Building out 2 45 ft shipping container for an indoor grow

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leepeachy

leepeachy

1
1
Hey all im fitting out 2 45 ft container for a new grow, im going to be fin fishing the first up and running it for a veg room to stage for my upcoming dep and outdoo, after that I will be using it as a flower room. The second ill be taking but more time to build out into 1/3 veg and rest flower.

I am asking for any advice people have who have built out similar rooms or had 3experience with shipping container grows. Im placing it in a shaded area in a lovcation that gets real hot in the summer and fairly cold in the winter. Im going to be insulating it well so I am not too worried about temperature. I will have a 125 amp service running to the 125 amp panel in the container. I am planning on running either 1 4 ton dual zone (1 at each end) mini split AC or 2 2 ton mini split AC units any suggestions? for lights im planning on 8 mix joy DE lights 5.25 ft apart, with a 1-1.5 ft walkway on one side. walls will be white, Im going to have a Co2 injector, 4 16 in oscillating fans, and a 100 gal/rez and 100 gal nutrients/rez with automatic watering through a sprinkler or drip system. Ill be running soil 5 GAL pots and will be looking to fit as many as I can comfortably into the space when flowering, until then I will be preparing clones and putting them into .5-1 gal pots before moving them outdoors into hoop houses, greenhouse and outdoor plot.

Id love any suggestions for lights, setup, etc..
I want to maximize my yield as much as I can, Should I add in more lights? 2 rows of lights 6? 7 each row? minimize my walkway? Any thing else you can think of?

ive never grown in a room so narrow so id love any feedback that could help me. Thanks everyone!
 
Tonystacks

Tonystacks

9
3
I plan to do a similar build this spring but from what I read led lighting seems like the best move. I plan on doing two rows of lights down the center, and plants on a home built table that rolls from side to side so I can have my aisle left or right at 1’. Still unsure on growing medium
 
Madmax

Madmax

4,733
313
Hey all im fitting out 2 45 ft container for a new grow, im going to be fin fishing the first up and running it for a veg room to stage for my upcoming dep and outdoo, after that I will be using it as a flower room. The second ill be taking but more time to build out into 1/3 veg and rest flower.

I am asking for any advice people have who have built out similar rooms or had 3experience with shipping container grows. Im placing it in a shaded area in a lovcation that gets real hot in the summer and fairly cold in the winter. Im going to be insulating it well so I am not too worried about temperature. I will have a 125 amp service running to the 125 amp panel in the container. I am planning on running either 1 4 ton dual zone (1 at each end) mini split AC or 2 2 ton mini split AC units any suggestions? for lights im planning on 8 mix joy DE lights 5.25 ft apart, with a 1-1.5 ft walkway on one side. walls will be white, Im going to have a Co2 injector, 4 16 in oscillating fans, and a 100 gal/rez and 100 gal nutrients/rez with automatic watering through a sprinkler or drip system. Ill be running soil 5 GAL pots and will be looking to fit as many as I can comfortably into the space when flowering, until then I will be preparing clones and putting them into .5-1 gal pots before moving them outdoors into hoop houses, greenhouse and outdoor plot.

Id love any suggestions for lights, setup, etc..
I want to maximize my yield as much as I can, Should I add in more lights? 2 rows of lights 6? 7 each row? minimize my walkway? Any thing else you can think of?

ive never grown in a room so narrow so id love any feedback that could help me. Thanks everyone!
Nice im pulling up a chair..how high is the ceiling in those..
 
Moe.Red

Moe.Red

5,044
313
Hello Lee the peachy one.

I have had quite a bit of experience with shipping containers. I ended up burying 2 of them side by side at my farm to make a really nice root cellar and tornado shelter. Some thoughts about using them for a grow space.

1 - the floor is wood and will rot when constantly exposed to water. That is a liability. You will need to seal those up really good or you are inviting all sorts of pests, mold, etc.

2 - They are only strong in strategic areas for stacking on each other. When I began burying the first one it started to crush the top in with only a few buckets of dirt.

3 - It's not going to be easy to mount stuff, walls are corrugated and metal, hard to make quick changes. You may want to consider lining the inside with plywood so you have some flexibility

4- heating and cooling are a bitch. Your insulation plan is critical.

5 - every time you open the door you will lose all your conditioned air unless you put up a strap door or similar on the inside.

There is more, but that is a good start. Personally I would just put up a greenhouse rather than a container. You will save $ every grow after by capturing natural light and only needing to supplement. Use the extra energy to heat and cool and automate stuff. I put one up like that at the farm, poured a slab, and heated the slab with pex and an outdoor wood furnace. Very nice.
 
Bigbagofspam

Bigbagofspam

7
3
I have dealt with buried cargo container grows before and there are a few important things to keep in mind with them even if they are not buried.
1. No points other than the 4 corners and floor are designed to carry weight. Prepare to build internal frames for anything hanging from the ceiling, it is weaker than it appears.
2. Wooden floors may have been contaminated with every pest known to man before it ended its cargo duties and got sold to you. (We learned to saturate the floor with bleach, thoroughly dry then saturate with antifreeze and thoroughly dry it.) !!! BOTH METHODS ARE SERIOUS HEALTH HAZARDS, DO NOT BREATHE THE FUMES!!!ANTIFREEZE WILL REMAIN TOXIC YEARS LATER !!! YOU MUST THOROUGHLY DRY THEN SEAL WITH PLASTIC SHEETING AND A STRONG ADHESIVE COVERING THE ENTIRE FLOOR AND 1' UP EACH WALL) it is the polyethylene glycol, or PEG that helps protect the wood long term, and it will not penetrate unless the wood is very very dry.
3. Air exchange is difficult. We ended up using two 8" intakes at the bottom of the far corners along the wall the plants are on. Both only had small 10" cheapo fans blowing gently towards the center under the canopy, and a single 8" exhaust using an inline exhaust fan to pull hot air out. The exhaust fan was driven by a temperature controller.
4. Wall temps. In our case the walls were kept in a safe temperature range for contact with the plants because it was buried, you may need to keep external temperatures under control to avoid contact temperature shock.
5. High cubes. there is more than 1 height available in these containers. The High Cube containers are 1 foot taller and 6 inches wider than standard containers. If you have not already purchased the containers I highly suggest upgrading to a the high cubes, mainly for that little 6 inch extra width.
6. Lower power lights. More lower power lights will let you use a 6 foot wide footprint and help prevent you running out of height as fast as fewer higher wattage lights would.

