How to build a grow room, the 4trees way

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“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin

Molds, pests, below par product and crop failure are just a few of the implications caused by a poorly designed grow room. To properly setup a professional grow space you need to first take it to the drawing board and ensure that these crucial steps are taken care of.

Room to grow?

The first step is to assess your growing space or facility by measuring everything and creating a floorplan of the area. It is important at this point to mark down everything about the area that you will be growing in such as water hook ups, power supply, ventilation, and drainage if you have that already situated.

If your room or facility requires these services still that’s fine, in this case its best to re-visit this once we have a plan in place so we can have the services installed exactly where we want them. If you are starting from the ground up just skip this step and move on.

End goal?

Of course, you want to set up a successful grow space, but what is your end goal? If it is to grow your legal amount for personal consumption, medical reasons or you are starting a commercial recreational facility for profit this needs to be incorporated into the planning at this point.

We also want to make sure the grow area is purpose built, meaning if you are growing for extractions, or setting up a vertical farm that we incorporate the right grow systems, lighting, and floorplan.

Budget

Before we dial in the best grow systems and equipment to install into your new grow room its important to go over your budget for this project as this will greatly determine the equipment and amount used.

Make sure to think ahead when you consider your budget and equipment as it may seem cheaper to get into this by just outfitting as much cheap stuff as possible, when that can cause a lot of problems down the road. Its often better to start smaller with good equipment and a proper functioning room and then work your way into a larger space if that works better for your budget.

Lighting

While a good LED grow light is ideal due to their high PAR values being closer to the plants, cool operating temperature, and reduced electricity consumption they do cost roughly twice what a 1,000w HPS light and ballast costs. This comes with immediate savings in HVAC needs and energy consumption though so consider everything and try to think about costs down the road.

CMH or HPS lighting will require the bulbs to be changed often so keep this cost in mind with them. The bulbs will look okay still at a glance but when looking through a PAR meter they often tell a different story.

LED lights generally last for 50,000 hours or more, while HID/HPS lighting typically lasts for 10,000 – 18,000 hours

LED lights can come with a plethora of spectrum options that are near impossible for other grow lighting options to mimic such as far red and UV that can be easily turned on or off.  LED lights will also reduce your HVAC and energy requirements by roughly half compared to its 1,000w HID/HPS lighting counterparts making LED our first choice if your budget complies.

Grow Systems

Choosing the right grow system is crucial to the quality of product, speed of growth and on-going maintenance of your grow. Just like LED lighting if you spend a bit more on an automated hydroponics system you will be rewarded with much less on-going maintenance opposed to soil, faster growth and larger more potent flowers.

Depending on the type of hydroponics system chosen you can also save up to 93 per cent of the water or nutrients being used in the grow as well.

Your end goals will also help you determine the best type of grow system to go with, if growing for extracts then large soil plants or deep-water culture hydroponic buckets would be great. Meanwhile if you are growing for flower production or in a vertical farm then rock-wool drain to waste style grow tables are ideal.

There are many types of hydroponics methods and soil mixes, all of which are adding oxygen and nutrients to the root-zone. With soils or hydroponics, we are always trying to add aeration and nutrients to help the roots thrive and have an easier time traveling through it. The biggest difference with hydroponics is the lack of resistance on the roots vs soil depending on the system of course.

Coconut husk although considered hydroponics will offer a similar growth speed as soil due to its dense nature. In general hydroponics methods such as drain to waste, deep water culture or aeroponics has a 3x – 4x speed and yield over soil grown plants due to the lack of root resistance as well as ability to dial in exact nutrient and temperature levels.

HVAC

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning are all required for your grow space to operate properly. While your grow room will be heating up from the dehumidifiers and lights during its day cycle, you still need to have heaters to regulate nighttime temperatures.

Sealed grow rooms with no outside air exchange are ideal to not rob your room of CO2, introduce bugs or molds from outside or change your desired environment we still require some ventilation to be able to vent the room during cleaning or emergencies.

