Planning on setting up a 30x40 building

NukaKola

NukaKola

Well-Known Member
Do yourself a favor and frame multiple rooms. A 10x20 for veg/moms/clones, 10x20 for drying/curing, and 2x 20x20 flower rooms running on a flipped schedule to reduce amperage and cooling requirements.

I think you are way underestimating the amount of BTU’s you need. Even if you do 2 separate 20x20 flower rooms running flipped, that’s about 16 lights per room. Then you need to factor in all the other equipment, especially the Dehumidifers which will be pumping out a lot of heat to combat your high humidity. It’s always better to go overkill on cooling, that’s one area you do not want to skimp as a poor environment can easily ruin the crop. I think you are looking at ~8 tons per 20x20 flower room. That’s not including the veg room or drying room.

Your original plan of 6 32x4 rows with a 5 ton will not work. You would need ~48 lights to cover that and with only a 5 ton A/C that works out to a measly 1250 BTU’s each.

I admire your optimistic attitude but you really need to do some more research and go back to the drawing board.
 
Last edited:
Smacker

Smacker

Well-Known Member
NukaKola said:
Do yourself a favor and frame multiple rooms. A 10x20 for veg/moms/clones, 10x20 for drying/curing, and 2x 20x20 flower rooms running on a flipped schedule to reduce amperage and cooling requirements.

I think you are way underestimating the amount of BTU’s you need. Even if you do 2 separate 20x20 flower rooms running flipped, that’s about 16 lights per room. Then you need to factor in all the other equipment, especially the Dehumidifers which will be pumping out a lot of heat to combat your high humidity. It’s always better to go overkill on cooling, that’s one area you do not want to skimp as a poor environment can easily ruin the crop. I think you are looking at ~8 tons per 20x20 flower room. That’s not including the veg room or drying room.

Your original plan of 6 32x4 rows with a 5 ton will not work. You would need ~48 lights to cover that and with only a 5 ton A/C that works out to a measly 1250 BTU’s each.

I admire your optimistic attitude but you really need to do some more research and go back to the drawing board.
Click to expand...
I have been. I have several test strains I’ll be cultivating by Friday to get a better idea of the process. I also have been revising my initial layout and I agree with you. I think multiple rooms is the way to go. I’m thinking of doing a two level veg room. I have 12’ walls and a 16’ center height. That would be easy to do with a cat walk or something similar. I definitely underestimated my original havc needs but that’s why I posted here, to learn the expensive lessons before I spend a dime. lol. Feel free to laugh at my not to scale drawing.
 

Attachments

ilovereggae

ilovereggae

Well-Known Member
Smacker said:
I have been. I have several test strains I’ll be cultivating by Friday to get a better idea of the process. I also have been revising my initial layout and I agree with you. I think multiple rooms is the way to go. I’m thinking of doing a two level veg room. I have 12’ walls and a 16’ center height. That would be easy to do with a cat walk or something similar. I definitely underestimated my original havc needs but that’s why I posted here, to learn the expensive lessons before I spend a dime. lol. Feel free to laugh at my not to scale drawing.
Click to expand...
you are on the right track! I'll will say RIU can be a little rough around the edges at times, but this place isn't full of yes men/women. Ppl going to be honest and real with you. Some ppl get upset at hearing the advice but as long as you are willing to take a little criticism this place will give you a super headstart and help you from having to learn certain things the hard (and expensive) way. There are a few battle tested vets that have done builds at this scale that will be priceless for advice. @Renfro I havent seen you in this thread yet and I think your advice would be crucial.

I think building out seperate rooms is the right move. I would also think about setting up your grows in some perpetual rotation so that you are harvesting say 25% every 2 weeks, rather than 100% every 8 weeks. It will make the amount you have to process way more manageable especially if you are gonna try to do most of the labor yourself at first. Other people who have done larger grows at scale might think otherwise I will defer to them.

