Common0ne
Active Member
Alright soo..I already posted this on the Electrical board but it didn't really get that much attention so I decided to make a new thread about my grow room and see what people think, this is pretty much copy and pasted so yeah.. 
I have been doing quite a bit of research of how to build my grow room (probably about 1 months worth and mind that I have had no previous knowledge of any of this type of work lol) and this is what I got so far..
I will be going with a EBB flow hydroponic system. The dimensions of the table is a 4x8 the reservoir is 100gallons, pump is rated at 1056 GPH, 38L/M air pump, will be going with 4"x4" rockwool cubes (will try to find 6"x6" at other local stores) and I will be going with a SOG grow. Each plant will get 1 sq/foot of space therefore 4x8 = 32 sq/foot so that is enough room for 32 plants. Obviously I cant just make the room 4x8 because getting in would be impossible so I will make the room a 5x9x8 instead so I can have some room to work with (inspecting plants and etc.) A room of that size would equal 360CFM sooo.. If I wanted to exhaust the room I would need 720CFM exhaust fan bare minimum and a carbon filter that is 133% of the exhaust fan so 1.33x720=957.6 so lets just round that to a 1000CFM carbon filter. For the inlet I will be using negative pressure to bring in fresh air (trying to save a little money there for now). Also since I will have 32 plants I want to make sure that each plant will get at least 50W light/each so if I had 2x 1000wHPS lights that would be 2000W/32 = 62.5W per plant which is fine. You are probably wondering if I will be air cooling these lights with a second exhaust fan and the answer is no..Well..initially I will see how everything turns out BUT I will be purchasing a 12,000BTU A/C /Dehumidifier so that should take care of any heat issues..Lastly for the grow room reflectance I will be using Mylar.
Alright so now for electrical.. I looked into it for a bit and I THINK I understand what I would have to do..BUT I am just making sure because I don't want to burn my building down.. Soo.. On my control panel it is a Commander 100amp (which is old as shit) but I realized that it still has 2 sockets available for additional breakers and thank god it does..I will want to purchase 2 separate 20amp breakers and install them into the control panel and then connect them with 12-3 gauge wiring all the way to the grow room. I will then install 2 outlets, each outlet will run on its own circuit so that each of them will have 20amp's of power (therefore equaling 40amp's) which is sufficient for running my grow room. There is one question I want to ask though because im already going to spend shitloads of money for this growroom so I need to go a bit cheap so I want to purchase 120V ballasts which are $150 cheaper than the 120v/240v so I would save $300 BUT I figured out that I can't run both lights on 1 20amp circuit because I have read that you can only use 80% of the breaker's total amount of amps so 0.80x20=16amp's (constant use) but since I will be using 120v ballasts I would consume 120v X 16amp's = 1920W. So if I were to use ballasts rated at 120v the 20amp circuit would only give me 1920W of power which is 80W shy of the 2000W lights so I am wondering if I can use both lights on the 1 20amp circuit using 120v or should I just put 1 1000W light on 1 20amp circuit and put the other 1000W light on the other 20 amp circuit (only reason why I am asking this is because I just want to keep everything clean..) but w/e if I have to I have to :/ Also if there is anything that sounds wrong with my grow please tell me because I want everything to be perfect before I spend 1 cent on my growing materials.
Last question if I started to consume this much power (probably 3500W) would this raise enough suspicion to get me caught.. I live in a Condominium where all the expenses are payed for including electric/hydro and it is 29 floors so it is a pretty big building. I am just wondering though would they even be able to know or realize anything because there are just soo many people living in this Condo.. Also forgot to mention that I will be using sound dampeners for the 8" ducting to minimize the noise.
If you guys have the chance just give me any more advice or anything I should change at all would be very much appreciated
Thank you!
Common0ne
I have been doing quite a bit of research of how to build my grow room (probably about 1 months worth and mind that I have had no previous knowledge of any of this type of work lol) and this is what I got so far..
I will be going with a EBB flow hydroponic system. The dimensions of the table is a 4x8 the reservoir is 100gallons, pump is rated at 1056 GPH, 38L/M air pump, will be going with 4"x4" rockwool cubes (will try to find 6"x6" at other local stores) and I will be going with a SOG grow. Each plant will get 1 sq/foot of space therefore 4x8 = 32 sq/foot so that is enough room for 32 plants. Obviously I cant just make the room 4x8 because getting in would be impossible so I will make the room a 5x9x8 instead so I can have some room to work with (inspecting plants and etc.) A room of that size would equal 360CFM sooo.. If I wanted to exhaust the room I would need 720CFM exhaust fan bare minimum and a carbon filter that is 133% of the exhaust fan so 1.33x720=957.6 so lets just round that to a 1000CFM carbon filter. For the inlet I will be using negative pressure to bring in fresh air (trying to save a little money there for now). Also since I will have 32 plants I want to make sure that each plant will get at least 50W light/each so if I had 2x 1000wHPS lights that would be 2000W/32 = 62.5W per plant which is fine. You are probably wondering if I will be air cooling these lights with a second exhaust fan and the answer is no..Well..initially I will see how everything turns out BUT I will be purchasing a 12,000BTU A/C /Dehumidifier so that should take care of any heat issues..Lastly for the grow room reflectance I will be using Mylar.
Alright so now for electrical.. I looked into it for a bit and I THINK I understand what I would have to do..BUT I am just making sure because I don't want to burn my building down.. Soo.. On my control panel it is a Commander 100amp (which is old as shit) but I realized that it still has 2 sockets available for additional breakers and thank god it does..I will want to purchase 2 separate 20amp breakers and install them into the control panel and then connect them with 12-3 gauge wiring all the way to the grow room. I will then install 2 outlets, each outlet will run on its own circuit so that each of them will have 20amp's of power (therefore equaling 40amp's) which is sufficient for running my grow room. There is one question I want to ask though because im already going to spend shitloads of money for this growroom so I need to go a bit cheap so I want to purchase 120V ballasts which are $150 cheaper than the 120v/240v so I would save $300 BUT I figured out that I can't run both lights on 1 20amp circuit because I have read that you can only use 80% of the breaker's total amount of amps so 0.80x20=16amp's (constant use) but since I will be using 120v ballasts I would consume 120v X 16amp's = 1920W. So if I were to use ballasts rated at 120v the 20amp circuit would only give me 1920W of power which is 80W shy of the 2000W lights so I am wondering if I can use both lights on the 1 20amp circuit using 120v or should I just put 1 1000W light on 1 20amp circuit and put the other 1000W light on the other 20 amp circuit (only reason why I am asking this is because I just want to keep everything clean..) but w/e if I have to I have to :/ Also if there is anything that sounds wrong with my grow please tell me because I want everything to be perfect before I spend 1 cent on my growing materials.
Last question if I started to consume this much power (probably 3500W) would this raise enough suspicion to get me caught.. I live in a Condominium where all the expenses are payed for including electric/hydro and it is 29 floors so it is a pretty big building. I am just wondering though would they even be able to know or realize anything because there are just soo many people living in this Condo.. Also forgot to mention that I will be using sound dampeners for the 8" ducting to minimize the noise.
If you guys have the chance just give me any more advice or anything I should change at all would be very much appreciated
Thank you!
Common0ne