Because of this, ductless wall units are one of the best choices for indoor grow rooms.

Additionally, it is much cheaper to have ductless wall units installed due to their efficiency over time, initial cost and lack of trunk lines.

Nursery

Every good functioning grow space has a nursery as well. In this nursery you should have your mother plants that you can clone from so you don’t need to take clones in from an outside source, and a cloning station where you can clone or spout seeds to start in your new grow.

Seeds are the preferred way to start in any clean new grow space so that you can pheno hunt the best strain and keep it for mother(s). If you have the space, it is ideal to have a small vegging area in your nursery as well so that you can pre-veg them prior to putting them in the flower rooms. The veg area can be joined with the nursery as it will be on a veg cycle as well (18 hours daylight, 6 hours nighttime) as well as require the same humidity and temperature levels.

Environment

Aside from HVAC, we still need to keep the air moving in the room, add c02 and keep the right humidity levels depending on the plants stage. Ensure to hang lots of wall fans and floor fans to keep canopy and under canopy air circulated. You may only need a few fans in the room when the plants are young but as they mature, and the canopy gets thick you need much more wind power to move through them.

Ensure that you not only outfit your flower rooms with dehumidifiers but also humidifiers so you can adjust the environment both ways as required depending on stages of growth (Although your nursery should only require a humidifier).

Planning the grow space

Now that you have the preliminary planning and end goals completed its time to plan the grow area. If you are starting a build from the ground up that’s great too, a blank canvas is always nice. Be sure to contact a professional for the setup of your floorplan if growing recreationally as there are more strict guidelines for rooms incorporated and general floor-planning.

Start by incorporating your grow systems, then layout your lighting to be able to cover all the grow systems adequately. After your grow systems and lighting are planned then you can plan out the right amount of dehumidification, c02 and fertigation.

We must also consider the end goals when planning the room(s), if growing for extractions then a smaller plant count with large plants is ideal to create lots of sugar leaf.

If you are focusing on high quality flower production, then a high plant count with smaller plants is idea to create lots of top focused flowers.

A vertical grow space will of course require high ceilings and it will be subjected to a certain group of hydroponics or soil grow systems that would be ideal for that type of growth and maintenance.  If growing on a larger scale indoors then it is recommended to stay away from soils as they can be very labor intensive, messy and harbour bugs or molds.

• Grow systems: Plan these first considering budget and end goals
• Lighting: Plan lighting according to grow systems
• Dehumidification/ Humidification: Ensure you have proper dehumidification according to the size and number of plants in the room (not room size) and do not forget humidifiers.
• C02: Add cold c02, or mushroom bags depending on the size of the room (propane c02 burners are not ideal but do work as well)
• Nursery: Depending on the size of your grow or facility your nursery may not need to be very large, but this is necessary for a well functioning grow space.
• Fertigation or Irrigation: Irrigate your plants so they can be automatically fed or go the extra mile and add automated fertilizer applications to your feed.
• HVAC: Incorporate your HVAC last so you can include all the heat from the dehumidifiers, lighting and other heat generating equipment and size the equipment properly.

Construction

When building your grow room(s) you do not want any wood or cloth in the room that can absorb bacteria.

Walls and ceilings should be covered in either PVC wall panels or liners to keep a sterile environment that is easy to clean.

Your sprays or humidity will not affect these walls or ceilings by allowing moisture to be absorbed or bacteria to hide. If you must have exposed wood in your grow room its recommended to paint with an anti mold paint.

When constructing the growing area its best to start from the top and work your way down, taking care of the poly or PVC wall panel installation, then lighting and anything hanging from the ceiling, followed by the walls, wall fans and then finally the grow systems and irrigation.

The proper setup of a grow space is essential to your success. This is not only due to the quality of your product but also the performance of your grow facility. Its important to look down the road at your ongoing expenses like hydro, equipment costs or fertilizers used. Setting your grow space up with sustainable practices such as solar, hydroponics or recapturing water expelled from your plants can save the planet and your wallet so be sure to think hard about how you build your next grow.

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