My Electrical Setup In Basement Room

I'm buying a house very soon and building an indoor grow room in the basement. It is a bit older so I will probably have to upgrade the service to 200 amp or possibly more.

I will not be doing any of the electrical work. A licensed family member will be doing all of the installation.

I plan on building insulated walls for a 10x30 overall space. I will be using 45 mm pond liner on the floor.

Stay Tuned for a grow thread in the future. 8000 watts, 36 bloom 12 veg cycle, Co2 tank/regulator


Anyways: Questions/Thoughts/Problems etc. Pls let me know what you think about this electrical diagram

Consider a CO2 generator. If you have natural gas it's the way to go.

Your gonna need power for cooling since using CO2 I am assuming a sealed room. Look into a ductless mini split.

Assuming 2kw in veg and 6 kw in flower. 1 ton veg and 3 ton flower.

Dehumidifier/s. Will need in flower for sure.

Pull a 125 amp sub. Don't split it just feed grow from it.

Yes its going to be a sealed room. I have thought about having air exchanged with intake/exhaust fans when the lights are out and the Co2 is off. Ideas?

The AC unit I bought is a dehumidifier also. It even has a hose it can use to evacuate the water rather then have a res on it fill up.

Now your saying pull a 125 amp sub for the whole grow but I plan on running the lights off 220v. I would have to buy all my equipment and accessories in 220v also if I did it that way correct?

Ans yes the setup is 6k/2k

Pop single pole breakers in panel for 120v feeds. Double pole for 240v feeds.

Never tight size panel. Its not going to cost more to put one big panel in compared to your three panels.

I personally know how grows change over time. Pull plenty of power and it will be there when you need it.

If your running 40 amps in lighting expect another 20 in aircon, more in dehu and fans.

Portable ac units arent what you want as they shit your CO2 outside.

I would probably want to get an AC unit on the outside of the room and run a duct to both rooms?

I guess I didn't know you could run 120/220 out of the same box. Ive only slightly read into electrical.

Does that look like a good place to start then? as far as doing 15 amp circuits for the normal plugs. x4

and the 220 for the lights a 40 amp and a 20 amp?

Use the portable as a dehu and grab a minisplit with two zones, a 3 ton zone and a one ton zone. I say 3 tons as it can handle the CO2 gen and dehu heat.Go with a low ambient rated samsung or mitsubishi compressor and check that it will resume function on power outage (don't want short power outage to kill ac but let lights bake things.)

Light feeds need timing so feed a lighting controller for each room.

I just looked into the mini split. Those are nice. They may have to wait but definitely in my plans now.

I plan to use timers that a hardwired with a protective box. One for both rooms. Is that what you would suggest?

Thanks for all the input. Before I learned about electricity and how to build my room I thought I had it all planned out.

I wasn't even starting in the right spot! haha

Using timers like intermatic t104 you would need to break down the timed flower with a subpanel sinch its greater than 20a. Your sparky will understand.

Would be simple to plug in a controller.

Everything snaps says is right on. Never exchange air in the room..simply no need for it. If your running AC hoods you could get away with 2.5 ton Minisplit. Your sparky can easily build you a light controller box. Feed 30 amp 220 into a 120v relay and than will power 4k of lights. So two of those and your set.

It's not hard and it's cheap. Your buddy will know how to set it up. But in a nutshell, you have a standard 120v timer and when that turns on it clicks the relays closed and bam! 240v power to your outlets.

Oh yeah...just use 120v outlets and cords. There is no difference between them and you will save allot of money. Just lmark the outlets 240!! With sharpie so you don't get stoned and plug a 120 fan or something into them and rots it.

Have fun and save your money. My sealed 9k tom cost me about 7 grand all said and done

Oh yeah, your going to need a BIG Dehu dude. Like a $1,500 Santa Fe.

I have a 110? Pint Santa Fe in a sealed 23' x13' with AC and co2 and the Dehu runs NON STOP.

Oh yeah.. You can fit a water cooked co2 hen and run off of natural gas. I have a thread somewhere explaining it. Total cost about $250 bit costs about 3 dollars a month to run and add little heat to the room

Is that how much the room cost? I only have about 10k and I will have to upgrade the amp service from 100 to 200, build the grow room, pay someone to wire it, buy all my grow equipment from scratch.

