Another Attic Adventure

JSJ

Well-Known Member
It will never work, I have heard that from more than a dozen people in the last year or so. That's how long this whole project has been in place. My blueprints have changed a time or two here or there but my overall goal has yet to waiver.
So like many people, me and my wife live in a small 2bed house, with a crawl space and ONE bedroom closet. There is absolutely no where in this house to put a decent sized grow except for my attic. (We have my daughter every other week, so the 2nd bedroom is not a possibility.) And so began a year's long adventure to setup a grow in the only place that I have been told it will never work.
So I started out by clearing insulation out of a 8' x 10' area in the back of the attic. I placed 1" thick foam board insulation on the floor and topped it with 1/2" OSB to give me a suitable area to work on. I then boxed in and mounted box fans to the gable vents on either end of the house, one venting in, the other venting out. Figured a good cross ventilation setup would ensure to keep the tempatures down, HA!! I quickly realized that it wasn't going to be enough as the daytime temps of the attic maintained a 25-30 degree difference than the outside tempature. So began the first changes to the doomed attic grow.
Version 2.0 would have thick insulation in the rafters and insulated walls to keep the high attic temps under control. As I started to frame up walls spring started to turn to summer and the 80 degree days were producing tempatures of 100-110 degrees in the attic. Even with my gable vent fans running 24/7. The tempature swings were incredible up there, down to 50 degrees at night and 100 degrees in the heat of the day. The hottest tempature I recorded up there was a steamy 134 degrees, that's when I pulled out of the attic and waited for fall when I could go back up there and not lose 10 pounds of sweat just by thinking about what I was going to do next.
So the rest of fall and through the winter I have been back at getting this thing buttoned up and ready to rock n roll. I still a few weeks away from totally being finished, but close enough to start sharing my adventure with the great and supportive members of RIU.

Looking at the NW corner of the attic and the 4'x4' flower room.
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Looking at the SW corner and the 4'x4' veg room.
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This will become a clone shelf.
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And this area will be a work area.
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And this will be where all the controls of the room will be.
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This is shot back across the attic looking at the room.
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Tune in and subscribe fellows, we have a lot more to come and plenty of pictures to go along with it.

Until next time,
J
 

vostok

Well-Known Member
It will never work ....You heard it again, the most fucked up place to grow is the attic, even as a pro do you think you can grow 90 plus days with out spilling water up there ....? leave a visible patch on the ceiling, besides temps swing too much and you got summer coming ....lol and then you are going to turn on the hps lights, even with AC you got issues, go figure ....? lol
 

JSJ

Well-Known Member
Looks good, have you thought about an air conditioning unit?
Yep, the outlet in the picture of the "work area", is there for a heater/ac unit


It will never work ....You heard it again, the most fucked up place to grow is the attic, even as a pro do you think you can grow 90 plus days with out spilling water up there ....? leave a visible patch on the ceiling, besides temps swing too much and you got summer coming ....lol and then you are going to turn on the hps lights, even with AC you got issues, go figure ....? lol
And the start of the comments from the great and supportive RIU members begin.

Stay tuned gang, you might just learn a thing or two, like how the room is actually put together, hell damn near water tight, lmfao
 

JSJ

Well-Known Member
Soooo, after the rough frame in and all the electrical runs were made, I stuffed the rafters full of fiberglass insulation and then faced them with 1 1/2" foam board insulation, giving the ceiling of the room an R-20 value to help keep the heat on the roof and out of the room. From there I backed the work van up to the house and unloaded the supply of duct tape and started sealing up all the seams and even the capped heads of the nails. Anywhere that air could possibly sneak into the room, it got duct taped.

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From there I wired my duct fans up with a cord and plug and mounted them. To reduce vibration and noise of the fans, I cut my holes 1/2" bigger than the fan and mounted them with hard rubber washers. This will allow the fans to vibrate as much as they want without the fans vibrating the surrounding walls thus making noise.

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And mounted, plugged in and turning air.....

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As always folks, keep tuned in and subscribe
J
 

reggaerican

Well-Known Member
I like it..! Who ever said you can't grow in an attic... Are we not men.?

Are we not stoners..? :eyesmoke: We can do anything...!

Way to go on the build, can't wait to see it green...:mrgreen:
 

machead

Well-Known Member
summer months is when u will struggle if you haven't got A/C, winter months be fine but with the sloped roof you will prob still struggle with temps higher ceiling/roof the easier it is to keep temps in check
 

budleydoright

Well-Known Member
I had a grow over an office in a warehouse. It was a bitch but doable. I just remember the call "There's something dripping from the ceiling all over my blueprints" .

Be careful.
 

JSJ

Well-Known Member
sorry guys, dropped my tablet and busted the screen. the only source off all my pix. not sure i want to have geek squad working on it lol so i apologize for no more updates but pix will be added when i can get the screen fixed safely.

You've got my interest, you doing soil or hydro?
soil. but have kicked the idea of a hydro setup around. dont know enough which setup would work best. but i do know the local hydro store guy, sooo
 

Mookdog

New Member
I've been running in an attic for about a year now. I I've been running a 600w setup with 600w off led helper lights. I run an a.c. all year and a space heater in my veg room during the cold months. My flower room gets pretty cold during the night, but not cold enough to hurt the crop. An a.c. Is a must and so is a space heater!
 

JSJ

Well-Known Member
I've been running in an attic for about a year now. I I've been running a 600w setup with 600w off led helper lights. I run an a.c. all year and a space heater in my veg room during the cold months. My flower room gets pretty cold during the night, but not cold enough to hurt the crop. An a.c. Is a must and so is a space heater!
glad to hear from another attic grower. you do know it will never work right? lmao


i dont think i will need a heater up there. since the last pic update i have all the board insulation up on the walls and EVERY seam and gap is sealed. with me inside and a 23w cfl burning and no fans the temps run 57º-59º and thats with these negative degree temps we have been having. so far i have recorded the low temps in the attic at 25º and in the room 42º. with lights burning for clones veg and flower i think that will be plenty of heat. i also am going to run my light schedule at night when temps are at thier lowest. as for an a/c unit i have worked that in from the begining. i split my sub panel so the flower and a/c unit is on a different circuit than the rest of the room and i wired in a dedicated outlet for the a/c.
 

JSJ

Well-Known Member
Do you have a source of water in the attic?
not yet but in the kitchen closet the water splits for an outside tap. i have been thinking bout tying in right there with another tap and then running a hose up through the closet along side a gas line that goes to the attic. but that would only get it up there. as for a drain system...........
 

guitarisgr8

Well-Known Member
Hey bro,
I've been growing successfully in a smaller attic than yours for years (for similar reasons), using a 600w hps and two 250w cfls.

It's cold in Ireland now so I have a fan heater running during lights off or it gets too cold. Lights must run at night for temp reasons, I find lights on 8pm - 8am works the best.

It can be a bit of a battle during the summer, but the addition of an air cooled hood got my temps sitting at 25c on the hottest days.

I'm along for the ride for sure bro!! And peeps saying it can't be done obviously haven't tried!

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