Thought I'd share my current construction.

This is the only space I can grow, I want to grow good weed so I need a decent room. I'd don't need to worry about moving etc so I cam create the best design and build spec so my budget.

Budget incl all equipment is about £600 for this first batch of plants.

I spent about £120 today on some nutes, reflective sheeting, duct fixings and wood, I got some stuff already, fans, lights from previous grow.

I will future proof the room with oversize ducting and spare vent holes and various details as you will see.

I want to filter the air entering the room as this will be drawn from a garage space where I do engineering and dusty stuff. Also because I like to smoke dust free weed.

One of the next jobs is to make a filter box that is adjustable to draw air from either the roof space (warmer, drier) or the garage space (cooler, moist) (changes with weather/season obviously).

I will make this detail on both intake and outlet, so as the weather changes I can reverse where the air is coming and being vented to. For heat and humidty/seasonal effects.

I dont want to buy two CF's so the inlet air will be filtered by a washable panel filter from a car, a nice new K&N filter This is a flat panel type so can be fitted inside my adjustable box. Details to follow.

Just want lots of options as the roof is not ideal space. I want to design and build in as much flexibility as possible.

Rear basic woodwork nearly done. Using a mix of 45mmx45mm pine and 9mm thick MDF.

8" hole for a vent ducting flanges.

Multiple hooks for the easy light movement forwards and backwards. (will be fitted on CHAIN, I don't like easy-rollers/fires if they fail).

There will be loads of hooks added to the walls for tie-me-downs-ups lines to keep plants under control.

The rear end has a small access hatch so if it gets real crowded I can closely inspect/do work on the plants from the rear also. The open end I have yet to build will have a larger door. I know it will annoy me not being able to access the rear if the room is full. I intend to grow some sativas, long flowering I need full access in the very long flowering etc, saves me breaking my back bending over

The room will be BIGGER than it is atm, I have yet to add the rest of the walls it's only the rear half thats complete, I could extend it to be 5metres long in the future. It will be just under 2metres atm.

I will seal the wood with MDF primer and paint it with something white then seal the edges with silicone, keeps it clean and mould free etc, also totally sealed. I will hold some diamond reflective stuff on the main wall sections using large head drawing pins so it's easily removed if needed and a cleandown.

Floor panels. yet to install.

The rear hatch will have draft strips stuck on, the hatch is not hinged it's on studs...You just undo two wingnuts and pop the entire hatch out, this is cause you need to be a midget like to get in that hole If the door is hinged it takes up too much room...If has to be removable. Also the fact it's locked down on studs and wingnuts means its dead easy to get a perfect seal with draft strips and the tight fitting strips that slot into the main wall.

That's about it for now

Have to wait till Monday for some more MDF. I'll probably work on completing this section over the weekend and getting it painted. Plant needs to go into flower...

Intend to get maybe 9-12 plants in the room on SCROG etc...The height of the room isn't great but thats no issue, I can SOG and use a cooltube etc.

Just want a perfect little space to grow some good "high" strains

Will be using 600watt and 8" RUK fan to start using variac. I will add intake fan also once I check whats cooking, won't be overnight perfection.

I added a dedicated fused circuit to the circuit breaker just for the room, so it's all nice and safe.

Enjoy. I'll make my own lamp reflector too, one that fits the V of the roof perfectly and spreads light in a dedicated spread for this room.

Time spent so far, about 6hrs construction on that lot, hardly rushed

Must not forget a Wifi Webcam, to keep an eye on things from the house?

Quite like the room, I might move out there and grow plants in the house?

Need it done soon, all the critors are entering the roof looking for light and warm place for winter!

Little plant has been working with me.....Best move it to the other end of the roof while I paint etc Should be 3 plants but I had some issues with the seedlings...Dunno, I never had any issues before...Maybe bad seeds. Good thing is the plant I have is a GOOD one.

Looking good man and welcome

Bit more done. Got this section done now.

Sealed with some wood primer I found I had, so no need to buy any and topcoated in "one coat" Dulux Satinwood. Did the painting with a very small roller, easy stoned painting Very little effort.

Drilled and sorted the duct flanges for fitment tomorrow.

One pick shows the rear entrance, you can see the two studs sticking out, this is what I mentioned and holds the door inplace as this will be a little used entrance. I gave it 2secs of thought found I had some studs and wingnuts so cost was nothing and it firmly holds the panel totally flush with the room.

I can't do the floor yet as I need the other panels inplace. I will board up the holes at the sides then use some floorsecure 3M stuff and screw down something ontop to walk on, the floorsheets just acting as an easily changed flooring seal.

Quite some work actually, I think over a weeks "casual" building by the time I am done.

Looking Great mate....Top Job

Peace
MM

Must be quite a frequent consideration being as all modern houses have this horrible type of roof?

