Work in progress. Mini 3 room build out.

Sharing my work in progress. This is my first build out. I tend to over do things.

the goal: 3 rooms. Mini lung room, two grow rooms. All one shared air system.


sorry for the mess.


back wall is where the ac and everything will plug in.


Other side with my air intake vent. This will give me the option of not being sealed


Where the AC and the exhaust vent will connect


roof of the room. Plugs for lights



Lots more to do. Will be sealing up all the cracks. Painting the doors. Covering the outlets. Probably adding a rubberized paint to the floor.

I could appreciate a good grow room build and would like to complement looking good but in this day and age wouldn't the idea of a tent for that size seem cheaper and better option unless we are talking about a a bigger size or already existing room

The garage is uninsulated. I’ve tried the tents but I couldn’t regulate the temperatures. I also wanted to mess around with co2 but I feel like a tent isn’t ideal for a sealed environment.

all in all, this didn’t cost much more than a tent. Probably similar to a high quality tent.

pahpah-cee said:

The garage is uninsulated. I’ve tried the tents but I couldn’t regulate the temperatures. I also wanted to mess around with co2 but I feel like a tent isn’t ideal for a sealed environment.

all in all, this didn’t cost much more than a tent. Probably similar to a high quality tent.

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Garage life is not the life… too much fluctuation

RIS said:

Garage life is not the life… too much fluctuation

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Definitely. Heat wave took down a crop and I realized it wasn’t going to cut it.

pahpah-cee said:

Definitely. Heat wave took down a crop and I realized it wasn’t going to cut it.

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No windows in your garage? I have a big window unit in my garage that keeps it around 70 degrees in there even with it being 100 outside. With that being said, I'd never grow in there, one outage and it's over.

inth3shadowz said:

No windows in your garage? I have a big window unit in my garage that keeps it around 70 degrees in there even with it being 100 outside. With that being said, I'd never grow in there, one outage and it's over.

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There is. But my a/c unit wouldn’t be able to keep up with the uninsulated garage. The garage door is uninsulated as well. With this set up I can run the vents out the window while keeping my a/c in the mini insulated room.

pahpah-cee said:

There is. But my a/c unit wouldn’t be able to keep up with the uninsulated garage. The garage door is uninsulated as well. With this set up I can run the vents out the window while keeping my a/c in the mini insulated room.

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Gotcha...best of luck. Good looking room, gave me some ideas for my basement room build. Currently just using some panda film make shift room. That insulation looks pretty nice.

Yep insulation was my issue as well. I’ve been lucky enough to have a slight breeze and I’m pulling air from a shaded area so that helped.

Todays project is a drain for the A/C and dehumidifier that will drain out of the room into a res or into an actual drain. Haven’t decided on where to send the water. I just don’t want to have to go into the lung room daily to empty all the water.

did my daily trip to Home Depot for the pvc piping. And of course I picked up my bazillionth can of expanding foam. I swear this is probably my 7th one somehow.

pahpah-cee said:

Todays project is a drain for the A/C and dehumidifier that will drain out of the room into a res or into an actual drain. Haven’t decided on where to send the water. I just don’t want to have to go into the lung room daily to empty all the water.

did my daily trip to Home Depot for the pvc piping. And of course I picked up my bazillionth can of expanding foam. I swear this is probably my 7th one somehow.

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I got a sump pump with float valve off amazon that had a garden hose fitting. I then put the sump pump in a big Rubbermaid container. Then garden hose to wherever you want.

This is what I came up with. Not pretty
but whatever.


the ac will run into the bottom port. Dehum runs to the top. Gravity should take care of the rest.

Getting a little closer

I’m probably going to move the AC out of the room. Too much air is leaking out from the condenser.

Errrrrrrr I was all hot to pull it out of the room but now I realized this has another issue.

the thermometer in the AC is not going to work for my room if it is outside of my room. I can’t hook it up to a inkbird controller because once it cuts the power, the controller won’t be able to power it back on.

Here is something I came up with. Need to test it out. Probably going to need to open up another hole in the wall to allow some passive air flow to the back of the ac.

If you’re using an exterior wall and are handy try and swap that portable ac for a properly powered(for your regional climate and your electrical usage) window unit and build it into the wall. Those portable units do work, but not nearly as efficiently and an un-insulated garage might be more than it can handle. A good rule to follow for figuring hvac requirements is ~4000btu of cooling/1000w of power use and that’s on top of what’s recommended for the square footage. This is why I have a $300/mo electric bill in an 800sqft apartment so there are definitely drawbacks

Lenin1917 said:

If you’re using an exterior wall and are handy try and swap that portable ac for a properly powered(for your regional climate and your electrical usage) window unit and build it into the wall. Those portable units do work, but not nearly as efficiently and an un-insulated garage might be more than it can handle. A good rule to follow for figuring hvac requirements is ~4000btu of cooling/1000w of power use and that’s on top of what’s recommended for the square footage. This is why I have a $300/mo electric bill in an 800sqft apartment so there are definitely drawbacks

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The room is more of a closet I built out.
It’s only 250sqft but it’s insulated. I’m going to run 2 HLG 550 v2, so around 900 true watts. The dehumidifier also gives of a decent amount of heat. The AC is 12000btu. HVAC is a new concept to me. I figured I’m probably over doing it with that much AC but I picked it up for free. And in theory it seemed superior to a shaker unit but now I know it’s kind of crap.

I’m not on a exterior wall But their is a exterior window about 2 feet away from where the ac vents are pictured in the room. If I cannot get this to work in a sealed environment then I will get a shaker.

fairly certain the thermometer on the unit is located in the back. It’s not behaving. The temperature in the room is hotter than what the ac thinks.

I’m worried that punching a hole isn’t going to solve my problems. My worry is, the AC thermometer with now be reading the uninsulated garage temp- not the grow room temp.

So the A/C actually has a auto restart in the event of a power failure. So I threw a temp controller on it and it’s working. I also cut out a 4” hole into the wall to vent the back of the AC. It fixed my issue. I might upgrade it to a 6” because it’s pulling a lot of air.


I’ll have the two intake vents just take air from the garage. The exhaust vent and the other exhaust vent with the scrubber on it will vent out the window.

mounted the lights up. HLG 550 v2’s. With UVA bars. (One pictured)


Co2 controller. Thermometer is being fed out here for AC.

Pop off the wall. I used Velcro along the 2x2.


I’m hoping those two little fans will be able to circulate the mini lung room effectively.


I need to mount some fans on the wall. I just can’t find the mounting brackets in my chaotic garage.

I have a design to split the room in half using Velcro on the exposed 2x2’s. However, I have 10 autos I need to plant first. Having it split in half isn’t beneficial until I swap back to photos.

there is a new moon on Tuesday so I’m trying to get things ready so I can plant seeds on that day for fun.