Grow Room Floorplans. Here to help.

Do you think it'd be worth the extra $60 to get a 600w HPS bulb to replace the 600w MH for the first trimester? I've read that it might reduce the stretching, but would it lack in anything beneficial?

Definitely.

Thanks man That floor plan is what I'll be building in a couple months since I need a big investment and I am just starting my job. Right now I got some Fruity Chronic Juice by Delicious Seeds that just sprouted, I'll hit you up with a link when I start my journal

phillipchristian said:

Exactly what it sounds like. If you see in my signature there's a thread about water cooled grow rooms. Heat exchangers are basically any piece of equipment built for efficient heat transfer from one load to another. In this instance Hell and I are talking about heat exchangers which use chilled water to cool the air. Water is a more efficient way to remove heat from air then using air to remove heat from air. Your a/c unit passes the air from your room over a heat exchanger which transfers that heat from the air to the refrigerant in the coils. The coils then flow to another heat exchanger where air from outside is passed over them to remove the heat from the refrigerant before it goes back. Water can actually remove more heat and do it more efficiently. I use water cooled equipment and air handlers in my grow room so that none of the equipment in my room (lights, ballasts, Co2 generators, reservoir, etc..) produces heat. Hell just got a water cooled air handler (or heat exchanger).

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is this it? http://www.watercooledgardens.com/predefined_package.php?packageid=9 if i were to go the water cool route would i have to replace all my equipment for water cooled equipment?

kamie said:

is this it? http://www.watercooledgardens.com/predefined_package.php?packageid=9 if i were to go the water cool route would i have to replace all my equipment for water cooled equipment?

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Something like that. That is a smaller system than what we are talking about but the same principle. The "Ice Box" is a heat exchanger on a smaller scale. If you decided to go with a water cooled system then you would have to size a chiller to meet your needs (lights, Co2, air conditioning, etc...). You wouldn't need to get rid of any of your equipment. The technology can be used as an add on to your existing system. It is expensive though and often times not the best idea. You really need to take full advantage of the benefits of the chiller; have an extreme case in which you beef to go this route; or understand the efficiency of the systems and the long term electrical savings to justify purchasing one of these systems. You can find a ton of info in the thread in my signature or you can PM me anytime you have questions.

kamie said:

is this it? http://www.watercooledgardens.com/predefined_package.php?packageid=9 if i were to go the water cool route would i have to replace all my equipment for water cooled equipment?

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I actually use a Chillking Chiller and 2 of there water cooled Air Handlers as well as a few of the other products on that website from Hydro innovations. I've also used Ice Box before and still have a few.

Hellraizer is referring to a different heat exchanger that he found.

vertigo me said:

Thanks for clarifying that for me, im wondering what brand would you suggest for my lighting setup from your experience. Also concerning the electrics your right the MCB for the sockets controlls all the sockets in the house and are B32 and you say are rated at 20Amps? but i have been reading a electrical threads on a UK forum and they say that means its actually 32 Amp.. im confused :s I also noted in the thread i read that each socket will allow 13A so thats 26A out of my double socket, can you clarify this and then i was looking at using a blackbox contactor to plug in all the neccesery equipment. Can you shed some expertise if im going along the right track with that?


As for the Veg room i have been told that a good way is to take 2 cuttings from each one of my plants hopefully 20 and then veg them. Then pick a mother from the best plants out of the cuttings i have taken. Then flower the rest and keep the superior plant back to take future cuttings (how far back would you go with cuttings). I would be looking at having 20 plants in flower at all times and however many to keep this cycle going in the veg room. Can you give me a lighting setup for the veg room so i can also start pricing up some equipment needed and approx how much space i will be looking at using of if not all of the 7x10 room.

Thanks and sorry for so many questions :L

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Hey bud, unfortunately I really can't be of much help with the electrical at this point. I am pretty sure that is a 20amp breaker but past that I shouldn't be giving you advice. I am not familiar with codes and practices in the UK so I am the last person to be asking about these things. Either way, if that breaker controls all of the outlets in your house then you need to be careful how much you plug into the outlets. Remember that you already have several things already plugged into outlets and adding that type of load to 1 circuit will most likely throw the breaker.

If you are looking to get 20 plants then you will need to take 28-34 clippings until you get good at cloning. In order to do this you are going to need 2-3 moms. What kind of light are you planning on using in your veg room? I think you would be fine with 2 T5 systems. 6 or 8 lamps for your moms and 4-6 lamps for your clones depending on how long you will be vegging them.

