When it comes to growing cannabis, it’s not always an easy job. Simply because it’s not allowed in most areas around the world. Police are tracking down “cannabis farms” intensively and use multiple methods/tools to make it succesfull (for them).
Even helicopters are equipped with special camera’s and censors to track us down. So when living in one of those areas, it’s very important to make a stealth growroom for your cannabis cultivation.
Luckily there are multiple things you can do to decrease the chance of being tracked down by police or neighbours. It all has to do with the set-up of your growroom and how you build it. In this article we will talk about a few things you can do to keep your growroom stealth for law and neighbours!
Heat
Heat is major problem for cannabis growers. Not only could it damage your plants if the temperature is too high. It also makes your growroom visible for police of helicopters with infrared camera’s. Believe me, they use them more often then you think! So it’s very important to keep your room at a normal temperature.
The couse of these high temperatures are certain lights that many growers use. For example the HPS lights will emit lot’s of heat and could even warm up a complete room. So one thing to avoid this is by using different type of lights. Like LED’s. These are much cooler and won’t attract much attention. However, these lights are expensive and not everybody can afford them. In that case you need to look at different solutions:
Fans and air circulation
If you are not in the position to buy new, cooler lights, you need to look at other ways to cool down your growroom and lights. Begin with some fans facing the hot lights. The stream of cold air will cool them down eventually but only a few fans won’t be enough: Another important thing is offering a good-working air circulation so the warm air get’s out and cold and get’s replaced by fresh, colder air.
Now keep experimenting with adjusting these fans and circulation until you reach the right temperature. Be aware of the fact that your growroom also could get too cold for your plants. This has to be avoided at any time as coldness could harm your plants and attracts multiple pests/molds.
A good temperature for your growroom is +- 77°F or 25°C. When the lights are out, it can be a few degrees colder.
(Weather conditions can influence the temperature, so check your temps daily)
Sound
Sound is an factor that could also get you caught. A growroom requires many fans, electrical devices & other things like watering systems that will make sounds. Especially when living in a house/building with shared walls. Many growers have been caught because their neighbours heard strange noises and complained about it by the landlord or housing manager.
You can’t take away the noise that these devices make… They just make it and they are necessery for your growroom. However you can make some adjustments to the material and growroom to reduce the sound as much as possible. Some tips:
- Never hang or attach any vibrating devices directly to a wall. These vibrations can go through multiple walls making it possible for neighbours to hear them.
- Try to use a room for your tent/growroom that is not directly next to a neighbours room.
- Use foam or rubbers on every attachment zone of vibrating devices
- You will need fans and they will make noise. However by installing them on rubber, sound isolating pads, you will take away these vibrations.
- The air entrance/exit is also sensitive for vibration/sound. The tube that goes through a wall/panel will vibrate by the airg going through. Try to isolate every part of the tube that is touching something else.
- Use foam panels or Sound Isolation to put underneath your growbox/tent and attach to the walls of the room that contains your tent/growbox.
- Use a Decibel Meter before and after to see if it worked
Smell
One of the most common reason growers get caught is an intensive cannabis smell escaping from the growroom. Cannabis plants have a very strong smell in their flowering phase which is pretty hard to hide. The more plants, the stronger smell they produce.
Every growroom/tent needs a carbon filter on “the air exit”. This is the place where most smell escapes. However, a good working carbon filter will prevent this from happening. When buying a grow-tent set, the right filter will be included and you just have to install it. When making your own tent/room it’s important to the get right size of filter for the amount of air going through.
Find out more about Carbon filters
However, a carbon filter only is not enough to keep away the strong odor of flowering cannabis. Especially when you are building your own growbox/growroom it’s important that every little hole is covered and air-proof. The best way to do this is by using isolation foam and spray it on every corner, edge, crack and opening you can find.
Tip: Test it by turning on the lights in the growroom while surrounding it with darkness. Any opening will be visible now!
After using the isolation foam and testing it, you could get yourself some thick plastic foil to cover the entire inside of the growroom. Wall, ceiling and floor should be covered with the intention to create some sort of vacuum bubble. you can attach the foil using glue or small nails/staples.
The wall where the door/entrance to your growroom is, should also be fully covered with foil. Only cut off the 3 lines of the door so you can open it. Then get some extra foil that you should only attach to the door panel and make sure it overlaps a few CM on all sides so when you close the door, there is no open crack.
The trick to a smell-proof growroom is making sure that no air is coming out, except through the carbon filter!
Electricity
A very high usage of electricity could also draw the attention of the law or electricity supplier. Too bad a proper growroom will always use quite some electricity due lights, fans and climate control. The amount of electrical energy you use highly depends on the size of your growroom/tent, the more plants, the more lights (Watt’s) and fans you will need.
So always calculate how much energy/costs it will take to run your upcoming growroom and see if it’s not too much. If so, try to decrease the size of your growroom or use other equipment!
On most websites of energy providers, you are able to calculate how much electricity costs with a certain amount of Watt’s for a X amount of hours.
Size of your growroom/tent
Size is the most important factor when it comes to the amount electricity. Off course, the bigger, the more electricity it will need. So to begin, calculate and write down how much kWh/costs you want to spend on your growroom (also think about the fact it needs to be on for 18 hour a days in the first weeks). Based on that, you can look for the equipment that suits your wishes.
If you don’t want to use much electricity and these standard smaller tents or lights still consume too much, you might re-consider growing cannabis at all (or just start an outdoor grow). However you could also get creative and build yourself a small growbox for just one plant. Great examples are Spacebuckets or closet grows! These have to lowest energy costs!
Lights
The biggest consumers of electricity are the lights. So if your are not in the position the consume massive amounts of energy, this is the first thing you need to look at (in combination with the size of your growroom). There are many different lights you can use to grow, some use LOTS of electricity, others don’t.
For example:
HPS lights are known as lights that use LOTS of electricity. For a small tent you already need a 400W-600W light and with a slightly bigger tent, you need multiple of them. This quickly add’s up which is something to avoid if you don’t want big electricity bills. One benefit of HPS lights is that they are pretty cheap to buy compared to other types.
LED’s on the other hand use way less electricity while producing the same light intensity/results. With a good quality LED you are able to grow just as much, while using +- half the amount of electricity. However LED lights are pretty expensive compared to other lights, so you have to see it as a small investment.
When looking for lights, it’s important to know what power your light needs for a particulair surface. Especially if you want to save on electicity, you need to take everything out of your plants! In some cases it’s better to to get yourself a higher wattage light, in other cases you better go for 2 lower wattage lights:
- Many plants, close to each other on a small surface. Go for 1 stronger light
- Just a few plants in the same small surface, but with a little more room per plant. Go for 2 lower wattage lights!
Never use more much light then you actually need. A great tip is reading other people’s grow reports on forums. There you can compare results based on different lights and wattages and you see how much watt you need for a certain growroom/tent size.
