Is a grow room possible in this space?

[Blazing Glory]

Hello :)

I'd really like to start my own closet grow, and have a space in mind. It's a converted attic roof space, seldom visited and away from prying eyes. Ideally, I'd like to convert the whole space into a mini-grow space, but before investing in any equipment I thought it would be wise to get a 2nd opinion on whether it would be possible to grow in this space. I'd like to grow hydroponically, and only a maximum of three small plants at a time I think. I've read around the subject of growing and done other "research" via the net but I'm still a beginner as this would be my first grow. I'm sick and tired of being messed around by street dealers. The attached photos are of the space I have in mind. I'd like to close it all off and possibly insulate it slightly, if not, use mylar. Ventilation isn't a problem as I can get into the roof space easily enough. The main obstacle, I think, will be the sloping roof at the back of the space. Effectively, I have a 34 inches wide x 21 inches deep x 28 inches tall box, with a further 34 inches wide x 16 inches deep x 28 inches box halved by the sloping roof. I hope that made some sense, I'm not entirely sure if it does!! Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[campmasta]

1st a foremost you need to look at it like this. Is there a place i can put the heat? With most cabinets this is the biggest battle. The light to heat ratio. Your ceiling being so low is going to be hard to battle heat. An HPS can produce alot of heat while a High output T5puts out less heat and less light, but might be more suitable for your needs. Second of all is the type your growing. You must take into account the strain your growing.... Some strains grown HUGE others not so much. You'd do good in this room with a sea of green if you can battle heat. Other than that you could always use the bending technique.

[Blazing Glory]

Thanks campmasta. I was thinking of putting some sort of ventilation hole into the plasterboard, into the roof space. Do you think that would help with the heat issue, especially if I use a lower heat/light producing lamp? Are there any you would recommend by the way?

Cheers, BG

[campmasta]

as far as venting in to the wall space make sure when you cut the hole in the drywall save the peice. So when you move you can spackle it back up. Second of all a buddy of mine uses a 4ft T5 with 8 bulbs in it and it worked out great. But, he's got a lot more space than you. And from personal experience BEFORE you put your babies in there get you temp stable. Make sure you record the tempature with the light on for a full 12 hours and what the temp is when its off. Then you'll be good to go. You want adequete ventilation. As far as light recommendation, you'll have to study.

[Stond_Face]

HI BG,

I'm with campmasta, heat is your 800 pound gorilla. However, I think with a good in-line fan / carbon filter combo you can keep the grow area temps just a few degrees above the ambient for this area of your building. But you say this is attic space. My attic gets too hot in the summer months, a few degrees above ambient in my attic can melt aluminum ( kidding). IMHO, you need to stay below 30°C most of the time for a worthwile grow. Take a look at a 6" Can-Fan or Vortex fan + a carbon filter. If the space is air conditioned, you can exhaust back into the room to save energy cost.

I also agree that a S.O.G. would be best due to the low height allowance.

T5 lighting is an excellent suggestion. If you go HID you will need a cooled hood due to your low ceiling. You could use the same fan/filter combo to cool the hood.

Good Luck,
S_F

[Blazing Glory]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate you taking time to reply. I'm going to go away and read a bit more on the subject. I shall be back (probably with more questions)!

[Pothead]

have you got a chimney???? if you have you could get rid of the heat by exhausting the air out via that, with the shape/ space i would agree SOG is probably your best option, and i wouldnt want to go more than a 400w HID in that space unlees you can get rid of the heat ok, i would recommend a digital ballest for a number of reasons also,

a few things you need to think about first!

how easy is it to get in and out the loft? can you easily get water, power etc there? is there going to be heat problems? will anyone else need to go in the loft? etc think about these things if there a problem can you get round it? if not you may have to find somewhere else

peace

[Dustmundo]

Wow, I almost though pothead wasn't going to chime in on this thread. Looks like he did like with almost all of the hundreds of threads on this forum.

[campmasta]

So you get that room set up yet?

[esse.b]

So you get that room set up yet?

yo campmasta.

your using the same avatar as me.....got all confused at first cos i didn't remember posting in this thread :D hahahahahahaha

[Pothead]

oooohhhh noooo the dreaded twins have shown up to take over HELP!!!! i need somebody HELP just anybody HELP;):D

peace

[Stond_Face]

F**kin good one Pothead.:D:D

[latewood]

I'm with the whole cut a hole somewhere idea, and vent the heat with proper fans...get a 400-600 watt hps, and arm that baby with a hortilux or sunmaster...Bam Big buds!

But I agree. you have to get the temps consistently down in the high 70's to low 80's Max! in order to use big Lights.

I also Love CFL's GEt a couple big 125 or 200 watt mogul based cfl lamps...Nice :) Good Luck, wherever you are :confused:

[campmasta]

yo campmasta.

your using the same avatar as me.....got all confused at first cos i didn't remember posting in this thread :D hahahahahahaha


OOps sorry bro, didn't realize.

[esse.b]

OOps sorry bro, didn't realize.

:D:D

got a new one man....its all yours bro.

happy new year.

[cookindaganja34k]

remember you can always go with fluoros if you are worried about heat. That is what i use but i cannot give you much info about them since i am just starting myself. I prefer oudoor growing:D


Peace and Tokes
Rusty

[Oldbay]

Or small HPS, say 150-250.

With the sloping wall, I have a vision of tube floros going up from the low end in the back of the wall to step up smaller plants as they grow, and a small hps at the top for a "sweet spot" to finish the flowering. You will still need to vent, but not as much if you can put the HID ballest outside the room too.

edit.. opps this thread is a bit dusty. However what did you/they go with and how is it going?

