# building combination greenhouse / grow room



## epicstuff (Sep 16, 2012)

I'm drawing up a potential plan to build a 2 story  grow room ( downstairs) for the clones vegging and  and mother plants;  and upstairs  will be a green house . make it open with  deck with a  plastic sheet  tubular cannope'  style roofing with sheet walls. protecting from the wost  of the UV and rain and disguise what going on behind it..

The idea is to gain some stealth as it will be too high for prying eyes if \i  get a nosy neigbour check to see whats going on.  I have plenty of space on private land but natives dont respect that and will wonder through anyway.    I just want something super safe..

It would be a custom built house.  The down stairs to be the closed off grow room  the upstairs  big enough for  24 x 5 gallon pots in 3 rows.  with aprox 1/2 meter between pots.  I was thinking with plastic  tunnel roof design and walled by plastic  but not a sealed area  ie. space between roof plastic and wall plastic. maybe about 1/2 m  gap for air circulation
 I live in the tropics with pretty much 12/12 hour days and mainly hot sunny days so \i wanted to utilize the natural sun energy and save on the lights that would otherwise be needed for the size of the planned setup during flowering

  My main question is...  because  of the heat here.  will the plastic green house effect create heat problems.  although there should be plenty of gap for heat to disipate and an industrial fan moving the air around.
 or...... should i use a  shade cloth instead or aswell a plastic to cut  down the power of the sun.  

I think the goal would be to get 1/2 pound off each plant as I  need to show it viable to attract investor to fund costs.

 can anyone see any flaws to this idea. ?  will it work?


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## The Hemp Goddess (Sep 16, 2012)

I am quite sure that you are going to need ventilation fans to _exhaust_ the hot air to keep the greenhouse from getting too warm.  Just like a grow room, just moving the air around is not going to help with the heat.  Check out other greenhouses in your area to see how they are handling the heat.  I live in an area with huge amounts of geothermal activity and there are a lot of greenhouses (not for mj)--all of them have large exhaust type fans and louvers that can be opened for increased air movement. 

Don't want to rain on your parade, but I see some potential problems with this....Is it legal to grow where you are?  A greenhouse built to be stealth is, in itself going to attract attention.  I doubt that having it off the ground will keep prying eyes away and keep in mind that aircraft flying over have a great view of your greenhouse and mj grows quite distinctively.  Do you know how large an 8 oz plant is?  IMO, a half meter between pots is not going to be nearly enough space to grow 8 oz plants.  The plants will need to vegged until they are quite large to get 8 oz plants.  Are you going to have artificial lights in the clone/veg/mother space?  Working with "investors"  or even a single partner can be quite difficult.  Do you have the experience to do large commercial grows?


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## WeedHopper (Sep 16, 2012)

Carefull,cant spend that money from a Prison Cell. Might wanna think a little smaller and keep it inside for personal smoke.


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## HemperFi (Sep 16, 2012)

I once saw a grow room built under a green house. The green house was ground level and they had dug a basement under it for the MJ. They grew vegetables in the green house and weed in the basement -- was pretty cool. Good luck.

Peace


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## The Silver Bullet Special (Sep 16, 2012)

Instead of a two story green house why don't you just have an indoor veg area run by T5 lights and a smaller green house outside that's one level. Some outdoor plants can get to be 9 ft tall and 6 ft wide (I'm sure those at pound plants I have no clue).


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## Hushpuppy (Sep 16, 2012)

I think its a cool idea  I wouldn't think so big though. I would make the walls solid and make only the ceiling translucent with the translucent hard plastic sheets. That would make it less conspicuous and the roof being translucent would block some of the intensity of the sun. You could make it look like a work-shop/man-cave and then grow the plants smaller so that you don't have to veg as long to get them real big. The trade off would be faster rotations and then by having it broke into 2-3 groups separated by 4-6weeks, you would have smaller, more managable harvests more often.

For ventilation; I would first dig a large hole in the ground and either brick it or put large barels in the hole, then build the building directly over the hole and then extend some flex hose down into the hole to pull the intake air up into the building(the earth under the building would cool the air significantly before it comes into the building) then have the roof sealed except for a couple exaust fans to pull the air out through the roof which would pull the cooler air in from beneath the building. This would also allow you to maintain odor control which would give you away quicker than anything if your setup was open.


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## epicstuff (Sep 17, 2012)

The Hemp Goddess said:
			
		

> I am quite sure that you are going to need ventilation fans to _exhaust_ the hot air to keep the greenhouse from getting too warm.  Just like a grow room, just moving the air around is not going to help with the heat.  Check out other greenhouses in your area to see how they are handling the heat.  I live in an area with huge amounts of geothermal activity and there are a lot of greenhouses (not for mj)--all of them have large exhaust type fans and louvers that can be opened for increased air movement.
> 
> Don't want to rain on your parade, but I see some potential problems with this....Is it legal to grow where you are?  A greenhouse built to be stealth is, in itself going to attract attention.  I doubt that having it off the ground will keep prying eyes away and keep in mind that aircraft flying over have a great view of your greenhouse and mj grows quite distinctively.  Do you know how large an 8 oz plant is?  IMO, a half meter between pots is not going to be nearly enough space to grow 8 oz plants.  The plants will need to vegged until they are quite large to get 8 oz plants.  Are you going to have artificial lights in the clone/veg/mother space?  Working with "investors"  or even a single partner can be quite difficult.  Do you have the experience to do large commercial grows?






