A lot of new growers rush into setting up their indoor garden without a proper plan. And dare we blame you? As an exciting new chapter in your life with great rewards, you’re anxious to get started… but it’s also an endeavor rife with challenges. Challenges you need to take very seriously.
Deciding which room of your house to use for producing home-grown weed presents a complex problem, and reserving some meaningful consideration goes a long way towards making your job easier and your grow a more successful endeavor.
Would you launch a business without a plan? Probably not. Or perhaps your answer is yes. Perhaps you would start a business by just moving forward and winging it as you went along.
Fair enough, so would we, to be completely honest with you. But even so, we strongly encourage a methodical process for setting up your grow. Although it’s possible to wing it with growing cannabis, there is so much at stake and so much room for failure that the importance of a plan is crucial to saving you a lot of time and more importantly money!
Let’s look at some of the different aspects you want to take into account before choosing a room to try out your green thumb.
7 Guiding Principles To Creating the Perfect Grow Room
1. Concealment
A smart grower puts a lot of effort into concealing their grow from the public. Even if you are growing medical marijuana and have gone through all the motions demanded of a legal pot farmer (and I still highly encourage you to do so), you don’t want the whole world knowing what you are up to.
Even though you can run a legitimate operation these days, headaches are no less real if the authorities decide to give you a little trouble, even if just to make you uncomfortable. On top of that, you face a real danger from burglars, many of who are armed and dangerous.
So, secrecy is paramount.
Look at the different rooms in your house and consider how easy their location will make it to hide your grow once it’s set up. If growing inside, will guests notice something fishy going on, or can you just keep them away from the door to the room and call it good?
A stand-alone room separated from the main house is a stealthy location for minimizing damages and keeping it away from guests (dogs loose in the yard serve as a fantastic burglar deterrent), but how will you keep light from spilling out the door every time you enter the room during the “day cycle?”
2. The Exhaust System
Your exhaust system creates another challenge. With any powerful grow light, your room will surely need a nice system that pulls out hot, stale air and replenishes the garden with cool, fresh air.
A common option (this is probably what most hobbyist growers do) is to vent heat out a window using a fan plus ducting to suck air out of your grow space. The main challenge with this is making sure that your window still looks normal from the outside so no one can tell you’re using it as a vent. There are several ideas on how to do this!
If you can’t vent out a window for whatever reason, there are possible solutions for building your exhaust system directly in your house if that option is open to you, but safety is a huge concern when covering new territory. One idea to vent your hot air is to cut a hole in the ceiling and run insulated ducting through the ceiling. The ducting should run all the way to an outside vent to prevent heat and moisture buildup in your attic, which can ruin the structure up there, so make sure the crawlspace is big enough for you to get up in the attic and work.
If you’re doing this, make sure to check out the gaps between your ceiling beams ahead of time to make sure you can run the ducting through without cutting through any important framework. Running ducting into the floor and under the house offers another option (if you don’t mind a little tangling with cobwebs). If you happen to have a convenient chimney near your grow spot, that can also be a lucky option. Always get a second opinion regarding safety if you’re making any structural changes to your home.
No matter what, figure out your exhaust system ahead of time when first choosing your room!
To be continued…