one small room, vegetative & flowering "areas"

Hi,

New potential grower here, I've done quite a bit of reading on these forums and I think I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do, but I am trying to figure something out.

I am looking at possibly growing in a storage area under my stairs, its an L shaped room with approx 4' ceilings. One leg of the L is about 4'L x 4'W x 4'H, while the other is under the stairs so the ceiling slants downward leaving me a growing area there of about 2'L x 4'W x 4'H. I am limited to this one growing space in the house.

I want to set up a flowering area and a vegetative area in this space, flowering in one leg of the L and vegetative in the other. The reason I want to do this is because I would prefer to only have to order seeds once and clone my plants from there. I would partition the two growing areas with pvc plastic and hang black out curtains, leaving the corner by the door open.

I want to have 2 vegetative plants(In the smaller area) and 4-6 flowering plants at any given time. I am thinking I would need to set up two different ventilation systems to create the two different growing environments. If youre wondering the intake would be from a closet next to the storage area, and the exhaust would be out to the garage. If done "right" would it be possible to set up a room this small with two growing areas? See attached...this is what I'm thinking about doing.

Attach damn you....

I world go with larger venting. Hope it doesn't get to hot with the water heater and furnace.
How are you going to keep things cool once winter is over?

buy a small grow tent off ebay and use it to separate the veg/flower cycles. you need as much space as possible for flowering, not b/c of the plants but b/c of the heat hps bulbs put out, even with a cooltube they'll make shit hot in small spaces.

I wouldn't worry about separate ventilation, I'd just mount a small 4" duct booster fan in the top of the small tent and have it passively intaking from the flowering room. Then have a duct blower (4" but better 6" with speed controller b/c more quiet) exhausting from the flower room to outside/in the house (somewhere). You would still need a passive intake for the flower chamber too of course.

If you have to keep your ballast in the space you'll HAVE to get a digital.

Ringsixty said:

I world go with larger venting. Hope it doesn't get to hot with the water heater and furnace.
How are you going to keep things cool once winter is over?

Click to expand...

yeah, you should isolate that stuff if possible. for heat reasons but also because you'll be getting water everywhere, spills happen...

My paint skills are not that great, I was planning on going with vent tubing that is atleast 6" in diameter

As for cooling, with sufficient ventilation, air flow and fans; I didn't think that would be much of an issue....am I wrong? The temperature in my basement in the summer is pretty cool even without AC, I could move the intake to the basement as opposed to the furnace/water heater closets. Just trying to be stealthy about it.

heats an ass in small spaces. I started in a 2.5 x 3.5 x 8ft space, tried to split it for veg/flower and it was an epic fail. even with a cooltube I couldn't keep it below 85

for stealth make the intake and exhaust like 8" ducting, bigger ducting = less "whoosh" of air. trust me on that. a 4" blower on 6" duct with a muffler is still pretty noisy.

bigger ducting with reducers will make it WAY more quiet.

jakesnake said:

heats an ass in small spaces. I started in a 2.5 x 3.5 x 8ft space, tried to split it for veg/flower and it was an epic fail. even with a cooltube I couldn't keep it below 85

Click to expand...

I do have central air that ducts right across the top of those two closets, if a cooltube wasnt enough maybe I could do something with that...but that might require help from a heat/ac person.

Thanks for your input guys, I think I need to do a little more research on cooling. It would be a shame to go through all the trouble(not to mention expense) of setting the room up just to fail.

you can't test as good as you can feel.

buy a 400w or 600w stick it in there and watch the temps rise, no two spaces are the same, it could be fine...

buy your lights first, it'll give you a good basis to get everything else. get the room perfect, then order your seeds.

CleverReference said:

I do have central air that ducts right across the top of those two closets, if a cooltube wasnt enough maybe I could do something with that...but that might require help from a heat/ac person.

Click to expand...

don't buy a cooltube, you'll regret it. the light spread is horrible, and they create this "ray of death" circle right under them that burns everything b/c of how the glass is bent.

my radiant 6 has maintained the exact same rooms temps I had with a cooltube and I get about 300% better coverage.

jakesnake said:

you can't test as good as you can feel.

buy a 400w or 600w stick it in there and watch the temps rise, no two spaces are the same, it could be fine...

buy your lights first, it'll give you a good basis to get everything else. get the room perfect, then order your seeds.

Click to expand...

That's a good idea.

Going a bit more into my plan...I was going to cover both areas with pvc plastic (white side facing in (obviously))....and was planning on using a reflective hood to maximize my lighting, with all that reflection going on wouldnt that contribute to heat as well? Question is how much...and would the results from a lights only test help me plan for that?

black absorbed light and turns it into heat. So no I don't think it would make a significant difference if everything else remained the same.