Turning My Basement Into The Perfect Grow Room

[keith1975]

I'm lucky enough to have a really awesome downstairs basement area below my house, perfect for growing. Or so I thought. My first grow is still in progress and it made me realize a lot of the shortcomings of the grow room. So this post is about planning for the next grow and documenting it as I go. It's probably still a good 2 months away before I will finish the current grow and be able to make many of these changes, but if there is anything I can start doing now already, even if it's just getting costings etc, it would allow me to start quickly again after this first grow is done.

I will probably clear out my whole grow room for at least a week in order to do any final big changes, such as cleaning the entire room and sorting out various other things like the floor and windows etc. I want to do this right and get the best possible grow room. One that is a joy to go to and easy to work with and obviously, produces great bud. Heck, if I can chuck a couch in there and turn it into a true man-cave, that would be even better (but a lot of creativity would be needed to get a couch in there). If my environment could also be seen as 'medical grade', that would be awesome. I want to go for the best this time round.

This thread will be used to keep track of all the changes I make, what I try, what works, what doesn't etc. But most importantly, it gives me a place to get help from all you awesome people! Because I'm certainly going to be stuck on a bunch of these! Thanks in advance!

This is the current layout of my grow room:
Note:
a) it's drawn to scale... 1 pixel = 1cm
b) for a quick idea of size, the orange 'current grow tent' block is 1.2 meters by 2.4 meters.

Some background info on the room:

• It previously had a mold problem. We resolved this by making the exterior more watertight and I haven't seen any mold since (despite having flooded the room... twice!)
• I didn't clean the room before I started growing. There's a lot of spider webs behind the grow tent that I am aching to clean. So the very first thing I am doing when done with my current grow, is to remove everything from the grow room and clean it!
• But cleaning won't help, because the floor is dusty and things can come in via the windows etc. The room needs more work on the hygienic side. And more ideas on making it more hygienic. Is there some sort of hospital requirements list used by guys making medical grade weed?
• The purple part is solute concrete, but only about 1 meter from the ground. So I can place things on it, but it limits the actual full height of that area. Hope that makes sense, let me know if it doesn't.

Below I am going to list a bunch of changes I am thinking of making. I can't expect everyone to comment on everything. But any feedback would be great. So if you only want to comment on any specific point, please do!!

The main changes I am thinking of making is:

1) Most efficient use of the grow room
As you can see, I have a grow tent in my grow room. I squeezed the biggest I could find for the area I have. I don't know if this is the best setup. I'm open to any suggestions, or perhaps even out of the box ideas like getting rid of the tent and working directly in the room. Any suggestions on layout?

2) Screeting the floor
This is the most important part in my opinion. Currently my floor looks like what it would look like at a builder's site:

I.e. The phase right before they actually do the final flooring.

I believe this might is also a source of water for my grow room. So Ideally I would like to seal this. I have no idea what would work best, but the cheapest option would be fine. I'm not going for cosmetics. I just want it sealed and easy to clean. From what I understand, screeting is what most floor people need to do before they do anything else. Therefore screeting is the cheapest option. Is that true? Or is there an easier way to seal this floor and get it smooth and easy to clean?

IMPORTANT: Whatever floor changes happen must not have a drastic effect on height. The room is 2m in height, and too much added to the floor could result in my tent not fitting (and tall people having to bend down...)

3) Water outlet in grow room.
In the bottom right corner, close to the door, I would like to add a similar outlet that you would find in a shower. That way if I mop my grow room, all the water can go to the bottom right and out of the grow room. But wouldn't that make it easier for bugs to come in via the outlet? Or am I being paranoid? Either way, it would be a life saver for me if I could have a corner drain in my room.

4) Adding better lights in the grow room (non-grow lights)
In the graph you will see "light". This is the only light in the room and not really enough for me to work inside the room properly. I am thinking of installing lights in the roof. Where, will depend on a bunch of changes, but I thought I'd mention it so long. Perhaps there are lights best for grow rooms? Something bright but with no light that marijuana actually responds to? That way you can come in, put on the lights and disturb the plants the least amount even if they are sleeping?

