Oftenly happens that a customer comes to our stores asking for information about how to plan a grow-room. In this, as inmany others, as much we can plan before much money we'll save, efforts and headackes. Is so much easier to spend 15-20 minutes thinking about how should it be, than proceed with no plans. Correct errors could take us ten times more time, in a specially important place.
Plannify a grow room
First think we should do is decide what we need, to choose the proper place. Indoor gardens should be proportional to grower's needs. Proportional means that all aspects should be in relation (i.e.:it is not recommended to use a 100m2 for ust one lamp that cover 1mx1m). Sometimes a bad choose, of a certain place, can derive in many other problems for grower (i.e. gardens overoccupied by plants in wich grower has no way to move inbetween).
A basement can easily get flooded anb ruin all our dreams.
Places for growth
There are better places than others to start growing indoors. After many years, we can certify that penhouses suffer because of heat in summer, and low temperatures in winter. Locals at street level or in basements usually have a better average range of temperatures. Less changes in temps and usually higher humidities (take care with this point).
Some growers choose to move country side and other prefer to be in the middle of the city. Pro and against:
- Countryside areas with no neighbours: Sometimes is good to be far away and sometimes it could become a problem: In cases of smelling skips, the garden will be easily detected.
- Urban Areas: Noisy tools like extractors, pumps and others could be annoying for neighbours. If your neighbour calls police before asking... Bad news!
Calculating the space needed for growth
Sometimes the decition is easy ( we only have that certain place). To choose the place we must make a relation between space available, space available for work and space occupied by plants.
The easiest way to calculate space needed is nowing how many lamps we want to use:
Every 400w-600w lamp is able to cober perfectly an area of 1 square meter. Some growers calculate that every 600w lamp covers a 1,2 square meters to improve at maximum the light used /yield per crop.
Once we know the number of lamps that we will use, and the space that they will occupy in surface, our advice is multiply it per 2: to get all square meters needed for the grow room. Yields become bigger when growers can arrive close to every single plant. At the same time if a pest appear will be fasten detected. Why? Gardens with less working space, as it is difficult for the grower to access, it will be difficult to control any issue until it affects the whole garden.
We can classify grow-rooms these way:
1 lamp per 1m2 of grow-room: Overpopulation of plants, difficult access for grower. Not recommended.
1 lamp per 1,5m2 of grow-room: High population of plants. Few space to work in. Just if there is no other option.
1 lamp per 2m2 of grow-room: Correct population of plants. Easy to access and control.
The perfect indoor garden.
Air flow needed in grow-rooms
Alive plants breathe and need air flow renovation constantly. It is essential to give them an intake and outake to outdoors. If the room has no windows, or holes for ventilation, better not use it. Connection to outdoors gives growers option to use extractors to guarantee the intake/outake to grow-room. In a grow-room we should proportion to these parameters:
- Volume of the room in m3
- Number of lamps
- Number of plants used
Relationship between number of plants and extractor's size:
| Nº de Lámparas | EXTRACTOR | INTRACTOR |
| 1 lamp | RVK125A1 | RVK100A1 |
| 2 lamps | RVK150A1 | RVK125A1 |
| 3-4 lamps | RVK200A1 | RVK150A1 |
| 4-6 lamps | RVK200L1 | RVK200A |
| 8-12 lamps | RVK315A1 | RVK200L1 |
Distribution inside grow-rooms
By common sense we will try to keep all the floor as clean as possible. Everything we can hold from the top must be kept away from the floor.
How to set up air extraction
Air system (extractors and tubes) occupies a large space. One of the best ways to avoid annoying places is to keep all the machines (extractors and fans) holded on the top of the room (is good to use silentblocks to reduce vibrations). Once extractors and fans are holded, is recommendable connect tubes as straight as possible to the exit (specially with the extractor because the efficiency depends on how many heat is able to extract).
We hope this information may be interesting for new growers or those who are looking for a new place.