Thought I'd just document it here as I am well into making good quality engineering and builds of various stuff using "cheap" materials.

The MDF was only £8 a sheet, I used 3 sheets...2440x1220mm x9mm.

Another £18 worth of pine box section.

£20 on paint materials.

£5 on a sealer.

Basically used a jigsaw to cut the wood, a hammer, a screw driver and a drill.

The whole room will cost less than a tent.

Shame I can't use the roof in the house, it's got NO trusses, it's totally open and 15mx15m and it's 3metres tall in the centre.

I got some easygrow mylar diamond pattern reflectivesheeting too today, hate it when this stuff comes folded 3 ways in a box, creased twice, it's a small point but I things just right I don't want creases in my materials...I'd have rather they cut it into a size that would fit in the box...I'll leave this stuff and see if I reckon it's better than the white walls? Any opinions? I wanted the walls painted properly so they can be wiped down and disinfected etc.

Coming on, got a door and all the panel work on. Primed the new wood, just need my fan to arrive so I can paint the topcoat as it stinks, can use the fan to vent the fumes.

Been a bit busy and it's taken longer than expected.

I'll add some more updates as I go along.

I've been doing other stuff like making a thermostat / variac for the fan.

Nice work fella

I think you will need some insulation around it - maybe on the floor too !

where will intake air be comming from ?

hb

That looks the bollox mate.
You thought of putting some insulation over the outside of it, or inside the roof bit???

Burton

E2a.... should of read the above post

Top notch room fella

Youll need more lights tho

Ive got a similar loft but it gets way too hot in the summer, any advice on this anyone?.. will follow this thread though, excellent!

It'll be a work in progress, I just want a solid room atm.

I'll be insulating the outside and underneath, there is 3" gap under the room for this.

Incoming air will be a taken from the garage space below initially. Predict if using passive venting the light on temps will be ok in winter but the night temps low, summer I can use a 6" intake fan and blow in air from the cooler garage space . I can if needed circulate the air around the room and garage spaces to mix them etc, or take air from one or other or swap the vent and inlet around as needed.

It'll be tricky to get right, I know In winter.

I shall fit some tube heaters for the coldest days, have the fan on a relay from the light switching to a variac controlled low setting at lights off, use a couple of fan inside to get the air mixed up well and moving.

I don't fear summer cause the garage is always cool thats simple...Lights on winter is ok.

I was considering tiling the floor/using underflooring heating, thats cheap to setup and I can encase the tubing in a concrete like substance, that will soak up the heat and give it off evenly and slowly...

Ive got some plastic vent grilles that I can add foam to (light and pest filter) they have a pipe flange on the other side, will add 4 vents to the lower walls of the room, this means I can mix and match inlets say taking two from the roof space and two from the garage space or taping over 1 etc ...After a while I should have an easy system to deal with various conditions.

I'll sort it, just after some weed this time, I got plenty of time to perfect the setup. Not ideal in a garage roof.

Helps that its always 5C or more warmer than it is outside during the day, lights will be off in the day, so that will lower the cool issues.

RE: Hot temps. Not too worried, as said the garage space is cool as its shaded, will take air from there in summer, either passive or use a 6" ruck to force air in.

I'll be using a variac controlled high power 8" RUCK for extraction. Might make a 4 stage variac, Thermostat for max power overide, variac's doing lights on hi/lo and lights off speed.

This should manage with the summer temps fine as 8" is pretty big and running slow will be silent at lights off and just do whats needed.

I need a new ballast anyway its shit, I might stick in two 400watt lamps

Thats a 600w atm that'll do fine.

well done mate its a fantastic room!!, i love the kitchen door as an entrance pure brilliance!!

Classy door eh...You can cook up all sorts of fun in da roof!

I was given a cupboard, hopefully the person who donated it never asks what happened to it

Now...This room reminds me of a telepod from "the Fly".

Electrics will be the next job.

Now...Do I smoke the AK48 or more Cheese?!

This Cheese is killer, about as good as it gets. Bit heavy though.

Was looking for a decent yeilding "up" smoke, might have to wang a couple of AK48's on there soon. I like the cheese but the AK48 gives me a more active and happy buzz.

That's 3 himalaya golds in there for a test run. Let them go wild, I will use a screen and maybe switch to hydro when I want to maximise my space get properly organised. Fan of letting things evolve

Thanks for the detail, i was thinking along those lines but dont have a cool air source. Running the cycle at night would solve some of the heat issues i suppose

Kingspan dude check my grow room out

220

Looking really good mate, i think you will need to paint the othe side of your MDF, its called "Balancing" it will stop the boards warping when one side absorbs more mosture fom the air than the other causing it to curl / distort.

Ill be keeping an eye on this as im in the process of building a box in the loft - looking good mate, how thick is the MDF your using?

MDF is just thin stuff, 6mm.

