Grow Room Advice Needed - Thank you!!

[fatsalad]

Hi all, I am new to this site and this is my first post. It looks like there is quite a wealth of collected Wisdom and I am hoping to harvest a few pearls. Glad to shary any that I may have as well. So....once upon a time say 12+ years ago I grew SOG with my room mate back in College. It was under a 400 Sun Aggro hps and it was just for our heads and our friends. Fast forward twelve years...I'm married, have kids and am getting very very tired of paying for herb....not to mention the hastle of trying to get it. So, at this point in my life I am sparking an interest in the pastime that we all enjoy.

My goal is to produce enough smoke for me, my wife and my father in law. We all smoke a good bit....I'd say a qp a month on average would probably take care of us....a little more would be nice. I own my house, from basement to attic it is 4 stories. The water heater, furnace, fuse box are all in my very wet and modly basement. My attic is half finished......if I grow in the attic I would use the unfinished side as it is kind of tucked away. Alternatively I could grow in the basement......providing I could deal with the mold and moisture issues. Plus I would have to actually build a room in the basement.....and I'm not really all that experienced with that sort of thing. Both the attic and basement are rather large... Lately I have been thinking of growing in the attic since it is a bit more remote, the only big issue there is the heat. I've read some great posts on this site on attic grows...and it sounds possible. I live in the NE, and the temps in my attic do get very high. I am thinking of picking up a 12000 btu portable AC unit that I saw at Lowes....would this be sufficient in bringing my temps down to a reasonable level? Should I stick with 600w hps? I am thinking a 1000w may be asking for too much trouble since the temps are already so high. And finally....am I thinking correctly that the attic really can work well? Considering stealth and heat/cooling issues. Down the road I can see insulating the attic, just not sure the money is there yet considering everything else I'll need to buy for this project. Thank you very much for reading this and thanks in advance for any input. Hope to be able to share in turn with you all....

[stinkyattic]

I've also got a 4 story (cellar, 2 floors of living, attic) home in New England and even with the humidity, the basement IS actually your best bet!
Remember that as you ADD heat, you LOWER relative humidity. And it's cheaper to deal with a little chill than try to air condition a hot attic. You don't need to build much; just a simple 2x4 or PVC pipe frame over which you can hang Panda Film is adequate. The stable, cool temps of a basement are ideal for a grow area. Just remember to keep your pots off the floor (foam slab insulation panels =GREAT for this), and that during the plants' 'night', the %RH will rise and if your humidity is very high, a small oil-filled electric heater set on a thermostat or even a timer is going to be necessary. Air MOVEMENT is very important too. So no matter where you grow, plan for exhaust.
Read the link in my siggy for more info on starting up, and read the 'noobs guide to growroom setup' by Rhizome. He's our resident [evil?] genius. Also read the grow logs. Many members here have posted detailed accounts of their adventures and misadventures growing in every location imaginable!
You may very well want 2 rooms for efficiency. Veg and flower. Your flowering watts determine your yield, assuming that your plants enter the flower cycle at an appropriate size and level of health. A QP a month is do-able and you should be able to hit that under a HPS600 or HPS1000.
Welcome, and good luck.

[fatsalad]

Thanks Stinky Attic. Actually yours and Rhizome's posts have both impressed me, part of the reason I just joined. Yeah, I was originally planning on going basement, just got a bit nervous when I was how wet and moldy it actually gets. I suppose fans and a de-humidifier could help quite a bit. Unfornately though the best place to vent is next to my breakers....well, they are both in the same 12X12 area anyway. I could section off the grow closets from the breaker, but it would still be right there. Now the basement is also divided in half by a big stone wall. The furnace, water heater and the fuse box are all on one side, along with a dead chimney I was thinkking of venting through. The other side has a dirt floor and nothing to really interest anyone......except that the stairs from the main level come down into this side. Seems like this would work but for the fact that I don't see any easy venting options on this side. The fuse box is next to a dead chimney that has been chopped off below the roof line.....so the chimney runs from the basement to the attic.
Not sure if I'm making sense and not trying to sound so needy....I just want to do this right.