[cookindaganja34k]

Sweet idea old bay
Maybe you could even put indicas tword the lower part of the light and sativas where the lights fater away. Not sure if i explained that very well lol

Peace and Tokes
Rusty

[cookindaganja34k]

fater is supposed to say farther- maybe i should start reading over my posts before i post them.

[Blazing Glory]

I bloody well love this forum. I disappear for months on end and when I come back the thread I started is still alive with healthy discussion!

Cheers guys, there's alot of information on here to digest and I'm getting stuck in already.

A little update on the grow situation. Nothing has happened. Yet. But that's mainly due to not having the capital to act on my plans.

I've been looking into ScrOG growing. Do you guys think that's a viable option in the space?

Thanks for everybody's comments, I really appreciate it guys.

[Steeldiehard]

Sup BG...ScroG and SoG will work well in that space. :) Keep em small and bountiful. :)

Steel

[DarkSpark]

Be careful with HIDs - Make sure your walls/ceiling have good insulation. Don't leave a tell tale heat signature. These pictures are from our local newspaper today.

[ZenitZenZen]

If you go fore one of these strains you could grow successfully with your height limitation. Ps I only advise the use of this strain fore fun if you got the space to grow regular strains or fore a space like yours. Here's the links: http://www.drchronic.com/products.asp?category=Lowlife+Seeds http://www.drchronic.com/products.asp?category=Lowryder++seeds

Peace ZZZ.

[Pothead]

that's one thing that makes me think twice about growing (but not enough to stop me) is that there's regularly a police helicopter that comes over and will hover over/near my house for up to an hour at a time! anyone in the skype chat room will know when it comes over it pees me off!!!


peace

[Oldbay]

You need a lot of light to make your house that noticiable. You can do a personal grow well under those levels.

[sancho23]

One thing I know specifically from growing outdoors(side of my old house!) is that weed grows like a vine.

I would suggest starting one or two plants of, with some really good flourescents on the slope wall, and then, as the plants begin to grow you bend them over and keep them tied horizontally. What happens is that from one plant you get all of the branches going vertical, as if it were really a bunch of little plants instead! They all will get about the same amount of light, with be roughly the same size, and you can pack a lot into a little space!

Make sure to get some sort of reflective material on the opposing wall and white for the rest. . .

Also, you probably will have to flower them early so they don't get too big for the space, I mean, that's a little grow room! But it can be done. I had posted elsewhere something a friend told me after coming from Amsterdam about a few heads who were tight on space and so they took cuttings and flowered them almost immediately!!! It worked just fine because it's the light cycle that triggers the flowering stage, so really the genetics are all there from the first little seedling. . .something to think about!!!

[DarkSpark]

You need a lot of light to make your house that noticiable. You can do a personal grow well under those levels.

I'd tend to agree with you, Oldbay.
Just thought I'd mention it because it's the fact that we're talking about heat in a small sloping roof space - a place where there's not many reasons why you'd have a heat source. I once talked to a police officer who said the cameras can be set to detect temperature differentials of 0.2 degC, (and that was over 10 years ago).

[latewood]

The helo is to worry about, but not many areas employ such tactics much less have that technology. I imagine it is coming, but like the article stated...they are combatting major suburban grow houses. Personal grows would not show up like that.

Peace, God Bless

[sttony]

Had a military helo circling my place last week. I was on the computer and could hear it out there, so I got up and looked out the back door to see it fly away away. From what I had seen, it sure looked like it had just come out of a circular patern before it flew away. Went outside and seen my neighbor was burning carbord boxes and said to him, "Oh, the chopper was checking on you for increasing your carbin footprint. We laughed. haha hehe.

No problem with my gr-room temp, the gr-temp was the same as the outside temp. Open air ventulation. hehe :)

And even so, they would still need a warrant, right?

[ZenitZenZen]

I've seen in a recent documentary that they got some kind of radar that could see you "take a shit" if they wanted to, but it's not legal to use. I fear fore peoples freedom if we ever allowed such a device to be used against the public.

Peace ZZZ.

[Zandor]

In small spaces you can do a sea of green grow method.

Its works best if you grow from clones, so you can force flower at 14" tall. Pick up some Bush Master and that will stop the vertical growth and start flowering early.

Make sure if you do use a HPS light that you have either a cool tube or an air cooled hood with the proper air movement.

As for dealing with hear....pick up an A/C unit. Either a portable one that has a flexible exhaust you can place on the output side of the hood.

That will deal with your heat, and still give you room to grow.

You can build a 12" grow box and grow in dirt. Just make sure you have at least 1" of space under the box and pond liner to catch the runoff. You can build a whole catch system that will use gravity to carry the runoff away from the underside of your grow box and then it should just evaporate or maybe even old towels will clean up the mess with no problem. Drainage should be very quick as you don't have a lot of room to store the soil and keep large roots for too long. 12" is not much room so getting the water out quick is a must. You will water more often but that is not always a bad thing. A few worms is always a good idea in any soil grow. They will keep the soil aerated and make plenty of room for root growth and drainage.

It's not too hard, just think big and then figure out to to go small space while growing big. In a SOG grow system you can still get the amount you want. You are only looking for 1.0 to 1.5 ounces per plant anyway. Just do the math how many plants you need base on 1 ounce per plant.

I don't see a problem here as long as you have the money to get the right equipment.

Peace

Z