Noob's guide to growroom set-up : a work in progress

OK- back to it...

Couple more ventilation notes, and then on to room prep.

I heartily recommend using thru-wall flanges anywhere that you need to run ductwork thru a partition. Fer instance- You're using a window to exhaust... First, Mount a mini-blind in the window.(Camoflage from outside). Leave the window cracked open a few iches top and bottom,so that air can flow easily around the sash. Now cut a piece of luan (good) or cardboard (cheap) that fits inside the interior casing, flush against the stop. ( The stop is the piece of molding that holds the sash in the window opening, preventing it from falling into the room.) This should block the entire window. If you're dealing with a newer (vinyl) window, you won't have a stop- instead, the body of the window unit will but right up against the casing. You'll mount your blackout panel against this instead.

Put the blackout panel in place and make sure it fits well. Determine where on the panel you're going to run your exhaust- cut a hole ( holesaw), sized to match your fan's output dimension. Home Depot and the like, in the HVAC section, will have â??starter flangesâ?�- they're used to mount branch ductwork off of sheet metal mains. They look like a little top-hat that somebody has punched through. (Again, sized to your fan's output dimension- if you're using a 6â?� fan, you'l be using 6â?� flanges and 6â?� duct) Mount this with a couple of short screws over the hole in your blackout panel, so you have a nice clean, light-tight place to mount your ductwork. This will essentially eliminate issues with ductwork coming loose ( and beaming a veritable bat-signal out your window), which is not uncommon when you start pressurizing flexiduct. If you wish to use this window as an intake as well, put your exhaust port high, and use multiple intake ports at the bottom. To light proof the intakes, merely attach ductwork to the starter flanges that you put over your intake holes and allow to bend down 90 degrees. I'd also advise ( strongly) putting insect screening over the intake holes from the outside- you can just glue it in place with caulking.

On a wooden window, I'll usually affix this with some wire nails ( very wee)- On a vinyl window, I use cheap acrylic non-siliconized caulking, as this can be cleaned off pretty easily if and when you need to make the room go away. Don't use the siliconized here, as it'll be tough to clean up perfectly.

If you're ducting thru walls or ceilings, you can usually use â?? duct couplerâ?� units- tube of sheetmetal, sized to fit inside your ductwork, that are designed to join two lengths of duct. Cut your holes ( with the appropriate hole-saw) and slip the coupler in place. If your walls are too thick for the coupler unit to go all the way through, you'll need to use â??hard ductâ?�- the sheetmetal stuff. Also home depot. Measure the length you need to have and cut to fit. Most easily cut if you open it up, lay it flat, trace your measurement several times with a utility knife, and then bend the sheet metal back and forth until it pops apart. Beware of razor sharp edges!

OK- so we know what our ventilation looks like, we have all of our flanges mounted- couple more details before we treat the walls.

Find your ceiling studs- a studfinder will cost about $15 , also at Casa de Pot, and will be good for really unlimited humor value ( Fer instance, you can walk up to your hubby/BF, wave the stud finder, (which doesn't go off), and mumble â??...hmm...guess I'm still looking..."- My daughter has been known to bring one to bars...) If you have a studfinder, you can skip the next paragraph..

You can often find studs by tapping on the surface and listening to the sound it produces- an open wall cavity will sound boomy, while tapping over the stud will produce a deader sound. This will get you within a few inches- now you need to poke thru the wall surface and look for wood. If you have plaster and lathe ceilings, make sure you are hitting frame and not lathe- if you hang a heavy light fixture by the lathe, you'll probabley be allright- but maybe 1 time in 10, the lathe will eventually pull free, dropping your light and 50-100 lbs of ceiling onto your garden. (Same thing with drywall anchors) Establish the pattern of your ceiling studs ( really joists, but whatever) and trace till they meet the walls. Mark the wall where the stud hits, extending the mark down maybe 3-4 â??s. Hang your panda/mylar/paint on the ceiling. Now, before you cover the marks on the walls, snap a line from mark to mark corresponding with the joist run. These show you where you can hang things from the ceiling, SAFELY.

So go buy a studfinder- or borrow your dad's ( He'll be so proud).