Last thing, on genetics. To really maximize yield you need to find your keeper genetics and have moms that will make clones that are uniform. This makes managing light height, watering, food etc all way more realistic especially at scale. Reality is this takes time to sex the plants, take cuttings from each pheno to flower to determine structure and potency, and then grow the winning moms big enough to make a clone army to flower. 50 quality clones is hard enough, 200 is gonna take serious work and planning and easily is a year of work just to get to that point. Which is why a lot of ppl just buy "elite" clones that are known producers and make their own moms, or just outsource that whole first step and buy trays of teens.
 
Last edited:
NukaKola

NukaKola

Well-Known Member
Smacker said:
I have been. I have several test strains I’ll be cultivating by Friday to get a better idea of the process. I also have been revising my initial layout and I agree with you. I think multiple rooms is the way to go. I’m thinking of doing a two level veg room. I have 12’ walls and a 16’ center height. That would be easy to do with a cat walk or something similar. I definitely underestimated my original havc needs but that’s why I posted here, to learn the expensive lessons before I spend a dime. lol. Feel free to laugh at my not to scale drawing.
Click to expand...
I think that’s a much better starting point. Two tiered veg is definitely doable with your ceiling height. What type of lighting are you planning on using for veg? I would consider investing in some LED’s or CMH for Veg to cut down on power/heat and allow you to place them much closer to the canopy giving you more usable height. A 1000w MH would need 24-36” distance from canopy for veg so two of those stacked is losing a lot of available height. Strip style LED’s and CMH could be as close as 6-12”.

One issue I can see with your flower area is that your two outer rows are 3’. You want to match the dimensions of your flower area with the type of lighting you intend to use. A 1000w SE HPS is intended for a 4x4 area, 1200w DE HPS for 5x5.

If you are using 1000w SE HPS lights I would consider doing 3x 4’ rows. This will also allow you to have walkways on the outsides of your outermost rows and give you space for wall mount oscillating fans.
 
Smacker

Smacker

Well-Known Member
ilovereggae said:
you are on the right track! I'll will say RIU can be a little rough around the edges at times, but this place isn't full of yes men/women. Ppl going to be honest and real with you. Some ppl get upset at hearing the advice but as long as you are willing to take a little criticism this place will give you a super headstart and help you from having to learn certain things the hard (and expensive) way. There are a few battle tested vets that have done builds at this scale that will be priceless for advice. @Renfro I havent seen you in this thread yet and I think your advice would be crucial.

I think building out seperate rooms is the right move. I would also think about setting up your grows in some perpetual rotation so that you are harvesting say 25% every 2 weeks, rather than 100% every 8 weeks. It will make the amount you have to process way more manageable especially if you are gonna try to do most of the labor yourself at first. Other people who have done larger grows at scale might think otherwise I will defer to them.

Last thing, on genetics. To really maximize yield you need to find your keeper genetics and have moms that will make clones that are uniform. This makes managing light height, watering, food etc all way more realistic especially at scale. Reality is this takes time to sex the plants, take cuttings from each pheno to flower to determine structure and potency, and then grow the winning moms big enough to make a clone army to flower. 50 quality clones is hard enough, 200 is gonna take serious work and planning and easily is a year of work just to get to that point. Which is why a lot of ppl just buy "elite" clones that are known producers and make their own moms, or just outsource that whole first step and buy trays of teens.
Click to expand...
ilovereggae said:
you are on the right track! I'll will say RIU can be a little rough around the edges at times, but this place isn't full of yes men/women. Ppl going to be honest and real with you. Some ppl get upset at hearing the advice but as long as you are willing to take a little criticism this place will give you a super headstart and help you from having to learn certain things the hard (and expensive) way. There are a few battle tested vets that have done builds at this scale that will be priceless for advice. @Renfro I havent seen you in this thread yet and I think your advice would be crucial.

I think building out seperate rooms is the right move. I would also think about setting up your grows in some perpetual rotation so that you are harvesting say 25% every 2 weeks, rather than 100% every 8 weeks. It will make the amount you have to process way more manageable especially if you are gonna try to do most of the labor yourself at first. Other people who have done larger grows at scale might think otherwise I will defer to them.

