 10,000btu AC's can't keep us cool, I'll get the split system, but mount the compressor on the roof of the grow room, but inside the warehouse. The exhaust fans will get rid of the heat it generates. There is just no way that I'm going to mount that thing on the roof and draw attention.
Now that we have some room in the veg room, we're able to really treat our veg plants right. Before they were too crowded. Now, the LST plants have the wires moved out every 2-3 days. This keeps them really short. The Lavanders we're not topping or training. By having room, we're able to space them far apart and move them around often. We're getting nice even bushy growth all the way into the middle of the lower plant. These plants will be too large for overhead lighting by the time that there is room in the bloom room, so it will be time for some free hanging bare bulbs. I'm envisioning the bloom room having three sections of 4 - 1000 watt lights each. The first is 4 lights in air cooled reflectors about 4 ' high. The second is 4 lights in air cooled reflectors about 6' high. The last would be 4 bare hanging bulbs for plants too tall for the other light sets. This gives me alot of leeway as to when plants move into bloom. If we can accomodate any size plant, I can keep the bloom room full at all times. This is the plan, anyways.
Ultimately, we'll identify the most productive plant size/spacing/training method, and slowly modify towards that ideal. Right now, it's pretty much the brute force method. It wouldn't suprise me if a year from now we were doubling our yield.
Helper D is taking the weekend off. That DICK. So there will be no new pics until Monday. I'm going to have hard enough time watering AND taking pictures. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