Actually pondered warping with thicker stuff, might get a mind of it's own, half the reason I went with 6mm, it's pretty floppy so easily kept under control, a simple skin. Im not too concerned, MDF's quite stable bar if you soak it.

Done a few more things, added some vents in sucking from the garage space below, added grille vents inside the room, ebay job, these come apart so I added some filter material inside the grill unit. Two vents fitted and ducted, 1 hald done, 1 to go. Got it mixing air from room space and garage space atm.

Got the RUCK fan, all good, 8" it's TOTAL overkill Running @ 35% atm...Air pouring through vents even at 35%! Good thing is its totally silent at this speed.

This thing is insane at 100%, with the small and not finished passive vents its like a bloody cyclone inside the room on max speed, almost like a vacuum cleaner, a chips packet was lifted off the floor and started to rapidly accelerate towards the outlet vent, ekkkkkkkk! lucky I grabbed it... on max power it sucked up some sawdust and vacuumed it out the room .

You can barely open the door there is so much negative pressure it sucks the door closed like it would snap your fingers !

Mounted the fan on some chains and tags as shown, tapped the fan body to M6 thread and screwed in two ringlets. Gaffa tapped up.

Plants instantly perked up when the air got moving and I sealed the room for the first time, humidity shot up 10% as the 600w lamp dries the air etc.

Next job is to finish the painting of two sections and do the floor, then I need to sort the electrics. Don't want to commit to anything atm till I get a handle on what is needed.

Piccy of my oldest himilayan gold plant.....Gonna be into 12/12 very soon, it's recovering from major surgery and manipulation, just tied it down and grow it outwards and removed some of the smaller shoots at the very base of the main side shoots, it has 12 tops...... its looking better all the time, its not had a great life so far, but an ok one!

Once the other crapper plant recovers from the topping and the fact I bend it over 90deg to get it grow low and with side shoots only they can go into flower.

Good news is the smaller plant, my 3rd has the best look of all of them maybe as the environment has been improving, but the phenotype is like the 1st big plant, good, the other is different, just having fun bending them etc, test grow ... this small one will vegged for a few more weeks in another space and trained and then go in to flower, gonna get some new seeds this week and start something different.

Big plant shows female preflowers.

I've resisted the urge to flower cause the bigger plant/s with give me a decent yeild and justify vegging one plant under 600hps for 3weeks!

Coming together slowly

My reflector is a pile of shit, big hot spot under it and I dont have height, I will be making my own alloy cool shade next, I will need the lamp heat in winter so will have one end open and the other end with a fan just sticking the air back into the room, what I can then do is have the fan aiming at the vent in summer or have it blowing out the other way in winter, so sort of cool tube but not! I don't need a cool tube as such or to vent through it and out, I need to get the lamp as low as possible by having a glass plate and venting and having the reflector sized just right to slot right up to the roof of the room....

This is why I haven't made any fixed plans bar the basic construction!

Currently facing really cold temps in my garage roof.

Plant looked pissed off yesterday morning, roots down 11C and air down the same, all hunched up and looking limp and the new growth wasn't that lush green I had been used to.

So......

Went out yesterday found a 100watt electric blanket as an experiment.

I folded the double size blanket into 3, folded down to a 1/3rd it's size and covered it with floorseal plastic and duct taped it up. As seen in pics. Yes this is not supersafe However the room is on a dedicated RCD and the garage runs to the house RCD, so good protection on electics in this household!

I stuck this mat under my plant pots last night, I went everyhour to check before going to bed (4am!).

The plants just looked better and better, the root temp probe went from 20c to 28C this took around 5hrs, but during that time I've never seen the plants look so good I wanted to make sure the temps didn't go too high.

Imagine in the tropics the earth gets warmed to around average ambient, so the roots want to be aroun d 25C...simples?!

They had been a little cool I think, the big plant looked pumped up and looked better and better!

For another experiment I left all heating off last night bar the mat under roots.

The previous evening = root temps of 11C! ouch, the plants looked bad yesterday morning, all closed up and droppy.

This morning I awoke checked the plants just after the light had come on, looked awesome! Root temp never fell below 24C. Peaked @ 28C just before lights out.

The actual room temp (AIR) fell to 10C last night but the tops of the plants looked perfect this morning that healthy lush green growing look on the tops...without the root heating they looked awful.

This is an experiment before I get some proper heatmatts to sit the plants on to keep the roots over 22C all the time or fit underfloor heating.

Strains dependant also. I let some plants flower for 12weeks once in virtually freezing off light temp conditions, the pure sativa didnt seem to mind, bar slow growth, super smoke and yield?!

These mainly Indica (himilaya gold) don't like the cold!

Today my plants leaves instantly rose when the lights came on and they look like they are in growth immediately. Without the heat matt it took 4hrs yesterday for the plant to look like it was working, thats cause the rootball didn't warm up for 4hrs!