5) Ditching the tent
I don't know if it's a good idea, but what if I got rid of the tent, and let the lights hang directly from the roof. I can instead perhaps add some kind of sheet to block of a section of the room. Something like this:

Then I can use the entire left side of the room as a "tent". But I would need to:
a) add some kind of reflective lining on the floor and everywhere else.
b) mount brackets to the roof to hang lights

Is this a good idea to consider?

6) Air
My main problem with my first grow was humidity and temperature. To solve the problem, I need to get a sophisticated ventilation system in the grow room. I'm thinking and air conditioner that allows me to set the temperature might be the best idea. That a good idea? I'm thinking it's going to be expensive to install and to keep it running 24/7. But might be a lifesaver in winter when temperatures can go as low as 5 degrees. It's still a long way from Winter, but best to keep this in mind now.

At the very least I need an extractor fan built into the wall. What would be the most cost effective and effective way to do this?

7) Closing all windows
The windows have a grid over them. Air can pass in an out freely. I want to close these off. They windows are 23cm by 52cm. If I could use this as the air ventilation by perhaps adding a duct with extractor fan on the one window and perhaps an air intake on the other. To be honest, I don't understand this part. I need to get fresh air into the room, but too much and the the humidity becomes too high. So what sort of air intake and outlet solution do I need to get both fresh air into the room, but also bad air from growing out?

8) Adding a tap
It would help me a lot with cleaning and mixing stuff, if there was a tap and a zink in the grow room. It would probably need to be close to the blue part where the outside tap is, but I guess laying a pipe would not be impossible.

9) Easier Watering
The tap from point 8 would help with watering, but it's still a pain to water manually. I'd love to find a way to incorporate a watering system that can also support the addition of nutrients. I want to stick to soil and not do hydrophonics, but surely there must be a way to water pot plants with fertilizer without manually mixing the water and manually pouring it into each plant.

10) A cupboard to store my stuff
The place gets cluttered quickly and a big reason is that there isn't official places for things. A "toolbox cupboard" type thing could solve my problem.

11) Alternative to trays
I use two 1.2 meter by 1.2 meter trays for my plants. The water collects and I have to drain it and manually drop it outside. My shower outlet from point 3 might help with this, but perhaps there are better ways to manage water? Or at least the drainage of it? Some more permanent structural change that will allow me to not have to manually water stuff?

12) Dry Rack
I bought a dry rack I can hang from the roof. But I need to make sure the dry rack is in a dark place and the temperature is always correct. And that place also needs to be in this grow room. So perhaps I can hang it in a corner and just sort of build a tent around the dry rack? Any ideas?

13) Inverter
I have an inverter I also need to include into this setup. We often have power disruptions and an inverter is the only way to guarantee my lights dont go off their schedule.



Thanks in advance for any feedback!!

 

[StoneOtter]

Having some thoughts huh Keith? Nice! Floors getting Screeted(is that when you put a thin layer of cement down with a helacopter thingie?) sounds pricy. Depending on what you want, a second and third opinion is, 2- epoxy paint, and 3- inexpensive tile.

 

[subliminal]

Hey man. You're lucky to have such a nice area to experiment with. Here's my input as a former general contractor and new grow guy.

2) The floor. I would rent a high powered pressure washer and clean off the entire area. This would be a quick way to clean the spider-webs and condition the walls as well. Now look into flat white garage floor paint. Depending on how clean you got the walls and the floor... this would solve a few of your issues all in one step.

3) A water drain. Without seeing it in person my first reaction is that this is not doable in a sub-area. Where is the water going to go? You're already beneath the water fall-off levels of the rest of the plumbing in the house. This would be a difficult and expensive venture..unless say you're built on a hill and have a way to run some plumbing out and down it. Running directly into the ground would almost assuredly cause pest and mold problems.

4)Adding more light that you can work so as to not interupt "sleeping" plants isn't gonna work. They need 100% darkness in flower and trying to circumvent this is just going to cause you problems.

5) I'm gonna go into more detail at the end here. I think its a great idea.