Last thing, on genetics. To really maximize yield you need to find your keeper genetics and have moms that will make clones that are uniform. This makes managing light height, watering, food etc all way more realistic especially at scale. Reality is this takes time to sex the plants, take cuttings from each pheno to flower to determine structure and potency, and then grow the winning moms big enough to make a clone army to flower. 50 quality clones is hard enough, 200 is gonna take serious work and planning and easily is a year of work just to get to that point. Which is why a lot of ppl just buy "elite" clones that are known producers and make their own moms, or just outsource that whole first step and buy trays of teens.
Click to expand...
I am not easily discouraged and this is a public forum so I expect a good amount of pessimism. lol. I’m planning to get to a point of perpetual harvesting. That’s the only way to maximize my yield and recover quickly from my mistakes. Thanks for your insight.
 
Smacker

Smacker

Well-Known Member
NukaKola said:
I think that’s a much better starting point. Two tiered veg is definitely doable with your ceiling height. What type of lighting are you planning on using for veg? I would consider investing in some LED’s or CMH for Veg to cut down on power/heat and allow you to place them much closer to the canopy giving you more usable height. A 1000w MH would need 24-36” distance from canopy for veg so two of those stacked is losing a lot of available height. Strip style LED’s and CMH could be as close as 6-12”.

One issue I can see with your flower area is that your two outer rows are 3’. You want to match the dimensions of your flower area with the type of lighting you intend to use. A 1000w SE HPS is intended for a 4x4 area, 1200w DE HPS for 5x5.

If you are using 1000w SE HPS lights I would consider doing 3x 4’ rows. This will also allow you to have walkways on the outsides of your outermost rows and give you space for wall mount oscillating fans.
Click to expand...
I plan on doing Mh in the veg room and 1000 HPS in the flower room. I originally had 4’ wall rows but thought it may be to cumbersome to care for the plants closer to the wall. Eventually I will swap to all LED but for startup I can’t get past the minimal cost of just changing bulbs in the retired out door lights. I was planning to mount my fans on the walls with some type of adjustable mounts. Thank you for your suggestions.
 
NukaKola

NukaKola

Well-Known Member
Smacker said:
I plan on doing Mh in the veg room and 1000 HPS in the flower room. I originally had 4’ wall rows but thought it may be to cumbersome to care for the plants closer to the wall. Eventually I will swap to all LED but for startup I can’t get past the minimal cost of just changing bulbs in the retired out door lights. I was planning to mount my fans on the walls with some type of adjustable mounts. Thank you for your suggestions.
Click to expand...
Are the lights you are getting dimmable? 1000w MH's are overkill for a 2-tier veg. A 1000w MH can cover a 5x5 for Veg so if you do use them for your veg area I would increase it to 5' wide.

As for the flower area just divide the space you save from deleting the 4th row and put that into walkways for the outermost rows. Trying to tend to the plants against the walls if you don't have walkways would be a pain and it would be a waste to do 3' rows if you are using 1000w lights because light would be wasted on your walkways.
 
Smacker

Smacker

Well-Known Member
NukaKola said:
Are the lights you are getting dimmable? 1000w MH's are overkill for a 2-tier veg. A 1000w MH can cover a 5x5 for Veg so if you do use them for your veg area I would increase it to 5' wide.

As for the flower area just divide the space you save from deleting the 4th row and put that into walkways for the outermost rows. Trying to tend to the plants against the walls if you don't have walkways would be a pain and it would be a waste to do 3' rows if you are using 1000w lights because light would be wasted on your walkways.
Click to expand...
Good points! I may do better to drop down to 400 Mh’s for the veg room. I already scored 2 1k Mh and a 1k HPS from the dumpster at work today. I’m going to try removing them from their outdoor housings tonight and test fire them.
 

Attachments

Smacker

Smacker

Well-Known Member
F80M4 said:
Wait... You picked up old lights in the dumper to start a medical show?
Click to expand...
Why not? With fresh bulbs the fixtures themselves will either be within a tolerable lux range or not. If not I’ll swap it out. Is it preferable, of course not. I definitely plan to upgrade to some premium LEDs but doing that at startup would double my initial investment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top