Growing Weed at Home: 7 Considerations When Choosing a Room for Your Indoor Grow
by Sammy Spade

A lot of new growers rush into setting up their indoor garden without a proper plan.  And dare I 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 yes.  Perhaps you would start a business by just moving forward and winging it as you went along.

Fair enough-so would I, to be completely honest with you.  But even so, I strongly encourage a methodical process for setting up your grow--in other words, there is so much at stake and so much room for failure that the
importance of a plan is even more crucial than in the case of setting up a business.

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.

1.  Concealment

A smart grower puts a lot of effort into concealment.  Even if you are growing medical marijuana and have gone through all the motions demanded of a legal pot farmer, and I 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 room 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?

In a stand-alone room separated from the main house, a fantastic location for minimizing damages and keeping it away from guests (dogs loose in the yard serve as a fantastic burglar deterrent), 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.  Your room will surely need a nice system that pulls out hot, stale air and replenishes the garden with cool, fresh air.

You might need to cut a hole into 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 structures up there, so make sure the crawlspace is big enough for you to get up in the attic and work.

Also, check out the gaps between your ceiling beams ahead of time to make sure you can run the ducting through without cutting through important framework.  Running ducting into the floor and under the house offers another options (if you don't mind a little tangling with cobwebs).

For outside rooms where no crawlspace exists, either under or above the room, the exhaust system presents a huge challenge.  What solutions can you brainstorm ahead of time to alleviate light leaks in a situation of this nature?

Perhaps building a compartment around the outtake vent and running the ducting into that compartment is your answer--in fact, there are many possible solutions, but figure out yours ahead of time when first choosing your room.

3.  Space

How much home grown weed do you want to produce?  How many patients are you serving?  Many growers set up their indoor gardens to allow 16 square footage of space per each 1000 watt lamp (4 ft by 4ft beds), but I instead suggest 25 square feet of space per light (5ft by 5 ft).

However, you also need room to get in and around your plants so you can tend to them.  Resist the urge to fill every space in the room because if working on your plants becomes a hassle, you may not do it at all, a negligence that will surely lead to problems with funguses and bugs in the future.

What about the other appliances needed for growing premium home grown weed?  Where will you hang your fan and carbon filter?  Will you mount your oscillators on the walls, or will they just stand in the aisles?  Do you have room for a dehumidifier or even a heater should the need for either arise?

Break out a paper and pen and draw a to-scale diagram of your room, deciding where each item will go beforehand.  You will likely need to redraw the diagram over and over before coming up with the perfect layout for your room.

4.  Noise and Smell

Perhaps your neighbors cannot see your room, but will they hear it through the walls--the rattle of oscillating fans, your exhaust, and the hum of the ballasts?  Perhaps your guests will never pass by the door to your grow, or perhaps the door will be cleverly concealed to the point of invisibility.  But will the location adjacent to the living room make it impossible to mask the smell?

Will the grow affect your social life, or can you find a location in your home more fitting?

Of course, there are ways to deal with smells and noises, like carbon filters and sound boards as well as other techniques, but plan ahead so you know which measures you need to take, if any.