Yes always guilty of thinking too big...    and not really  any  experience of anything that big either .  I can see many problems   Maybe I should check myself . the plan started out one thing then just kept growing coz on paper its more cost effective.
 I planned to turn the whole area into hydro salad garden for cover and an excuss to put up some good fencing ...  but  the draw back is going to be heat and I think if I had to start putting in big exhaust vents in the structure is going to raise some eyebrows from the locals.  

What they do in the hydro salad farms around here is have a misting system set up for the hotest part of the day, The fine spray would drift over the plants cooling down the temps.  Would that be good for MJ? 
 I havent seen any proper enclosed poly green houses here. they are all open sided.   

The size was really to help give me plenty of space to work in .  I know 200g was ambitous,  anything over 100 was what I calculated and would do.   I dont really have a problem with space so it just sort of made sense to utilize some of it.
  What realistically could you expect from  5 galon pots, 4 -6 ft plants? 
.
 I just wanna find a way to use the 12/12 sun power.  

If the structues were smaller and  I made high walls and just had poly roof would there be enough daylight to flower without lights?  I dont know what the exact calculation would be but with the shade from the walls wouldnt you only get 5 or possily 6 hours of reasonable sunshine.


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## epicstuff (Sep 17, 2012)

Was thinking about making a pig farm for cover but not sure how that will sit with the locals being all muslim.... it might keep them out..  I could  try make the structures look like pig pens...    they'd also give me fresh manue and get rid of the evidence,, actually the more I think about it.......


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## 4u2sm0ke (Sep 17, 2012)

you need to understand how a Green house works...they are made to run all year..I know* Ray Jay* here has a poly enclosed Green house and grows great weed in it.   I just make hoop houses that work for me....I also Mist my outdoor on hot days ..this raises the Humidity around them....Ive since stopped it now cuzz the budds forming and fear of rot.  its hard to estimate what you will yield in a 5 gallon bucket..lots of variables that come into play.

heres a link to my buddies green house...this is last years thread  but he is still active and useing this green house...PM him with any questions...

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56484

hope this helps...take care and be safe


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## The Hemp Goddess (Sep 17, 2012)

I would sure feel better about you if you did slow down a bit--I think your idea carries quite a bit of risk.  

Yes, solid walls would pretty much block out the sun a big part of the day, partially defeating the purpose of a greenhouse.  IMO, you would need artificial light at least part of the day.  Part of the reason that I do not build a greenhouse is because I could not keep people away.  Even with solid walls, mj plants are quite distinctive when viewed from above.  Red-eyed Gardner got popped when a helicopter spotted his outdoor plants.  They use spray systems like you mentioned in the greehouses here.  It does get hot where I live, too.  They are growing flowers and veggies.  I do not see a misting system working for marijuana as it will encourage bud rot and other nasty things associated with bud moisture.

There is really quite a big learning curve to this growing thing.  I would never want to step into a 24 plant commercial grow if I didn't have some serious experience behind me.  Can you imagine how angry your investors would be if you had a couple crops not make it?  Spider mites, powdery mildew, bud rot, can do serious damage.  A stray hermie can pollinate an entire crop.  I don't really know that a huge grow is going to be more cost effective?  You are pretty much looking at the same needs per sq ft whether you have 10 sq ft or 1000 sq ft.  What will it cost to build the greenhouse?  I am looking to frame off a space in the back of an existing garage.  I have power in there, but need to run wire and outlets and a source for water, but no plumbing.  I figure a minimum of $500 just to frame out a 5 x 12' space, insulate it, drywall it, and get power and water to it.  And that is if we do all the work ourselves and find some good buys along the way.

I recommend starting a lot smaller with more realistic expectations.  And keep this to yourself.  IMO, "investors" would be a real PITA to have to deal with.  I wouldn't even really want to do a grow with my best friend.  Get some experience and then makes some decisions about where you want to go.  After several grows you have a lot better perspective.

There is NO way to accurately predict yield--there are simply too many variables.  The size of your plants is going to be determined in a large part by how long you veg them--it sounded as if you were going to veg with artificial light?  If so, you can veg them as long as you want and let them get to be monsters before you flower them.  However, if you are vegging with natural light, your veg time is dictated by mother nature.  While I am not sure, it would stand to reason that in equatorial regions where the sun is 12/12 year-round that the plants would start to flower as soon as they were sexually mature, probably giving you less yield per plant.  Land-race strains may grow differently.


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## Hushpuppy (Sep 17, 2012)

Yeah I have to agree with The Goddess here. A stealth green house is a cool idea but as THG said, there is far more to be considered, and you just don't know how much work a commercial or ven semi-commercial grow really is until you have grown a few runs. My bro has a semi-commercial grow that produces about 1-2lb every 6weeks and he has to work his butt off. He told me that he had no idea how much work it would be and he isn't even growing at capacity.

THG this is just for curiosity's sake; you don't think having a 4'-6'high solid wall with a 10/12pitch translucent roof would supply enough light energy to the flowering plants? My bro was talking about for the future of setting up something similar to save some money on lighting.


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## epicstuff (Sep 17, 2012)

THG...   you're not only smart but you care too..  Oh  how much I love you.....

I'll take a back step and focus on my new grow indoors for now.   Already killed 7 seedling through nievity. so have alot to learn about tropical grows.

Wish I could capitalize on all this land I got . I might have to give it up next year.  It kind of puts pressure on me to do something quick .  But plans made in haste have a tendency to backfire. and as you said the risks are high.   Apprieciate your candour...


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## Old Resin (Oct 26, 2012)

Outstanding THG-just Outstanding...


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