Grow Room New Basement Space Build

[Drownomatic]

I have been granted sovereignty of an 8' by 8' section of the unfinished basement, with a 6' height.

The first part of the plan is to frame out the room, and put up waterproof sheetrock. I plan of a slightly raised floor with a drain that will spill out onto the basement floor, and ultimately into the sump pump.

Its cool, and humid, and I'm hoping that I can vent to one end of the basement, and draw air from the other.

The big question is what to do for lighting.

I'm a gadgety type of person, and that part of me wants to buy the best water cooled UVAB lights on the planet.

In reality, I'm not a good enough grower to see the last few % gains of some exotic light setup. Better techniques could nearly double my current outputs, so I don't want to spend too much on diminishing returns.

Probably never going to run more than 4 plants at once, but the extra room will be welcome.

I will be welcoming all advice, suggestions, and criticism as this progresses.

 

[DCLXVI]

That is great. I hope you really design yourself a nice, functional, easy to work in space. With that sort of room you could run a nice big dehumidifier in the main basement area to keep everything nice and use a humidifier inside the room to maintain ideal conditions.

If budget was not an issue:

Scynce Raging Kush - programmable spectrum, dawn/dusk simulation, etc... some very high end features.

The Raging Kush II Vertical Grow Light - ScynceLED

High-powered, spectrum adjustable, waterproof, vertical grow light that delivers even PPFD onto and down into the canopy.

scynceled.com

Or GrowLightsAustralia

Products - Grow Lights Australia

High Light LED grow panels. High efficiency and quality – made in Australia. Replace HPS, CMH with proven yields, less heat and power. Beats Quantum Boards

growlightsaustralia.com

 

[myotis]

Sounds like a good plan, gona be watching this one.
Good luck
​

 

[Drownomatic]

Here's the raw space, after removing 65 bags of debris.

The object on the right side is an unused oil tank.

The floor is cement.

 

[Drownomatic]

Lots more cleaning before any real action, but I paid out some 8ft sheetrock beams to visualize.

Looking at the dropoff in the floor, I may scale back to 8x6. I'm going to first pour out some concrete, and self leveling compound and see from there.

I'm planning on building a plywood floor with a drain in the center that spills out onto the basement floor, and from there finds it's way to the sump pump. Similar to a shower pan.

I'm planning to insulate the walls of the enclosure. I want the room to be able to retain the heat of the light since my basement is unheated.

Because of the low height, I can't raise the light for more spread, so the patterns will be very important. Similar to lights intended for vertical grows.

 

[DeeDoubleYou]

How tall are you? I wouldn't be able to stand up comfortably!

 

[Drownomatic]

I'm 5'9"

Right now standing, my head is up in the joists. I also have to duck to even enter the basement.

It's also right by the hydronic lines to my apartment, so I can tap off a separate zone to put a radiator in there if needed.

It's not ideal by any means, but I will adapt and overcome.

 

[DCLXVI]

That is a ton of work. Great start and good luck! I thought you had just been given a section of regular indoor-ish basement area to pop a tent into. Shoot, you really are going to be building your grow space.

 

[Drownomatic]

It's such an odd proposition, no tent will be perfect, and since the basement contains the water, and gas meters, there is also an element of hiding in plain sight.

Until recently, there were also rats in this basement. Off to the left is crawl space, under 2ft height. In the back, I found an abandoned coal chute that had cold draft. I bricked that up, and have been pointing and filling gaps in the stone foundation where they have been entering.

I believe I have succeeded, but waiting on a few days of no action on my Wyze RatCam.

They had also been getting access through my sump. I built a cage over that now

So, likely I will be using cement board, or green board, or something like that for the exterior surface, and cover the bottom with roof flashing, or similar.

 

[Country Green]

Hell I hate rats, had one get into my house a couple of summers ago and it was all out war, think Caddyshack. It was terrible almost 3 months but I got it.
Goodluck