OK- you're ready to paint, or to hang your reflective film.

Mylar comes in 48 and 54 inch widths, and 1 and 2 mil thicknesses. I really recommend using the 2 mil if your going to use mylar- 1 mil tears like tissue paper. If using mylar, be aware that it's not perfectly opaque- you need to black out any windows that you haven't already.
Start in one corner on the ceiling. Unroll about 6â?� from the roll and tuck into the corner where the ceiling meets the wall, and put a few staples in. Now unroll across the ceiling, keeping the edge of the mylar paralell and butted against the paralell wall. Put staples in to tack it up every couple of feet. Keep things tight and neat- Neatness counts a whole lot. Roll right over any ventilation flanges you have previously mounted. Repeat until the ceiling is covered. Rooms are never perfectly square- overlap your mylar by a few inches so that you can adjust.

Once it's all up, tack it in place thoroughly. Staples will pull thru mylar very easily- anywhere that you need to staple, put a little square of duct tape up first and staple through that, to re-inforce the mylar. (Duct tape, by the way, uses an adhesive that gets soft when warm- don't rely on it as a growroom fastener. Here, it's just a buttress) Use a Sharply to translate your joist marks up onto the ceiling covering.

If you're hanging mylar alone, it's usually easier to run the wall covering in vertical strips, as gravity will help keep it straight. If you have a partner, run it horizontally ( One holds in place while the other staples.) Again, roll right over blacked out windows, vent flanges.
( Don't cover the door.)

Cut out the mylar to expose any electrical outlets, vent flanges, etc. I like to poke a hole in the center of flanges and make asterisk (*) shaped cuts out to the edge- gives ya a nice clean fit. Of course, be careful using a knife around an electrical outlet. Mylar is electrically conductive, so avoid the temptation to tuck the mylar under the cover plate, no matter how much better it looks.

Panda's similar, but 10' wide off the roll. You'll want to measure the length of your walls, and cut panda a few inches longer. Panda's folded do that you can pull one edge out- align w/ ceiling edge, letting a few inches run down onto the wall. Staple heartily. Now unfold panda across ceiling, stapling as you go. Panda's a lot tougher than mylar, you won't need as many staples. Same deal, same cautions regarding vent flanges, electrical outlets.

Paint's pretty straight forward- just don't lose your joist marks! Caulk the edges of any flanges going through a window blackout, to ensure that you won't have tell-tale glow from outside.

Might as well mylar, paint, or panda the inside of the door while you have all this stuff out. Make sure that the door will close properly! If you have a louvered door, or a door that really doesn't fit well, hang panda over the inside casing and install a self-adhesive zipper to allow you to open and close it. Wherever you got the panda will have the zippers, or you can get them for tarps at a lot of lumberyards. You're looking for a â?? tarp zipperâ?�.

OK- so now you should have a highly reflective room. Grab a grease pencil or sharpy. Go inside and close the door. Block off your duct flanges. Turn off your worklights and hang out for at least 5 minutes to allow your eye to adjust. The ONLY light leaks that you should see should be incompletely blocked ventilation flanges. Anything else- circle it in greasepencil or sharpy, so that you will be able to find it again with the lights back on. Doors can be a drag- do the panda&zipper thing, or use v-seal weatherstripping if you have a problem. A door sweep is also a really good idea- go look at your storm doors to see what I mean.

This is very important- it's much easier to fix stuff now, while the room is empty.!

Once you have plants in there, you will not see the room in the dark- most folks discover their light leaks when they start seeing hermies. Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance!

Ok- gonna break again. In our next installment, you'll see why it's so important to know where your studs are.

Prep work's a drag, huh? Don't worry, it's all very worthwhile.

Shoulda mentioned last installment that you should snap or otherwise draw a line showing where your ceiling joists are. You can do it now,though.

So why do you need to know where your studs are?

I'm gonna actually refer you to another old fart . ( Go ahead, click the link)

You're going to hang an HID lamp from the ceiling. There are three ways that a fire can start in a growroom. One of them is to overload a circuit or powerstrip. Another is a flammable material too close to the lamp. The third is for your lamp to have fallen.