Right now I'm just using some janky equipment for a small grow in a rental.

The mini split ac and certain other things like expensive dehu may have to wait. I definitely will need one when the outside hum gets bad. In the north east its 0 degrees and dry as dust here right now. But in the summer it gets 90 degrees and 90% hum

Right now I can't keep the hum over 25% in my room. Cheap windows and crazy low temps.

All n all I only have about 10k. I want to do things right tho.

You prefer that over a co2 tank and regulator?

I would always prefer not having to haul cylinders around to refill. It is a lot cheaper in the long run to go with a NG CO2 generator. Bigger startup cost offset by super cheap cost of operation.

If on a budget vent and skip CO2 and ac.

You will use most of that 10k but you will more than make it up if you have the market. People often underestimate what it costs.

9 digital ballasts. 1,800
9 hoods.. 450
9 MH bulbs 600
9 HPS. 600
Copper wire, outlets,controller. 500
Oscillating fans 6 @50. 300
3 ton Minisplit, installed. 3,000
Thermometers, controls (temp), co2. $500
Dehumidifier. A good one not some piece of shit active air or home depot special 1,400
Then containers, media, and nutes. $700?

Where are we at now? LOL $9,800

You will just make it if you eat Taco Bell for a couple weeks.

legallyflying said:

You will use most of that 10k but you will more than make it up if you have the market. People often underestimate what it costs.

9 digital ballasts. 1,800
9 hoods.. 450
9 MH bulbs 600
9 HPS. 600
Copper wire, outlets,controller. 500
Oscillating fans 6 @50. 300
3 ton Minisplit, installed. 3,000
Thermometers, controls (temp), co2. $500
Dehumidifier. A good one not some piece of shit active air or home depot special 1,400
Then containers, media, and nutes. $700?

Where are we at now? LOL $9,800

You will just make it if you eat Taco Bell for a couple weeks.

Click to expand...

Your prices are to low a quality digi ballast is 250-300 plus tax hoods are 200-275 a piece bulbs in hydro store are atleast 100 a peice. If you buy used you could do it or ebay or such but shipping will get ya. I live south east and the hoods are cheaper in grow store compared to ordering online. I also believe 10k wont get you what you need. Do a half size grow 1 or 2 times then you will have plenty of money to build the empire. If you loose power at your house here and there then I woukd suggest stay away from hydro unless you have a monsterous generator. Soil is good but you have to buy soil and that also gets expensive but you can reuse soil everytime. I built a 7wide x 12long x 9 high room I only use a 7x6 growing area after building room w heavy insulation 3 1000 watts mini split dehumi fans bulbs filters t5s ducting pots soils nutes everything to growni have like 14 k in mine. A few thousand was waste as I bought ebb n flow tables more pumps more bubblers res that goes under tables built frames etc. But you will blow 10k and not have everything. I would again suggest half grow get what you need. If you try to half ass it you will end uo w half ass smokes

Check out amazon. You'd be surprised by the prices you find. I'm more concerned with the cost of the electrical and actual building of the room.

Also the mini split was never budgeted in. I can get by with my portable ac unit for now. All the hoods are air cooled.

I have no idea how much it will cost to have my sparky upgrade to 200 amp service and wire up my room/sub panel. I've estimated the cost of building the room.

All in all I have 10k and can def make that work if the room doesn't take half of that from me haha.

For example, no way I'm paying $100 a bulb. Not even at the grow shop on the corner. There may be one bulb that price in the whole store.

Check it out http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000OC4BJA

peacepipe17 said:

For example, no way I'm paying $100 a bulb. Not even at the grow shop on the corner. There may be one bulb that price in the whole store.

Check it out http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000OC4BJA

Click to expand...

USHIO makes some good bulbs as well for a good price.

Ummm. If your paying $250 a ballast then you must not live on the west coast.


12 k on that small of a room? Damn dude we set up an 18,000 watt bare bulb flower room for less than that. (No AC). But we do have 4 12" max can fans .