[stinkyattic]

You can vent into the chimney, especially if your attic has vents out to the outside. There should be a cleanout at the base of the chimney that you can jam your duct into, or better still, find or make a 6" hole higher in the room- there might be something from where an old furnace was once attached.
Can you seal over the dirt floor? Pour concrete? Dirt harbors mold spores and will be a place where pests can breed.

[fatsalad]

Hi Stinky! What I think I will do is build a room, about 6X10 around the old chimney in the basement. There is a 6 inch hole in the chimney where the old furnace used to connect to it, and yeah I'm thinking of jamming a piece of duct right in there and connecting it to a cool tube (still not sure whether to go for the 600 or 1000 watt!). This does put my grow room within a few feet of the main breaker and fuse box to the house.....but they venting seems perfect here. The chimney does not do all the way to the outside....the top was chopped off so it currently vents to the unused side of my attic. Thinking of getting a 424 cfm inline fan connected to a 6" carbon filter which the heat/sweet stank will run through before being pushed up the chimney. One other thing, there is a raised stone slab that I think the old furnace used to sit on (about 4.5 x6), this is what I am thinking of using for the main flowering area. The rest of the floor on this side of the basement is concrete already. Only wish the breakers were a bit further away......

[stinkyattic]

Okay, you've got things covered, so no one has to tell you DON'T SKIMP ON A BURLY BLOWER! haha
600 HPS is most lumens per watt. Get the best bulb you can afford. Cooltube in cellar is probably overkill, although you will still benefit from an air cooled hood. If you have $$, 2 HPS600 is WAY WAY WAY better than a HPS1000.
Grab a big slab of foam insulation board for the floor. Trust me on this. Plants with cold feet complain more than a kid with wet socks on a ski trip.

[fatsalad]

Hahaha, from that comment I can tell you are an experienced mom in addition to an accomplished grower. :D great idea with the foam board.
Honestly my goal is to produce enough free smoke for my wife, my self and my father in law. Sure I could see kicking down some nugs for friends as well but I want to keep things low key. I'll consider myself successful if the three of us don't have to buy buds for a loooooooong time. Of course....there is something deliciously appealing about the idea of having my own private forest......just not sure what I'd do with it all. Guess I'd think of something. Space wise I think I have plenty of room for either a 1000w or 2 600ws. Not sure on the cash though for 2 600s atm. I am trying to keep things under $800 all in all (including rooom construction costs), having said that I don't want to skimp! I live in a village where the houses aren't that far apart, so I can't let any odors leak. Man, I have spent soooo much time over the last few weeks reading.....reading....and reading. I am so ready to start growing, except that I am having some work done on my house in the near future and I want to wait until thats done before I get started. Plus it's forcing me to be very thorough in my research. I am just very thankful that there are people such as you who are out there to educate all of us neophytes.

[stinkyattic]

lol! I've got no kids of my own, just an observation on what exactly gets the loudest complaints outta the Spongebob Set.
Just a 600 should keep three people satisfied easily. No problem. Plan early how you are going to control temps. A climate controller/environmental controller that has a thermostat and humidistat with actual outlets running off them lets you plug in a small heater that runs when temps drop below 68'F (or whatever you set it at), also plug in your biggest exhaust blower to run when temps climb above 82'F or so, or if the humidity goes over 45%.
Read the sticky at the top of the growroom setup forum that was written by Rhizome. He has a lot of experience setting up and troubleshooting all types of gardens.

[fatsalad]

Well I just learned that my new lights and gear arrived at the house today, can't wait to go home and unwrap! I ended up going with the 600w hps with a nice bulb. Picked up two compact t5s for vegging, and an inline 450ish cfm fan and matching filter. Needed to rethink the vent setup a little though, I scoped out that old dead chimney and it is packed with crud! So, I think I am going to vent from one side of my basement to the other....through the charcoal filter. Hope it doesn't smell to wonderfully delicious everywhere in the house!