I hope some of that helps. Please remember to take the safety warnings about anti-freeze seriously!

EDIT: if you can manage to build rolling carts, the same size as the lights footprint, to hold the pots you can simply shift them from one side to the other so you only need one walkways width instead of one on each side.
 
Last edited:
Frosty78

Frosty78

Supporter
64
18
dont forget condensation through the steel. im building a container home. you need to spray foam it with a closed cell polyurethane foam like versi kit 50. that stuff is expensive as all hell. you can get away without the roof being sprayed if you intend on putting a pitched roof on it and using foam bats inbetween the two.
 
Tonystacks

Tonystacks

9
3
I have dealt with buried cargo container grows before and there are a few important things to keep in mind with them even if they are not buried.
1. No points other than the 4 corners and floor are designed to carry weight. Prepare to build internal frames for anything hanging from the ceiling, it is weaker than it appears.
2. Wooden floors may have been contaminated with every pest known to man before it ended its cargo duties and got sold to you. (We learned to saturate the floor with bleach, thoroughly dry then saturate with antifreeze and thoroughly dry it.) !!! BOTH METHODS ARE SERIOUS HEALTH HAZARDS, DO NOT BREATHE THE FUMES!!!ANTIFREEZE WILL REMAIN TOXIC YEARS LATER !!! YOU MUST THOROUGHLY DRY THEN SEAL WITH PLASTIC SHEETING AND A STRONG ADHESIVE COVERING THE ENTIRE FLOOR AND 1' UP EACH WALL) it is the polyethylene glycol, or PEG that helps protect the wood long term, and it will not penetrate unless the wood is very very dry.
3. Air exchange is difficult. We ended up using two 8" intakes at the bottom of the far corners along the wall the plants are on. Both only had small 10" cheapo fans blowing gently towards the center under the canopy, and a single 8" exhaust using an inline exhaust fan to pull hot air out. The exhaust fan was driven by a temperature controller.
4. Wall temps. In our case the walls were kept in a safe temperature range for contact with the plants because it was buried, you may need to keep external temperatures under control to avoid contact temperature shock.
5. High cubes. there is more than 1 height available in these containers. The High Cube containers are 1 foot taller and 6 inches wider than standard containers. If you have not already purchased the containers I highly suggest upgrading to a the high cubes, mainly for that little 6 inch extra width.
6. Lower power lights. More lower power lights will let you use a 6 foot wide footprint and help prevent you running out of height as fast as fewer higher wattage lights would.

I hope some of that helps. Please remember to take the safety warnings about anti-freeze seriously!

EDIT: if you can manage to build rolling carts, the same size as the lights footprint, to hold the pots you can simply shift them from one side to the other so you only need one walkways width instead of one on each side.

The rolling tray is what I was planning on my 20’ build. I was thinking 1 tray about 6.5’ wide that runs the full length of the interior and leaves about an 18” path on either side when moved. I planned to set the table up with a small grade towards the back and build some type of gutter system for the run off to remove all excess water.
Also I planned on washing the interior before build and just apply a heavy gym floor epoxy over all existing wood floor.
Let me know what you think of this design
 
Bigbagofspam

Bigbagofspam

7
3
The rolling tray is what I was planning on my 20’ build. I was thinking 1 tray about 6.5’ wide that runs the full length of the interior and leaves about an 18” path on either side when moved. I planned to set the table up with a small grade towards the back and build some type of gutter system for the run off to remove all excess water.
Also I planned on washing the interior before build and just apply a heavy gym floor epoxy over all existing wood floor.
Let me know what you think of this design
I like it. I would suggest adding an 18" gap at the far wall from the doors as well as breaking up the rolling tray into at lest 3 peices to allow easier acces for inspection in later grow stages. I try to never let any tray exceed 4 deep (only 2 deep from either side), otherwise I may miss a herm or a pest.
 
Danielvillan2019

Danielvillan2019

1
1
Hello Lee the peachy one.

I have had quite a bit of experience with shipping containers. I ended up burying 2 of them side by side at my farm to make a really nice root cellar and tornado shelter. Some thoughts about using them for a grow space.

1 - the floor is wood and will rot when constantly exposed to water. That is a liability. You will need to seal those up really good or you are inviting all sorts of pests, mold, etc.

2 - They are only strong in strategic areas for stacking on each other. When I began burying the first one it started to crush the top in with only a few buckets of dirt.

3 - It's not going to be easy to mount stuff, walls are corrugated and metal, hard to make quick changes. You may want to consider lining the inside with plywood so you have some flexibility

4- heating and cooling are a bitch. Your insulation plan is critical.

5 - every time you open the door you will lose all your conditioned air unless you put up a strap door or similar on the inside.

There is more, but that is a good start. Personally I would just put up a greenhouse rather than a container. You will save $ every grow after by capturing natural light and only needing to supplement. Use the extra energy to heat and cool and automate stuff. I put one up like that at the farm, poured a slab, and heated the slab with pex and an outdoor wood furnace. Very nice.
Please can you explain more about the greenhouse grow
 
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