Go check out the first page of the â?? Plant Problemsâ?� forum. There's a new thread on there every single day where somebodies dropped their light onto their plants- and that's really a best case scenario. Worst case is that your light falls and ruptures the bulb, IGNITING A FIRE!! Somewhere in the middle is your light falling while you are working under it, causing painful burns. ( Painful, painful burns...)

Remember, the only constant in life is entropy- shit falls apart...

I don't regard an HID lamp as any more dangerous than a microwave oven. (That being said, I have rarely suspended my microwave over my head.)

The reason that you need to know where your studs are is that you are going to hang your HID lamp, from these joists.
Would you hang a microwave oven from string tied to a little wire hook in your ceiling drywall? If you would, would you take a bath underneath it?

Me, I'd use chain, hooks rated at least three times the load that I was going to hang on them, and I'd have those hooks very firmly mounted onto ceiling joists. But if I hung it, then yeah, I'd take a bath under it.

I'm sure that this sounds like hyperbole, and it sort of is- but the point is safety, so I don't feel bad about it.

By now, you should have a very specific plan of how your going to lay out your plants- if you don't, set up your containers, trays, what have you , and do a layout plan- figure out how you're going to water things, where things should go so that you can reach them easily- Frequently, it doesn't make sense to hang the light in the center of the room. It's a whole lot easier to re-arrange empty pots until you have something that works for you, than it is to move pots around to water. Make sure that there's room for you in there too, and that you'll be able to reach the pots with a full, heavy container of water- or if you're going to do hydro, that you'll be able to maneuver five gallon buckets of water in there, get nute samples easily, that kinda thing.

Anyway, do your layout, and get a look at where your plants are going to end up when they finish flowering. This is going to determine where you end up putting your light. Assuming that your walls are fairly level, you can take measurements on the floor and transcribe them to the ceiling- Just make marks on the floor and use a plumb bob. ( Borrow your grand-dads- it'll thrill him)

A quick tip- the great majority of the light from an HID lamp is emitted from the sides of the arc tube. I always try to align the arc tube so that it's parallel to the shorter walls of the room- this gives you the most efficient distribution pattern.

Personally, I like to have the light suspended from more than one joist, although I suppose that if you actually have a complete failure of a joist, the lamp will be the least of your problems.( I used to do swing stage work in an urban area- I'm really into redundant back-ups.) If I'm at ninety degrees to the joists, then a couple of hooks and we're done- if I'm parallel, I usually strap a plate across two joists and sink the hook in that. This also adds a lot of flexibility in placing the light, as I'm not stuck with the joist layout- if I want to be six inches further over, I have the option.

Hooks and chains are load rated. Always at least triple the load rating- ie a 20# reflector requires hooks and chains load rated at at least sixty #s. It's the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy, and the most likely to pay off. ( Speaking of which, if your homeowners underwriter ever finds out about you're doing this, they will never pay any claims for any damage- Are you going to walk into a courtroom and sue your insurer because they wouldn't pay for fire damage caused by your garden? Me neither.)

It's a really good idea to pick one hook on any given chain that you're going to use for adjustments, and crimp the others or otherwise ensure that they cannot possibly dislodge. Play out scenarios like:

You have walked into the room and tripped, falling directly onto the reflector.
Will your body weight pushing it to one side knock it off a hook?

You have been crouched over under the lamp, and misjudged it's location. When you straighten up, the back of your head touched the bulb- causing instant, searing (literally) pain. You thrash about.
Can you knock any of the hooks out by taking weight off of them or shaking them back and forth?

These things happen, and suck.

But they suck even more if they end up dropping your lamp onto your plants, onto your head, or into some water.

Ok, are you happy with where your reflectors hung, how it's hung, what it's hung with? Great- take it down. We need to strap more stuff on the ceiling- we did the light first because it's big, and position sensitive.

