5x7x8 grow room lighting and quantity - other options available

[Stormblade]

Hey everyone...first time poster/grower

I am currently designing my grow room. I have been reading and watching quite a few videos and I am running into a lot of different opinions.

The room I am using is 7x13x8. I have just over 90 square feet of space in the room. It is surrounded completey in concrete with a nice ventilation window. After reviewing tons of written and video entries, I believe I should be running 5k Lumens and 50 watts per square foot. Power wise, I am capped out at 2,000 watts. This leads me to believe that I can only use 35 square feet of the room giving me (with 2x 1,000 HPS) 57 watts per square foot and over 8,000 lumens per square foot with 150k bulbs(which seems too much on lumens). I guess I could go 6x7 or even going lower on the watts.

My questions are:


Should I increase the size of the grow, drop the watts/lumens?
How many plants should I throw in there? - Based on the square footage guidance you provide

I know a lot of posts depend on what you are growing. I figured I would provide that information:
The purps x however many I can put in & I plan on using LST.

Thanks guys...Any information would help and would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Fuzzy Duck]

Well ya maths is pretty alright with 50w per square foot being average !

A 1000w bulb should give a light foot print of 6 foot by 6 foot thats 36 square foot per bulb at an average hanging height with a suitable size reflector

2 x 1000w is 72 square foot.... light foot print may be smaller if using air cooled hoods tho as these can be close to the plants but allows more light energy for the plants to use once you factor in the square law of light effect !

 

[Hosebomber]

There are a few more questions that wikll help clear things up.

Are you only flowering in this room?
If so where are you growing clones and vegging? Is there the same wattage requirements tied to that area?


If you only have the power capability of 2000 watts, then there is no possible way that you can run 2 1000 watt lights. They pull 1100+ watts at the wall and more on firing. Likewise, you will need to run fans (and pumps?) and that will lower your available power draw for lighting as well. If you are vegging and cloning in that area as well, you can usage T5's or smaller lighting options for those areas to allow higher wattage in the flowering section. What is limiting you power usage? Is it wiring or total over all power draw? I guess a better way to ask is how you came up with the 2000 watt usage number?

 

[Stormblade]

Hey Hosebomber,

The 2000 watts is what I am limiting for my lights because of power consumption. It is not including the watts of anything else. The room has the capabilities of 90 square feet. I was figuring I was limited to 5x7 because of the watts per square foot. This will be for flowering. The other part of the room will be used for vegging. I need all of it done with 2000 watts worth of lighting and am trying to figure out a good way of doing it and having a nice yield. The watts is basically for safety concerns and to remain somewhat discreet. What I want is the 5x7 to use far less than 2,000 watts. Like two 600 watts, but the math does not work. That's why I need to know what could be used and how many plants would thrive in the area on both the vegg/clone and flowering side. Thanks man!

 

[Hosebomber]

Giving yourself room to move around and care for the plant might put you where you need to be. I'm rather tall and I can't reach 5' across a full grown plant. Think about reducing the grow area to roughly 4x6. This allows you some room to move around the plants and check on them and care for them as needed while lowering your lighting requirements. Two 600 watt HPS lights will cover that area very well and make maintaining the plants that much easier. Any time that I design a new grow room for myself or someone else, the first thing I do is make a walking/care path to access all areas that will have growth. I try to keep max width below 4 feet. Much more than 2 feet of reach and you risk falling and damaging your plants while you are attempting to take care of them. If the person has medical issues you can adjust the width to allow walkers/wheelchairs/larger persons mobility as needed.

 

[Stormblade]

So if I use 4x6 for the flowering room, do you think 12 plants would be too much? Also, for the vegging room, if I use the same dimensions as the flowering room, what bulbs and wattage would you recommend? Thanks for the advice man.. Really appreciate it