I spent ages noting what was happening as this is the first cold snap and ideal timing as I need to sort the flooring out and have been holding back to make notes on outside, inside, roof and room temps and the relationships between all of them before commiting to any ideas.

Today the heated roots obviously meant it didn't go to sleep / shut down due to cold smile.gif

Just some ideas...

I don't intend to use a rad or anything it's just wasted energy...

Heat rises...With a rad it'll rise right past the roots and go straight out the outlet fan...with floor heating you are heating optimally and heating the rootballs...

Im onto something...

Actually my final plan is underfloor heating for rootballs at night and having a 4 foot tube heater inside a long but small box that is connected to my intake, at lights off I will reduce fan to a level to keep humidity in control and heat the air entering the room using a 100watt tube heater, if needed via a stat. I don't need any heating with the lights on, bar maybe if it gets sub zero for daytime for more than day or two.

I can underfloor heat my room 1.5m2 for £90 for a kit and it's 150watts.

So I will be experimenting, roots kept over 22C all the time and only heating the "air" in the room if it dips below 10C. Note results and check plant health with higher air temps at lights on etc...

Ordered some Master Kush for my next batch of 3 plants

I started to grow MK last time but had to move and cull them, so it's unfinished business.

These Himi Golds are tricky. I won't be using Westlands Multipurpose + JI again, load of shit. They have perked up no end after moving to a mix of B&Q MP and JI, mixed 50/50 with JI No2.

I want to get the master kush in cause I know last time these grew faultless looking in veg with far from ideal conditions.

Working hard to get these Him' Golds "looking" right....Getting there now

The main plant has recovered from it's bending session So has the mid sized one and looks miles better for the rootheating!

Looking at other techniques for the small one. It's on node6 so could be topped now.

Not much else to report. Will be adjusting the cable to the lamp later so it's no running through the rear door I can then fix the dust/air seal to the door!

Gotta get this big sucker into flower 7 weeks veg and my room is small it's gonna be a MONSTER!!!!!!!!!!!! I've been waiting till I get the enviroment some way towards ok or atleast a handle on the temps and how to help the plants while I finish the room...It's gotta go into flower this weekend though...It's got preflowers all over it now.

a 4 foot tube heater inside a long but small box that is connected to my intake, at lights off I will reduce fan to a level to keep humidity in control and heat the air entering the room using a 100watt tube heater, if needed via a stat.

Hey there gus... i been wondering bout this for years... i grow in a garage and in winter obviously the intake air is quite humid an cold... i been trying to figure how to warm the intake before it gets to my babies.... can you explain the highlighted bit in a bit more detail for me ?... i think you've got it sussed but its just not quite making sense to my wee stoner brain

cinderella ninetynine

Nice room m8! repect.... it will look even nicer when it's full of bud!

Hi there

Just a thought as your loft is similar to mine

last spring i started drawing air from false cavity next to redundant gas flu ( draws from vents all round the house)

got a big fan pushing down warm air - on shelf 12 inches above canopy

small fan kicks in lights off sat above shade pushes warm air that rises over to big fan

if you have good air flow try fans 15mins on 15 off during lights off

most of my pots are raised on foam blocks or pots upside down - to let warm are get around them

last upgrade was 50mm kingspan on floor - im only 10 stone so i can crawl and walk on it


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do you have cavity walls ?


hb

As if by magic.



It is full of bud

Sorry for no updates I gotta get through this crop before I can do any more.

RE the heater box;

Didn't really work I've scrapped it. I now have the tube heaters sitting by the passive intakes inside the room, two 140watt ones, the air has to pass over them before entering. They give me 9C over the ambient. Which has been ok so far. The garage shelters me from the elements to some degree.

I am taking air from the garage below, so its been too humid the last few days (75-78% RH lights off), I found that by putting a dehumidifier into the room its gives me another 2-3C and humidity is now 45-48% lights off and 19C, I am using a cooltune now for obvious reasons I am just blowing this back into the room...Ideal as it dries the air and moves air and gives me 27C lights on.

All appears perfect atm, couldnt ask for it to be any better, look at the plants, they tell you a story, 4 weeks to the day from 12/12 switch.

I think will deal with all issues I have down to freezing. I'll just slow up the extraction when it gets ube cold. I got stacks of air exchange anyway 8" fan small room.

I am still heating the roots 24/7 on the blanket. They are on settings 2, constant 22C.

It seams to work so I will underfloor heat the room when I can actually get into to

About to extend it another 60cm, I just have to remove the front panel and move it down a rafter and stick in two more prepainted wall sections...I need to get my master kush in soon and I can barely get into the room

Got my carbon filter I need to make a stand for it cause its MASSIVE 250mm 10" inlet x 600mm.

Alot of work setting this up! Seems worth it though

Don't have cavitys just have to throw more heating power at it during cold snaps.