New grow room, NO MORE TENT

#1

Almost finished with the grow room remodel. The tent I had was 3×4×5.5. After remodeling the closet I now have a 5.5×4.5×7.5. The extra volume will help with climate control and the additional room means I now have enough for all the equipment, plants, and room to work.

I had 3 new 30amp lines ran to the room, strictly dedicated for it. 1 is inside the room for climate control the other 2 are out side for lighting.

For the walls I used 1inch rigid foam board insulation, white side facing in. I still have to rework the stack that I ventilate out of, that’ll take 10 min. And install the exhaust and intake fan.

With the remodel cost added in I have invested a total of just under 2k for growing, my first grow paid for all of it and then some.

Will be mixing soil tonight to start a new grow, the wife’s been on my since before the end of the last grow to start another.

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#2

Looking good man. Did you get some mylar too?

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#3

No, I’m strictly sticking to white, glossy white. Mylar is usually above 95% reflective, glossy white is close to 90%, so I decided to go this route for now. If it produces less I can add the mylar for the next grow. Primarily for financial reasons, I wanted to spend that extra on having 3 new dedicated electrical lines for the grow room. I actually had them run a sub box of my main, so I could have additional circuit breakers and fuses installed to protect my equipment. Plus they are a hell of a lot easier for me to get to now. Before I had to have someone upstairs, another between us to pass the messages when doing electrical work. Now its 5 feet from my grow room.

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#4

Sounds like you’re doing it right. Definitely better than what I’m working with. I have heavy duty outdoor power strips running everything. They still have surge protectors and fuzes but I put a lot of draw on a single circuit. I don’t have to worry about fires or damaged equipment but I am worried about blowing breakers and not knowing it’s out until it’s too late. :joy:

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#5

After screwing up a lot of things in my life, I’ve decided to listen to others, well sometimes when it seems like a good idea. And when it comes to electricity, it seems like a good idea.

While I have been gardening extensively most of my life, I am new to cannabis. So I researched the shit outta it before hand, paying particular attention to where others failed. And while most failures are due to the grower screwing up, a decent amount is equipment related, typically lighting. So I figured I’d hedge my bets a bit and invest more initially into lighting and its equipment, including power. I have several battery backups that I am considering adding to the system to give me a few minutes in case of a power failure, and to keep the lights from getting damaged. They are older but my electrician friend says they will cover what I need time and power wise for about 3-5 min at most, probably around 2.

After lighting, my next biggest investment was climate control, I automated it with inkbird controllers.

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#6

Rye You are spot on with separate electrical controls for your grow area. In my previous grow area, I ran a 220, installed a 4 zone split (18 + 18 in the flower room 25x20, 12 + 12 in my veg room 14x14) and almost all my lights ( I ran my t5/t8 and 2 more Lightworks in my veg room, on separate electrical (not the 220). Off this box I ran 10 Cal Lightworks 1000W monsters. The only other thing is the water and nutrients and climate control. I had to run 4 dehumidifiers that I was not prepared for and my feeder (H20 RO) ran 24/7…Alot of heat with all those monster lights. And by the way, there was no difference in yield between Mylar and Panda paper…go with the white

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#7

I use white semi gloss paint in my grow Room and it works perfect. it gets a lot of reflection and it doesn’t make crinkle noises when the fan blows on it !

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#8

I am new to growing indoors but am old to electric. I dont know how to say this without sounding boorish but man that is overkill on the electric. Actually dangerous. Going to 30 amp breakers for a small grow rooms worth of equipment is dangerous.
You now have 90 amps worth of breakers to feed [i am just guessing] a max 30 amps worth of equipment.
So say just for example you have 3 lights pulling 2.5 amps per adds up to 7.5 amp draw on a 30 amp breaker. So say one of your lights starts to short out it has to pull up to 22.5 amps over current to trip the breaker.
A lot of smaller gauge wire like used in many cheaper lights will melt and catch on fire with this kind of load.
Breakers should be sized to trip before the equipment that is hooked to it catches on fire.
Again sorry for sounding like a donkey but you really need to be carefull with that setup. Mabey a real electrical expert will chime in and explain it better.

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#9

Great insight on that electric. Always discuss with an electrician and code. If you go outside code and there is a fire, and you have insurance, they will deny the claim for code violations

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#10

Yes i agree I was electrician under ground for 21years and i agree with @Jared that can cause some problems

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#11

Did the light hurt your eyes when you came back above ground after 21 years? ( sorry I had to ask)

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#12

I’m running 2 different light, 1 per circut, and on my 3rd circuit i have 1 high power fan for extraction (aka negative air machine with hepa), 2 regular circulation fans, plus dehumidifier and a humidifier.

