May 25, 2021

Basement Grow Room Tips

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If you’re thinking about growing cannabis at home and there’s a basement, that might be an ideal grow room for yourself. You can never be too ready, so follow our basement grow room tips and avoid common basement grow room blunders. Yes, basement grows can go wrong, so don’t underestimate the grow room advice we’re about to share with you.

Basements are popular places to grow cannabis at home, but they aren’t always the best environment for a grow room. With the right strategy however, you can transform your basement into a successful grow room. If there’s a right strategy, then you can be sure there are wrong ones. So don’t be lazy or shortsighted and take some time to learn from others who have experience and knowledge you need.

Because basements are notoriously moist from high humidity, managing the humidity may be your biggest challenge. Thankfully when you’re managing the humidity well, you’re also helping prevent powdery mildew at the same time. Win-win. If you rely on cheap $10 hygrometers to monitor your humidity, you should buy at least three of them to make sure you’re getting accurate reads.

Unfortunately some basements don’t have windows, which is not helpful for your grow space. With windows, you can bring fresh air in, or exhaust air. If you’re going to blow cool fresh air in, consider using a HEPA filter, not a carbon filter, on your intake fan. There are different grades of HEPA filters, so keep in mind — you get what you pay for. If you’re going to exhaust air out, consider using a carbon filter if there is any concern about the smell of your cannabis outside of your home. As for all filters, don’t forget to change them regularly as recommended by the manufacturer.

Basements usually run cool, which is a positive thing for indoor growers. Heat can sometimes be a problem in basements, but usually only when you’re using lots of hot grow lights in the summer. By putting a rolling air conditioner in your basement, you could easily bring down the temperatures if you needed to. In the winter however, your basement may get quite cold. When you hang grow lights that run hot, they will help keep your basement temperatures up. Or you can use a space heater in your basement, but do not ever put a space heater inside of a grow tent!

If your basement smells you could have a moisture issue. To combat the moisture, get a quality dehumidifier running in there 24/7. You’ll need a large quality dehumidifier on wheels. It doesn’t have to be a commercial dehumidifier. Dehumidifiers will cost around $100 on the cheap side, and up to $1500 + depending on the brand and quality. Again, you get what you pay for.

Many growers put a mold and mildew primer on their basement walls. Consider the Kilz Mold & Mildew Primer for your basement walls. This primer dries quickly, has a low odor and has little to no volatile organic compounds. (VOC’s). Kilz Mold & Mildew Primer does contain an EPA-registered mildewcide.

 

Lastly, put the Airo Home Hobby air purifier to work in your basement grow room. The Airo Home Hobby will clean the air of all kinds of VOC’s, fungal diseases like powdery mildew, gray mold/botrytis, downy mildew, and blight. It works using a technology called photocatalytic oxidation or  “PCO.” As air gets pulled through the unit and reaches the bio-conversion reactor bed, the killing of contaminants takes place. The only by-products are trace elements of CO2 and water vapor, so there are no harmful emissions at all. It’s the most efficient, effective way to clean the air of the most harmful contaminants to your grow — powdery mildew spores and other fungal disease spores.

Because Airo Home Hobby units are built to last, they work for you day and night for 8 – 10 years with proper maintenance. Based on the cost and lifetime of the product, it is sensible and cost-effective to be powdery mildew free, year after consecutive year. By using Airo Home Hobby, you’re preventing powdery mildew like commercial growers who use PCO technology do.

If you’re thinking about turning your basement into a grow room, hopefully you’ll put these basement grow room tips to good use. Good luck on your basement grow room!