6) I'm gonna go into more detail on this in a bit when I go back to #5. But as for winter time temps in an area of that size? Space heaters with thermostats my friend. The oil ones.

7) Closing off the windows will give you more control of both Temp and Humidity. They sell humidifiers and de-humidifiers just about everywhere to help with any major swings you experience.

8) No need to lay pipe when you can rig using something like this. I used it for all bathroom/kitchen remodels. The Plumber's Choice 1/2 in. x 100 ft. PEX Tubing Potable Water Pipe Combo - 1 Red, 1 Blue-PPWRB12100 - The Home Depot

9) The main problem I have read about when people in soil try to make their watering system automatic is that not all plants need the same amount of water at the same time. It would be possible to rig something like this up no problem, but the issues from over-watering and under-watering certain plants will out-weigh the ease of use. Not sure I would go this direction. Get to know your plants individually, see what each one likes..this also gives you an opportunity to keep a closer eye on problems that may arrise ie... Vitamin deficiencies, pests etc.

10) Duh

11) I'm still thinking on this one. You could perhaps build a funnel into one of the window coverings so that you could just pour the trays into it. We know the windows are above ground level.

12) Hang it in the flower room?

13) Get that inverter set up before you send any of the plants to flower. Don't want to screw with the fun cycle

Now back to 5 and 6....

Not very great with paint. Gimme some graph paper any day of the week. You're gonna need more light if you ditch the tent, but you'd end up with a pretty awesome set-up. And remember, flat white unless you want to mylar or go a little more high tech.

Hope I was some help and/or put some ideas in your head.

-Sub

 

[keith1975]

Hey man. You're lucky to have such a nice area to experiment with. Here's my input as a former general contractor and new grow guy.

2) The floor. I would rent a high powered pressure washer and clean off the entire area. This would be a quick way to clean the spider-webs and condition the walls as well. Now look into flat white garage floor paint. Depending on how clean you got the walls and the floor... this would solve a few of your issues all in one step.

3) A water drain. Without seeing it in person my first reaction is that this is not doable in a sub-area. Where is the water going to go? You're already beneath the water fall-off levels of the rest of the plumbing in the house. This would be a difficult and expensive venture..unless say you're built on a hill and have a way to run some plumbing out and down it. Running directly into the ground would almost assuredly cause pest and mold problems.

4)Adding more light that you can work so as to not interupt "sleeping" plants isn't gonna work. They need 100% darkness in flower and trying to circumvent this is just going to cause you problems.

5) I'm gonna go into more detail at the end here. I think its a great idea.

6) I'm gonna go into more detail on this in a bit when I go back to #5. But as for winter time temps in an area of that size? Space heaters with thermostats my friend. The oil ones.

7) Closing off the windows will give you more control of both Temp and Humidity. They sell humidifiers and de-humidifiers just about everywhere to help with any major swings you experience.

8) No need to lay pipe when you can rig using something like this. I used it for all bathroom/kitchen remodels. The Plumber's Choice 1/2 in. x 100 ft. PEX Tubing Potable Water Pipe Combo - 1 Red, 1 Blue-PPWRB12100 - The Home Depot

9) The main problem I have read about when people in soil try to make their watering system automatic is that not all plants need the same amount of water at the same time. It would be possible to rig something like this up no problem, but the issues from over-watering and under-watering certain plants will out-weigh the ease of use. Not sure I would go this direction. Get to know your plants individually, see what each one likes..this also gives you an opportunity to keep a closer eye on problems that may arrise ie... Vitamin deficiencies, pests etc.

10) Duh

11) I'm still thinking on this one. You could perhaps build a funnel into one of the window coverings so that you could just pour the trays into it. We know the windows are above ground level.

12) Hang it in the flower room?

13) Get that inverter set up before you send any of the plants to flower. Don't want to screw with the fun cycle

Now back to 5 and 6....

Not very great with paint. Gimme some graph paper any day of the week. You're gonna need more light if you ditch the tent, but you'd end up with a pretty awesome set-up. And remember, flat white unless you want to mylar or go a little more high tech.

Hope I was some help and/or put some ideas in your head.