I still haven’t accounted for the future addition of side lighting panels or the future addition of co2 and its monitors/controllers. Nor have I accounted for the various controllers for the climate control, and soon to be cpu when I finally get around to figuring out how to automate everything.

Nor does any of that account for the cooling system (probably a thermoelectric but possibly a portable room A/C) that still needs to be added. Nor for future addition of water pumps, monitoring equipment etc.

The automation will probably use the least amount of amperage (as in controllers/cpu/etc) so I didnt add them into the math. But they do have a decent draw each, i assume from the led lights etc on them.

My 2 light fixtures alone were pushing the single leg before, perhaps it was the older system (wiring, breaker, etc) but it caused the breaker to over heat and pop when running full, so I have absolutely no doubt it was too much for that.

And while I live very close to the power plant and hardly ever lose power, we have a higher incidence of power surges here in our small valley (probably because of the ancient sub station we have). All of us have lost various electronics due to them, mostly electric fencing controllers but a few TVs and pcs as well.

And I haven’t even started on the new grow area. This room will become probably the flower room. And I’ll build another room almost identical right next to it.

I just recently became a care giver for another family member, so that will make 2 people that I grow for besides myself. I’m actually moving them in my house as well.

When i say I’m planning for the future, I mean it. If I’m ever done expanding, I’ll probably end up with 3 indoor gardens, maybe 4.

Oh and I had this done by a professional company and had them do the math as well. Hence why the cost. And the bit of overkill for what’s in the pics. You cant see where I’m standing, which is the middle of the next grow area. Just not built out yet.

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#13

No it doesn’t mess with your eye but .Im 50 and my body is beat to hell

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#14

And i think what they was saying don’t put 100amp breaker in place of smaller amp breaker put what it calls for

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#15

Absolutely. And that’s what this is for. By the time the future expansion is done I’ll probably need another leg ran honestly. It’s really the climate control that eats up the amperage, heating and cooling, well mostly cooling in my case. The lights are not THAT bad and they are a constant low pull anyway. Cooling and dehumidifiers however, man they eat up some power.

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#16

I will only try one last time to help you understand being as your head is filled with a bunch of misconceptions.
1 Larger breakers do not help with power outages and surges.
2 Breakers tripping is what they are supposed to do when overloaded.
3 If you’re breaker is tripping with the proper load on it you have a problem. Eather a bad breaker [easy cheap fix] just replace breaker.
Or you have a serious problem. Probably a loose wire or faulty equipment.
4 Every appliance has a amp rating for it. Add all the ones up you will have on a single circuit and replace that 30 amp with the right size breaker. All single poll breakers pretty much are around 10-15 dollers.
5 Putting in the sub box was a smart move. What amp is it?
6 Planning ahead for future expansion is a smart move. Just use proper size breakers untill you have the need to move up to larger ones.

Just an example to show you what i am talking about. I have a 24ft x 28 ft grow room with a 200 amp service. With 10 300w and 12 450w lights for 200 sq ft of grow beds, dehumidifiers, AC, fans, water booster pump and even a humidifier. All this is 20 amp breakers except my single 30 for the air conditioning. All this is on 150 amps worth of breakers.

PS Iwould love to tell you what size breakers you need to be using to remain safe but becuse of the old lawsuit delima i can only let you know how dangerous what you are doing is.
PS the man with the insurance comment was spot on. You burn your house down and they find those 3 30s in that closet and you will not see a dime.

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#17

I used flat white paint on my grow room walls also. Just did not like the aesthetics of mylar or reflextix for the percentage of gain it produced.

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#18

My understanding is there is no gain in the mylar vs white paint, or at least not enough for us to bother with.

As for the amperage and electrical. It was planned and installed by a licensed company, who knew the current equipment and the future plans. It was done while I had additional work done for the upstairs, figured I’d get all the electrical for several projects done at once, it was WAY cheaper that way. We are almost certain the tripping of the breaker was due to a combo of bad wire and bad connections. Well that and the known issue of our substation, which is “currently being repaired”.

Now I’d like to somehow add a drain to the grow area, but I’m not tearing up the concrete. And the ceilings are too low to raise the floor.

And I’d like to add an outside air intake, but again concrete etc.

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#19

@Rye Wtg! i’m pretty sure you studied the matter when figuring your cost.

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#20

@Rye I have seen someone frame around the bottom of the room with 2×4’s Drape a pool liner inside it flatten it out on the floor and then use a condensation pump from an AC unit setting in there and when it got up to deep the pump pumped it out to the nearest drain/bucket. then you won’t have to raise the floor but you can still catch all your water.

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