whats the one thing u wish u had thought of or knew b4 u built your grow area?

[El Cerebro]

Time machine, to go back and start this long before I did.

 

[Tank333]

Time machine, to go back and start this long before I did.

Ain't that tha fuckin' truth??! Lol

 

[dankworth]

I would like to catch a ride with you guys. I think we are headed in the same direction.
;)

 

[dirk d]

great thread guys! lol. i would have read up more on plant diseases. my first harvest was complete crap. mold, mites, crappy buds lol. i thought it was the greatest though at the time lol

also more room. navigable room is like gold. Life is so much harder when everything is cramped. makes you mentally tired.

 

[El Cerebro]

Hadn't planned on acquiring so soon but glad I did: ph meter and complete environmental controller. For me wouldnt even be worth doing without these two items. Right on about having enough space to move around.

 

[Str8Dank]

i wish i would have not mentally spent the money i believed i would have from 2 lbs per light which didnt happen and selling it at a price that didnt happen lol. that first and foremost besides that i cant really say i had a lot of bad expediences with my first room. in fact i like my first room i built better then my current room in honesty.

saw a few comments in this thread i thought i'd give my 2 cents on, hope no one minds.

i dont like the air cooled hood because...

they are expensive.
they are heavy.
because they are heavy they become heat sinks.
they are bulky.
because they are bulky, they are hard to store away when not in use.
the glass in the hood take away PRECIOUS lumens.
pain in the ass to hook up properly
too much shit overhead, hard to adjust height
added fans means extra noise and electricity and more costs
having to dispense all the hot air is a security issue
they cause "hotspots"
pain in the ass to switch bulbs
hard to clean or sanatize( too many places bugs can hide)
the boxes these come in are huge and by no means discrete( security issue)

these are a few of the problems i have encountered with air cooled hoods. when i was in full production. i was running 28 hoods in five different rooms. i could have saved a ton af time and money by not using air cooled hoods. when you factor all the time, and trips to the hardware store, ( i live over an hour from the nearest hardware store or grow store) it was a total waste.

im sure they are people that will disagree with me..... but these are the factors why i will never run air cooled hood again!

cannabeans i have to respectfully disagree with you. i think air cooled runs way better and cheaper in the long run. taking a room down 10 degrees with fans is much cheaper then using ac. also you loose more lumens being 12" + further away from the plants due to heat then i do due to glass. cost is compensated in the long run and a majority is compensated instantly thanks to less ac btu requirements. a million ways to skin a cat brother i'm sure what your doing is awesome for you but for me i love my air cooled hoods and just had to defend them a little lol.

I should have educated myself a little more before I purchased my setup. I bought gallon bottles of notes for a personal 4x4 setup. Needless to say, it will take me decades to go through them.

Do organic bottled nutes go bad? (Pura Vida, Hygrozyme, some GO stuff)

outwest

synthetics dont but i think most organics can. i think hygrozyme may be fine though. if anything i would probably bottle it in smaller containers so they dont get opened and exposed to air and light ever. actually i would just call the manufacture and find out for sure.

i have to agree with Cannabeans. I caused more headaches and wasted more time on money on air cool hoods. Could been up and running a long time ago had I spent the money on a large AC unit and saved a ton of money too.

how do you save money paying more month per month for climate control? maybe you saved a little initial investment but you dont really save money unless you don't plan on growing for any length of time. using fans to reduce heat instead of a higher energy consuming air conditioner is a logical choice for long term savings.

im running 3k through air cooled hoods i use thermal insulated ducting between cool tubes and i have soime monster inline fans that run the system i havent had any problems, on my next build im thinking of running cool air from an ac unit through tubes any1 tried this?

seems like overkill if you have the proper cfm but maybe it will work out just sounds kinda expensive. my glass is cool to the touch with around 250 cfm per hood. 8" cap valueline 760 cfm is around 120 shipped and uses a fraction of the electricity a ac does.

That's an interesting and good point about pulling through the hoods instead of pushing the air through, can I ask what the technical reason behind this is? I presume there is less friction when pulling through the hoods :)

another reason is because if you push air if there are any leaks in your hoods they will push air into your room instead of sucking non filtered air into your exhaust path which could be a potential security concern depending on your situation and where you exhaust to.

 

[cannabeans]

a million ways to skin a cat brother i'm sure what your doing is awesome for you but for me i love my air cooled hoods and just had to defend them a little lol.


no worries my man..... to each their own!

 

[dirk d]

you know after reading about the pulling air instead of pushing i looked at my own ducting and moved my fan, from pushing to pulling air. and instantly the hood noises stopped. that air that was flowing out the little crevises in my hoods stopped right away. now my room is about 3 F cooler just from moving the fan.