-Sub

This is really amazing advice and I'm definitely going to spend some time working through these and will definitely come back with more questions! Thanks!!!

I'm going to start by dividing these in tasks that can be performed now, versus what can only be done when my current grow is finished. Then I will focus on what is in my realm of control first. Which brings me to my next question. it's actually another point that I forgot completely.

The door is a sliding glass door. So I added a curtain and behind the curtain a black sail. That way it's very hard to see into the room and it properly blocks sunlight. But it's not really attached very well. I did a very quick job just to keep it covered.

What can I use to make sure:
a) No one can see into the room
b) No light shines in
c) It's also hard to see what's going on WHILE I ENTER (for example, I sort of walk "left" as I go in and use the curtain to stop people from seeing in. Surely there's a better way?

Any ideas how to do this?

Also note, I can feel air coming in on the edges of the door. So perhaps it's time to consider replacing the door with something else?

 

[Dankman_420]

I'm not much of a construction guy. But I have grown on cement and I can tell you it's not a good surface to grow on. I'm not sure if I missed it but I would build a platform to get everything off the cold cement. It's not good for root zone temps. I'd just build a cheap deck like platform

 

[subliminal]

@keith1975 The sliding glass door may be a problem because they are not great insulators. Is it double pane or single? Some of that could be solved with the foam sleeping pads. I use that in a storage room for the windows. I just duct tape it to the window frame in the winter. Bubble wrap in between the foam and the glass would provide even better insulation. If heat transfer isn't a problem, you could just paint the glass black and hang a curtain. Acrylic paint goes on thick and can be removed with a razor blade if you want to remove it later.

As for the air leak, caulk is your friend. I'd try to avoid replacing it if I was in your position, you have enough to do, framing in a door would just add that much more. You're already gonna have to make the wall and access between Veg and Harvest room light tight, and that's gonna be hard enough without proper framing.

As for @Dankman_420 His advice is correct. Concrete is cold and takes a long time to heat up. You could instead look for yoga mats or something like that..workout pads that hook together and then paint them flat white. Just thinking how you can avoid extra construction and expense. I know you were worried about losing any head room in there.

 

[keith1975]

It's going to be tricky to paint the door. It's facing the front of the house and might look like a meth lab if I make it black. But I think I might be jumping the gun, like you said. The door isn't such a problem at the moment, so it can hang on for a sec. More important right now, is that I need to draw out a layout of what I want to do before I can start doing anything. And to do that, I need to know the basics, like how many plants do I want, how many grow rooms etc. So my questions are:

1. I wouldn't mind having a flower room and a veg room. I.e. Two rooms. But that would mean two extractor fans and two filters and surely two of many other things. Is it worth it? "subliminal" did mention that I could technically use the same air duct system for both grow rooms. So I might, for example, not need two extractor fans. But i'll certainly need to build another grow area or buy another tent at the very least. And another tent will make it quite tricky to fit a tap in anywhere. NOTE: see point 5 below, this is not true for the tap. I could technically fit the tap/zink on the purple area. And therefore might be a good idea to plan to have it there from the start.
2. How many plants do I want to cater for? I currently have 4 plants for every 1.2 by 1.2 meter area, and it's way too much effort to manage so many plants, and it's not great with 2 plants under 1 light.1 plant per light would be easier to manage. And I think 1 plant in a 1m by 1m area might be best. Or maybe 800cm by 800cm. What are your thoughts on the floor size per plant? My roof is maxed at 2meters. But I also raise the plants and have to hang the lights, so my total "grow height" is 1.5meter, give or take.
3. It will only be official in about 18 months what the laws are regarding how many plants one might have. I would suspect it could be anything from 1 to 20. That will be the primary factor in how many plants I intend to keep. But I would imagine we would have similar laws to other countries, where you may only have X plants blooming, and Y plants vegging. So for that reason it might make sense to have two grow rooms. I personally don't think I want to manage more than 4 plants at most. And i also have 4 x apollo 8 lights, which means I can give each plant their own light if I do things this way. But having a space that can cater for more, ideally 8 would be preferable, even if I don't use it. But again, I might regret saying that if the law turns out to be 1 plant per person or something ridiculous. Then I have all that space but I can only have 1 plant at a time. And I dont think I'll be wanting to plant tomoatoes etc.
4. I dont want to ditch my newly bought 1.2 by 2.4 meter tent, because it offers the reflective padding, air vents, better darkness etc. How much effort would it be to incorporate this into the room directly? I mean, for starters, how hard is it going to be to find a reflective tent type material that I can lay out against the wall and floor? And how will I create a door for all of this? THe basic conveniences of a tent, seems to be very difficult to do in a room unless your a pro builder. Perhaps I should look at placing two smaller tents into the space?
5. The part in purple is hard to explain, but it must basically be seen as unusable, at least for grow room space. So for example, placing a tent in the area to the left, will mean I have hardly any space to get in to the side of the tent. If I use a tent that is 1.2 meter wide, i will have 30cm to operate in. Way too little. Only if I take a 80cm wide tent will I have about 70cm to operate. Not ideal, but better.