Hmm i totally understand what you mean with overloading the circuit.. How do you suggest we overcome this problem? Again i have an electrician friend and hopefully he can clarify alot of the electrical issues for me. I am assuming that i will have to have another circuit board or msb etc to allow the amount of Amps used from both rooms...

As for the Veg room its not an area that i have researched that much in depth but T5's seem very common and most likely what i will opt for and having said you also suggested them i take it a definate thats what i will use. So baring all this in mind i just want to make sure that the total wattage is not exceeding 3k Watts. Are we close or over this for my kind of setup taking into account the amount of equipment needed. I say 3k watt as from reading forums a bedrrom should produce 1k watt avg . Is this right or am i taking information from not a very good source..

vertigo me said:

Hmm i totally understand what you mean with overloading the circuit.. How do you suggest we overcome this problem? Again i have an electrician friend and hopefully he can clarify alot of the electrical issues for me. I am assuming that i will have to have another circuit board or msb etc to allow the amount of Amps used from both rooms...

As for the Veg room its not an area that i have researched that much in depth but T5's seem very common and most likely what i will opt for and having said you also suggested them i take it a definate thats what i will use. So baring all this in mind i just want to make sure that the total wattage is not exceeding 3k Watts. Are we close or over this for my kind of setup taking into account the amount of equipment needed. I say 3k watt as from reading forums a bedrrom should produce 1k watt avg . Is this right or am i taking information from not a very good source..

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Your friend should be able to help you out better with the electrical. Looks like the board that you have has room for additional breakers. It may be as simple as just adding a breaker and running a line to that room with several outlets at the end of it.

You are going the be over 3000w for sure. 1800w in flower lighting and maybe 750w in veg lighting. Then add inline fans, oscillating fans, any pumps, controllers, sensors, etc... Plus you still may need an a/c and a dehumidifier/humidifier.

Again, I really can't comment on what is normal electricity usage where you live but in the U.S. anything under 3,000w of lighting is usually nothing to worry about. I think you'll be fine running this equipment as long as you actively conserve the other electrical devices in your house. Turn of the a/c or heat whenever you can, turn off the hot water heater whenever you can, unplug the fridge at night or when you leave for the day. You need to talk to your buddy and see what he thinks about the electrical and bringing in a dedicated circuit just for your flower room.

Hey Phil,

what problems if any would venting a 800 ft3 room through the in ceiling vent, pushing back against the running system of central heating and air? air would be sucked through a carbon filter and be cooling two 1000w hps through 8" duct before going into system?

BLAZDBANDIT said:

Hey Phil,

what problems if any would venting a 800 ft3 room through the in ceiling vent, pushing back against the running system of central heating and air? air would be sucked through a carbon filter and be cooling two 1000w hps through 8" duct before going into system?

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Could create a ton of problems and break your central air system. You would be creating positive pressure in the central air system as well as pushing grinding the motors on the air handler's fan. Not a good idea. Put a hole in the ceiling next to the vent and push the air into the crawl space.

hey phillip, is it okay to plug both my 600w ballast to a 15 amp digital timer? the cords are also too short to reach the timer would it be okay if i use extension cords as well?

kamie said:

hey phillip, is it okay to plug both my 600w ballast to a 15 amp digital timer? the cords are also too short to reach the timer would it be okay if i use extension cords as well?

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Sure, you should be fine. 600w ballasts draw about 5.5amps at 120v. Just make sure you don't put much else if anything on the outlet or any other outlets on the same circuit. Most breakers for household outlets are only rated for 15-20amps and you shouldn't put more than 75-80% of that load on them. So on a 15amp breaker you don't want to put more then 12amps.

Extension cords are fine. Just make sure they are rated for 10amps each. Not the cheap 12v cords.

Have you ever seen the Hydrofarm Tower of Power? It says you can throw anything at it pretty much, and I was thinking about getting it to run my 3 600w ballasts and 600 watts of fluorescent t5s.

Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001WAL58I/ref=s9_simh_gw_p86_d7_g86_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-5&pf_rd_r=0RF4Q40QWX3MFK02Y8VW&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470939291&pf_rd_i=507846

Bwpz said:

Have you ever seen the Hydrofarm Tower of Power? It says you can throw anything at it pretty much, and I was thinking about getting it to run my 3 600w ballasts and 600 watts of fluorescent t5s.

Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001WAL58I/ref=s9_simh_gw_p86_d7_g86_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-5&pf_rd_r=0RF4Q40QWX3MFK02Y8VW&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470939291&pf_rd_i=507846

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Seems like a wast of money to me. It has 14 gauge wire which means it's rated for 20amps. You could put your 3 600w lights (16.5amps total) on it but that is it. You don't want to put more than 75-80% of the rated load for any electrical equipment. Then you plug it into the wall and that circuit will have to be a 20amps or more. If you have a 15amp breaker it won't work with all 3 lights on it.

I think I mentioned this to you earlier; if you really want to do it correctly then you are going to need to either hardwire a dual trigger 8 light controller or a subpanel to your room. Either way you are going to need more electricity for all of your lights, fans, pumps, etc... than you will get from the outlets in your room. Even if you bring in power from another room/different circuit with an extension cord it may not be enough. Do it right the first time and you won't have to ever worry again in the future.

phillipchristian said:

Seems like a wast of money to me. It has 14 gauge wire which means it's rated for 20amps. You could put your 3 600w lights (16.5amps total) on it but that is it. You don't want to put more than 75-80% of the rated load for any electrical equipment. Then you plug it into the wall and that circuit will have to be a 20amps or more. If you have a 15amp breaker it won't work with all 3 lights on it.

I think I mentioned this to you earlier; if you really want to do it correctly then you are going to need to either hardwire a dual trigger 8 light controller or a subpanel to your room. Either way you are going to need more electricity for all of your lights, fans, pumps, etc... than you will get from the outlets in your room. Even if you bring in power from another room/different circuit with an extension cord it may not be enough. Do it right the first time and you won't have to ever worry again in the future.

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So I could just run in a 240v line and use that with the dual 600w 240v ballast I guess, that way it's seperate from everything else and the outlets in the room could run the pumps and whatnot. Seems like the most logical choice suggested

I wish I could rep you again lol

Bwpz said:

So I could just run in a 240v line and use that with the dual 600w 240v ballast I guess, that way it's seperate from everything else and the outlets in the room could run the pumps and whatnot. Seems like the most logical choice suggested

I wish I could rep you again lol

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If you did it that way you still would have to put the 1 600w, the T5's, and the rest of the equipment on the other circuit which might overload it. Especially if you end up having to put an a/c or dehumidifier in there.

In my opinion you have 2 options. Either run a 240v line in there to a 50amp subpanel. Then come off that subpanel to whatever 120v & 240v outlets you need. The other option would be if your 2 room are close enough; you could just bring the same 50amp into a dual trigger box (light controller) and use 1 side for you flower room and the other side for your veg room. You could plug in all of the ballasts and hood exhaust fans and put them all on 1 trigger (timer) for each room. You would have 4 outlets per trigger. So in you flower room you could put 2-3 ballasts (depends if you get the Lumatek Dual Ballast) and 1-2 inline fans that will be on the same timer as your lights. For your veg room you could put both T5's and any other piece of equipment that is on the same timer as the lights. If you are running your veg at 24/0 then you could put anything you want on that trigger from wither the flower or the veg. Then I would put a High Temp/Hot Strike box on your flower room trigger. The cheapest way is with the subpanel. You just need to get an electrician to do it for you have someone who REALLY knows what they are doing walk you through it step by step.

It wouldn't be a little suspicious having an electrician install a 240v line and a 50amp subpanel for me?

Bwpz said:

It wouldn't be a little suspicious having an electrician install a 240v line and a 50amp subpanel for me?

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No. Tell him you are putting in a saltwater reef system. Those thing use huge pumps, filters, water chillers, etc... Tell him you are putting in a recording studio. If you are in a legal state who cares. If notm who cares. Electrician isn't going to ask you why. Just tell him what you want and where you want it. Would take him 2 hours MAX to wire up everything. If you are really concerned..then send me a PM and we'll talk about it and see if you can do it yourself. I can walk you through it but I would need some info.

phillipchristian said:

No. Tell him you are putting in a saltwater reef system. Those thing use huge pumps, filters, water chillers, etc... Tell him you are putting in a recording studio. If you are in a legal state who cares. If notm who cares. Electrician isn't going to ask you why. Just tell him what you want and where you want it. Would take him 2 hours MAX to wire up everything. If you are really concerned..then send me a PM and we'll talk about it and see if you can do it yourself. I can walk you through it but I would need some info.

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I wouldn't want to put my house's security in my hands, I'll just pay an electrician to do it It would be cool if you could list everything I need so I can tell the electrician