I usually do the carbon filter on the ceiling as well, hung from hook and chain. It's not as critical to have the filter perfectly positioned- Nice to have it nearish the light, as that's where airs often hottest, and center of spaceish- but pretty much anywhere reasonable on the ceiling's gonna do. As the filter will neither burn me or start a fire, I usually just hang it off one of the joists- sink two hooks, put chain on them, hold the filter up, wrap chains around filter and back onto same hook. Good idea to check the fit with the reflector back in place- also to make sure that it's really as easy to move the reflector around as you expected. Try to point the flange end of the filter toward the exhaust flange you installed earlier, or at least not away from it. The fan goes anywhere that's good between the two- again, heavy, joist. The fan will seem quieter from outside the room, where it matters, if there's flex ducting between it and the exhaust flange, and if you suspend it from a piece of chain or bungee, so it's vibration is not transmitted to the joist.

Now lay out your ducting, cut it to a good fit (Not so short that it wants to pull off the flanges, not so long that it's all over the place) For this, I use drywall hooks and cable ties- it doesn't weigh anything.

Ok, so we have your ventilation in place, with the cord from the fan just hanging down. Go ahead and hang the reflector back up, (no bulb just yet, and with the lamp cord unplugged from the ballast, if you can,) stand back, and admire your work. It's starting to look like a growroom in there.:thumbsup:

Let's break again here, and pick up with cable routing, environmental controllers, timers, and keeping the ballast off of the floor and therefore out of the water.

Bump in hopes of getting to read the rest of this great tutorial! Lots of interesting and useful knowledge to set your area up RIGHT!
Thanks, and lotsa K to ya!

Good work:thumbsup:

No comment from here....

Its all great. Just waiting for next installment:D

Awsome thread, Ive had quite a few set ups and have been succesful over the years but with these new tips I will definately be able to refine my space for the winter. Better yet an entirly new space, awsome! Feed my head some more man it's starving:thumbsup:
Hey stinky, I'll bet your keeping tabs on this one. This dude got some knowlege here. If geographics allowed you guy's could blow Amstradam out of the water with your combine skills. :jointsmile:

Great post, very informative, and alot of information that needs to be told... now if people will only read stickies, and search.
did i miss the part about electrical??? because i know you got some info on that!?

i have a wonderful solution to growroom wiring, but it is semi-advance

:thumbsup: another good one rhi

no comments, written wonderfully and easy to follow, hoping for more to come, but just one question.
im confused about the fans mentioned in rhizomes second part of the post, the passive vs active intake fans. whats the dif? and which is better? how much are they? do they make various sizes?
also just a few questions about exhaust fans- are inline the best, what about squirell cage fans? anyone have any suggestions on where to purchase these aside from online? and if online anywhere really cheap? hope someone can help me out!!!! sorry for so many questions
happy smokin
:jointsmile::rasta:

From what I know, He is referring to a passive intake as not having any fan at all, while an active intake is one that has a fan that blows air into the area.

As for exhaust fans, many people seem to recommend the vortex blower fans, mainly because they are cost-effective to run and that you can use a variable speed control with them. The dayton blowers are good at exhausting air too, but at a much higher electrical consumption. (compare a 6" vortex blowing at 449 cfm's and running 80 watts, vs. a dayton 465 cfm blower that consumes 2.9 amps (120v x 2.9A=), or 348 watts.

This place has decent prices on the vortex:
Vortex 6 inch Inline Fan 449 CFM @ Businesslights.com
HTH

Exactly- a passive intake doesn't use a fan.

Active intakes can add a whole new level of complexity and problems. You have to match airflow pretty carefully between active intake and active exhaust- More intake than exhaust will stink the place up, and an underperforming intake will limit exhaust cfm.

A passive intake ( that's large enough) will balance according to negative pressure created by exhaust.

I like can inlines for the bulletproof factor, and low operational noise. Also, they pre-package fan&filter for a couple bucks less than a la carte- so you know that they'll match.

One thing to keep in mind when comparing fans is static pressure capacity, if you need it for long runs. The inlines move a bunch of air assuming a low static pressure, but capacity drops pretty quick when air pressure on the exhaust side exceeds intake pressure- you know, like when you're blowing into a tube.

Squirrel cage designs maintain much better airflow against pressure, but chew a bunch o' watts doing it.

Different designs for different purposes.