Thanks again for all the feedback and help!

 

[keith1975]

Also, good news is that I can get a drain in the corner. Here: (see red square to the top right of the door)

So I will need to insure all water ends up in the drain. I can look at finding a way to add a drain elsewhere, but because of the previous water issues, I know this specific corner is 100% possible to add a drain. So easiest would be to find a way to get all water to end up here. Then the hardest part for me, which is to manually chuck water every few days, will be completely removed from the equation. It will also mean an all-round cleaner grow room, because water wont have any time to hang around in the room. This is one of the first changes I will definitely do after this grow! But I still need to figure out how to tie up the grow rooms to this drainage point.

 

[keith1975]

@subliminal
Can i hang my harvested buds to dry inside the grow room? I thought they needed a space with no light?

 

[keith1975]

I've put quite a bit of thought into this and I'm thinking of the following:

So basically, I want to create two grow areas, one for veg, one for flower. They will each be 1.7m by 0.75m. The idea is that each area will hold two plants. So 4 plants in total. Each plant therefore gets 0.85 meters by 0.75 meters. I would have loved to have 1 meter squared per plant, but then there just isn't space for me to move past it to add water or work with the plants etc.

Here is why I choose this setup:

• I only need to cater for 4 plants, and I have 4 lights, so each one can get his own light. I.e. I have the right kit for 4 plants and catering for more than this is unnecessary at this time.
• Being able to have two time settings is more than enough for me. I.e. I dont need more than 2 grow areas at this time. Next grow will probably be 2 x autoflowers and 2 x photos. In fact, I see myself plant 2 autos and 2 photos each time for a the foreseeable future.
• I will do some LST that should keep the plants within their 0.85 by 0.75 areas.
• I can keep my current tent setup while i work on this, if I want to. (i.e. it might take a while to construct this new setup so I can keep the current tent where is is while I work on this)
• Why not use all the other space?
  a) The bigger area isnt wide enough to have 4 plants next to each. (3 it can do, but I want to cater for 4).
  b) I want them next to each other, because watering a plant that is behind another plant is a pain. With my suggested layout, each plant will be directly at the front and easy for me to water directly. Currently I have to move the plants in the front to get to the one's in the back
  c) I would prefer a bigger working area where I can also harvest, cure, dry etc.
  d) The new location gives the tent extra cover from sinlight, because its around a "corner" from the door, as apposed to opposite it. i.e. Less light reaches the tents.
• If I decide to only paint the floor instead of doing the whole "Screeding" thing, then I could technically start before the current grows ends. (But I prefer not to, because I want to scrubdown the whole place and seal it everywhere, not just the one side)

If I could get hold of 2 tents that are 2 meters high, 1.7 meters wide and 0.75 meters in length, then I would buy them right now, because I am not looking forward to building something with those dimensions. Seeing as I only need them in two months, perhaps I can get the custom made? Any suggestions? Or do you think I should attempt to build this? My building skills are terrible. But if I don't build, it might be tricky to get the right dimensions and to add custom things like a built in tray and water exit pipe that goes to the drain.