 

[MaineWeed]

I been growing off and on for over 25 years and I think the top 2 things Ive learned is READ..READ..READ and READ some more and the #1 thing is be open minded and learn from others mistakes.....That's why I'm here reading & typing this being as how I'm doing my 1st RDWC system grow

 

[masshole61]

Only run 1 1000w air cooled in a raptor, only grow for me,but want to build a 8x10 sealed room with 2000w in air cooled hoods. If I'm running co2 in the room (co2 tanks) where you generally run temps around 85,do you think I would still need a mini split, Would obviously need a good dehumidifier, but what I save on ac I could spend on co2 tanks, and an overall better growing environment.

 

[TrichromeFan]

Go big on a dehumidifier if you are running a sealed room. No sense in getting into full flower only to find out that your night time RH shoots to 80%. I was using 2 portable units that were barely getting the job done together. Next round I will have a Santa Fe industrial dehuey to make sure that there can be no humidity problems that could ruin a harvest!

-TF

 

[oscar169]

Go big on a dehumidifier if you are running a sealed room. No sense in getting into full flower only to find out that your night time RH shoots to 80%. I was using 2 portable units that were barely getting the job done together. Next round I will have a Santa Fe industrial dehuey to make sure that there can be no humidity problems that could ruin a harvest!

-TF

X2 On the big dehumidifier its a must !!!!!! :pimp:

 

[Asbestos4u]

Way more start up money. Having a reliable clone source with good genetics would have been awesome as well

 

[vuitton]

im pulling the air through now and it does run a couple of degres down, i have the 125 cm cool tubes im wondering if there would be any advantage to change to a large tube? thanks all

 

[Fast eddy]

Great thread. Hindsight is 20/20 , I thank you all for laying down comprehensive info . If its worth doing, its worth doing right.

 

[midnightfarmer]

That I might need to take it down and building it around growing plants isn't a good idea and it takes longer to build than you think.
So more than one thing. Meant to be a simple med room, thought a light and pot would do, instead you realise it's not as easy as all that and end up with in-line fans, different lights, air cooled ones ect. :thinking

 

[heywho]

has anyone epoxy'd their concrete floors?

treebark1950 has a potentially great midpoint in terms of cost/benefit... vinyl sheet flooring.... not a bad idea, waaaaaaaaay cheaper than epoxy, but how does it handle spilled peroxide, caustic elements. Does it breath, or off gas into the rooms air?

 

[El Cerebro]

has anyone epoxy'd their concrete floors?

treebark1950 has a potentially great midpoint in terms of cost/benefit... vinyl sheet flooring.... not a bad idea, waaaaaaaaay cheaper than epoxy, but how does it handle spilled peroxide, caustic elements. Does it breath, or off gas into the rooms air?

Vinyl offgasses for quite a while, maybe years. Could use sealer/epoxy-paint for less $ than full epoxy floor.

 

[heywho]

You can when you are starting out. After a while you will realize that you need a bigger room with more lights just so you can include the climate control equipment to really do it right.
Then your veg room is your old flowering room.
Then you need a control room for your res and supplies.
Then you need a climate-controlled trimming, drying, curing, and storage room.
The better you get at this, the larger you have to scale up to justify the expenses of the equipment you have to have to do shit right.
You wait, vuitton.
It is a sickness.

I think your spot on... I'm just starting to think about my first room, & I need a Workspace for working/ nursery/ mother area/ veg room/ flower room/ dry & cure room / scrub room/ maybe a containment room/ & ya need a place to process yield as well.... & store shit....

and you have to walk around safely, so you need hallways, and to meet building codes

add in the physical build out - sealing floors, partition walls, plumbing, serious insulation, , HVAC, electric, before ya know it -- it's a whole lot of money -- I'm wondering if it's even worth doing in a maximum space of 250 sq ft... when this is built, the room can't grow any more.....it's as big as it is ever gonna get...

room to have 36 in flower, and I think I can get everything in, but it's really tight

maybe better to think larger....

700 - 1000 sq ft as a real "smaller-size grow room".... starts to make more sense... in terms of ROI... Even if I don't add all the equipment at once, I should plan and start w/ that size space....

 

[heywho]

Vinyl offgasses for quite a while, maybe years. Could use sealer/epoxy-paint for less $ than full epoxy floor.

re "off-gas" I know....., & this is medicine... I want "hospital" like conditions... but the price of building the room is giving me sticker shock... I was looking at a 5 coat epoxy system... Totally industrial strength... epoxy seeps into every pore in the pad.. the entire floor is epoxy.... so the floor will never wick moisture, and form paint bubbles...

but, if the cost is different enough, even though I live in a humid climate, I might go for the paint.

Appreciate any other folks experience w/ flooring

thanks