HYDRO Wall coatings?

[Geezis]

I have a small basement room (28” wide, about 6’1” deep, 6’6” ceiling) with three plain walls made of concrete, with a wooden door. Ceiling has 1 1/2” thick foam insulation board, cement floor. I want to create a custom DWC room, using a gravity system.

My question is: what should I paint/cover my walls/ceiling/floor with that would make this room as great for growing as possible?

[Toker1]

Most people coat with white for maximum reflection of light. I suggest using all mold resistant paints and insulation.
You can also use Mylar to cover the walls. It’s more reflective than white paint, but is not cheap by any mean.

[MJTECH]

I have a small basement room with three plain walls made of concrete, with a wooden door. Ceiling has 1 1/2” thick foam insulation board, cement floor. I want to create a custom DWC room, using a gravity system.

My question is: what should I paint/cover my walls/ceiling/floor with that would make this room as great for growing as possible?

My recommendations would be.

Get a bucket of drywall compound (mud), the size of which will depend on the square footage of the concrete walls, then using a flooring trowel put a few coats of mud on the concrete walls allowing a day between coats for the mud to dry out, building up the thickness of the mud to quickly will cause cracks to form in the mud.

The reason for this step is to make the concrete walls as smooth as drywall, smooth walls when properly painted are more reflective and smooth walls will save you money on how much paint you will need to buy.

For painting the walls I prefer white, some prefer silver, but white has excellent reflectivity and looks better and is easy to clean.

Don't buy cheap big box store paint, go to a paint store and buy a mid priced white base, good paint will go up easy and resist mold, with cheap paint you will use more paint per square foot to get good coverage and it commonly lacks mold resistance.

As for the floor, again good paint but use a paint designed for shop floors, commonly sold as an epoxy floor paint and you can get that in white.

The reason you should paint the floors is because there will be spills and what have you and you want a surface that is easy to sweep clean or if needed mop up easy, bare concrete will not provide that.

Once you have the paint work done get back with me and we can come up with hat you should do for electrical.

MJT

[MJTECH]

Most people coat with white for maximum reflection of light. I suggest using all mold resistant paints and insulation.
You can also use Mylar to cover the walls. It’s more reflective than white paint, but is not cheap by any mean.

Excellent advice.

And I would also recommend adding 3M glass bubbles to the paint, I use a couple of tablespoons per quart, the bubbles become embedded into the paint and are not reflective, but the surface they provide distributes the provided light in a really nice manner.

[Geezis]

Glass bubbles? Interesting. Would I have the paint store mix that in, or is it hard for me to screw up at home?

[MJTECH]

You can do it yourself, just add a tablespoon or two per quart and mix.

[alltatup]

28" wide?? How the heck do you move around in there????

[Geezis]

Being kinda big at 6’2” & 225 lbs., not easily!

[MBVapester]

Seems like a false wall area for stealth purposes. Maybe can have a few pictures or a bookcase that can swing open on that wall for access.

[Geezis]

That’s a great idea!

[Geezis]

It’s very narrow. It makes my wife claustrophobic, lol. It’s 6’6” high, 6’1” deep, and 28” wide. But aside from the ceiling & door, area is completely sealed via cement.

[MJTECH]

It’s very narrow. It makes my wife claustrophobic, lol. It’s 6’6” high, 6’1” deep, and 28” wide. But aside from the ceiling & door, area is completely sealed via cement.

You are going to need to be careful how you set your pots, 28" is boing to have you literally plowing through the growth, to the point you may cause damage to the plants.

Maybe consider a grow platform with casters, that you can pull out of the room for maintenance.

[alltatup]

I totally agree. I don't see how plants or people can have room to breathe--or good air circulation-- in such a narrow room.

[Geezis]

I plan to have four plants in the room max. I have my hydro box kit to grow seedlings until they’re ready to move to this room. You’d think if they can grow from seed-to-harvest in the box (as Unique Hydroponics claims), I’d be able to do it in this size room, am I wrong? I’m appreciating all the advice, please keep it coming! Total noob here.

[alltatup]

Geezis Can we see a picture of this room with something like a pot or a hand to give us an idea of how it looks? I just can't imagine it being easily accessible.

I wasted some money on a too-small grow box and it never produced a decent harvest: it was just too small. Not the same dimensions as your closet. Perhaps if I had grown and seriously trained one plant at a time in it, I could have produced more.