Questions:
1. What do you think of my setup? Good idea? Bad idea? Any suggestions?
2. Think I should go custom or try to get tents?
3. Should I make it one big tent or two small one's as per the diagram? I dont know how I will keep the light separate if it's one big one? I need to regulate the air with one filter and if it's two tents, not sure how that will work?

 

[keith1975]

I just placed one of my flowering plants in a make believe 0.75 x 0.75 circle and i can see the plants will touch the sides of the tent. 1 meter by 1 meter will for sure be better, but i just dont have the space. Should i rethink or is 0.75 x 0.75 not so bad?

 

[subliminal]

I like your tent idea, and yes two tents for sure if you want to flower and veg at the same time. If you're happy with non-perpetual growing, one tent(maybe bigger) will totally suffice. Meaning, once you change to flower, you have nothing in Veg.

When I was looking at your drawing, I imagined the sliding glass door facing an interior room, not the exterior. Black paint would definitely make you look meth labbed out, lol.

Search google for custom grow tents. Tons of ideas from pre-made ikea shelving to PVC pipe setups, but unless you can positively guarantee there is no light leak, don't try to do them as one unit. One for veg and one for flower.

 

[keith1975]

I've decided to only buy one tent for now so I can see if I can actually bloom two plants in a 1 x 1 cm space.

There's no stock anywhere for a tent that is 1mx1m and has a height of 2m. There is only stock for 1mx1m with a height of 1.8m. So I'm probably going to take it and then use it as a bloom tent and also see if the 1m by 1m space works for me. I lose 20cm in height, but it's either that, or delay blooming the other plants for another 6 weeks. I'm still going to fish around for a 1x1 that has a 2m height, but doesn't look like I have much of a choice.

It almost feels like I need an engineer with interior decorating skills to figure this out. I really cannot think of the best way to place two tents that would give me the best result. I think I'm going to work towards this:

But it really feels like I'm wasting a lot of potential. The room has a terrible shape, but I'm sure there has to be a way to utilize it better. Any feedback welcome. As you can see, I try to keep the grow area to the left, so I can use the bigger area for curing/harvesting/chilling etc.

(p.s, for those that dont know the trick, you can literally copy and paste any image into the editor on this forum and it just works... no uploading, just paste... and presto... well done dev team!)

 

[dr.h00k]

......cheerz...h00k......

 

[keith1975]

Update:

I got one more tent. And an inverter. Found out I cant smoke near the inverter. So now my idea to make the room a "chill room" is out the window. Only purpose of the room now is to make the maximum number of buds.

I got one more 1 x 1 tent. And another 1.2 by 1.2 is on the way. It's going to be tight in there with the 2.4 tent also. But now I have 4 decently sized spaces. Large tent will be veg only, other two will be for flowering. And I will use one plant per space. I know I can probably squeeze in more, but I prefer not to do more than 4 plants til laws are finalized.

I also took clones off the one plant and trying to see if I grow some of those.

I'll send an updated sketch of the setup I went with a bit later, but most of this thread is redundant. I dont even really see the point in making the floors nicer, or putting in extra ventilation etc. I'll probably find ways to add the obvious practical things, like a water source INSIDE the room. (so i dont have to carry buckets or maybe even water the plants directly).

Watering is a huge pain, so I'm looking at ways to easily water the plants. I'm going to try and get a hose in there, and then also look at a way to:
a) get a large bucket in there
b) add a hose to the bucket so I can spray the water from the bucket
If I can get this right, I can mix the fertilizer in the large bucket and then just feed the plants from the bucket using a hose.

 

[keith1975]

@subliminal , i cant access this:

The Plumber's Choice 1/2 in. x 100 ft. PEX Tubing Potable Water Pipe Combo - 1 Red, 1 Blue-PPWRB12100 - The Home Depot

You maybe have another link?

 

[subliminal]

Sure man, let me dig up an amazon link. It's just called PEX tubing though

 

[subliminal]

SharkBite U860B25 PEX Pipe 1/2 Inch, Blue, Flexible Water Pipe Tubing