Converting shed to grow room

TJ_BASS

TJ_BASS

Well-Known Member
Any advice on turning my shed into a decent grow room. Things that I know that have to be worked on is,
Installing electrical
Insulation
Heating and cooling

Looking to extend the electricity to the shed properly and follows all the national electric codes.
Looking to install a sub panel and a 60 amp breaker. (Is 60amps enough? Or should I get an 80amp)
I only have a little bit of equipment rn but I’m also gonna have to think about a window A/C unit fans lights etc.

Any other things that you guys could let me know about would be great.

Cheers bongsmilie
 
pine boy

pine boy

Active Member
Pond liner on the floor after you caulk everywhere you can. The do some pest management outside the building and keep doing pest management so you dont have to spray anything inside on your plants. Add replacable panda film or reflectix to the walls Paint is better but you get a do over with plastic when its old.
Thats all I got
 
A

Apalchen

Well-Known Member
If it's legal blow that bitch up if it's not well blow it up anyways but be careful. Not sure on your situation but it's gonna be hard to hide if you got neighbors with a view of your shed.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Figure out how many amps you're going to need before investing in a too big install.

Impossible to go further not knowing your ambitions. 6x8 or 20x20' shed? Different needs.
 
TJ_BASS

TJ_BASS

Well-Known Member
The shed is about 10ft by 11feet but I’m not even gonna use all the space because there is stuff in there. I’m clearing it out right now and the total space I’m gonna use is about 10ft by 4ft.

I do got a pretty tall fence neighbors can only see the top of the shed and the window which I will try to light proof.

I have a lot of little cracks on the floor that I will seal up and I need a way to get rid of all these spiders.

Watering my plants won’t be an issue especially being discreet about it but I’ll watch out for sure.

Any advice on water proofing and preventing mold and fungus from moisture?
 
TJ_BASS

TJ_BASS

Well-Known Member
I might split the 10ft by 4ft in half for a perpetual grow cycle so each grow space would be 5ft by 4ft approximately.
 
TJ_BASS

TJ_BASS

Well-Known Member
I can start my seedlings in my own room I have no problem with that. vegging and flower will have to be in the shed.
 
TintEastwood

TintEastwood

Well-Known Member
Nice size.
Before plants. I would double bug bomb inside and spray outside, under and around the shed.

Outside.
Thats your first source of potential nightmares. Thrips, mites and other pests clinging to everyone (clothes, shoes, hair) who enters the grow. That assumes you have insects where you live. Lol
 
thumper60

thumper60

Well-Known Member
TJ_BASS said:
Any advice on turning my shed into a decent grow room. Things that I know that have to be worked on is,
Installing electrical
Insulation
Heating and cooling

Looking to extend the electricity to the shed properly and follows all the national electric codes.
Looking to install a sub panel and a 60 amp breaker. (Is 60amps enough? Or should I get an 80amp)
I only have a little bit of equipment rn but I’m also gonna have to think about a window A/C unit fans lights etc.

Any other things that you guys could let me know about would be great.

Cheers bongsmilie
Click to expand...
how cold does it get in winter?
 
New Age United

New Age United

Well-Known Member
I used to have a grow shed, built it for 3 grand, it was 8 by 8. You gotta insulate everything even the floor, since you're doing all new electrical use the red heater wire and I believe I had 2 40 amp breakers running 2 600w HIDs. I decided not to put a baseboard heater in and it was a mistake, I would definitely suggest a baseboard heater it cost way less than any other heater. An dual port air conditioner will be needed, I picked mine up on Ebay for $220 otherwise you're looking at $600 new, get one that does heat to so that in the winter you can heat the outside air before it enters the shed, it cost me $250 a month in the winter but I was using an electric oil heater it was a dinosaur.
 
Renfro

Renfro

Well-Known Member
TJ_BASS said:
Looking to install a sub panel and a 60 amp breaker.
Click to expand...
I am all for pulling extra power but thats a lot of power for that space. We should do a load calculation to see what you really need and if you want extra keep it within reason. We also want to balance loads that are 120 volt when we run the circuits. So you have your 240 volt loads and then you try to divide the other 120v loads into circuits that are evenly balanced between legs.

If you had 4kW of lights that would be around 17 amps on 240 volt or 34 amps on 120 volt. The AC and dehumidifier are the other big loads. Then you have fans, pumps and other lights loads.

Remember that you can only use 80% of a breakers ampacity before it will trip. So if you are running a 40 amp subpanel you can only draw 32 amps, if either leg exceeds that you will trip the breaker. A 50 amp panel would give 40 amps. A 60 amp would give 48.

Unless it's a really big shed and you are gonna run 4+ kW of lights, it's very likely that you can run a 40 amp subpanel since you probably won't exceed 32 amps if you load balance and run the lighting at 240 volts.
 
Renfro

Renfro

Well-Known Member
POLISHSTONER said:
I have no idea but it's like mental retardation because you are using the sun to simulate the sun. But that's what these fucked up laws do. Gotta keep it secret.
Click to expand...
lol right? At about 18 percent efficiency on the power side then whatever type of light you use wastes energy as heat... So you are probably around 5% efficient in the end.

I was doing math to see if I covered the whole roof of my commercial building how much power it would make and it only came up to about 14% of the lighting energy (just the lighting, not including AC and everything else). So not really worth the time and money.
 
P

POLISHSTONER

Member
Renfro said:
lol right? At about 18 percent efficiency on the power side then whatever type of light you use wastes energy as heat... So you are probably around 5% efficient in the end.

I was doing math to see if I covered the whole roof of my commercial building how much power it would make and it only came up to about 14% of the lighting energy (just the lighting, not including AC and everything else). So not really worth the time and money.
Click to expand...
I thought it would be way more than that
 
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