In the beginning, there was a crawl space

Hello everyone.

And welcome to the Flannel grow diary.

I guess a good place to start is the beginning… I recently moved back to NZ (bro) after over a decade in Ozzy.
I wasn’t really planning to do this but I have a father who is wheelchair bound from a motorcycle accident (before I was born) and he is getting older now so having a son around to help him out with this and that has become a bit of a requirement. I don’t mind… I love the old bastard.

The flannel term is a nickname that he (dad) got from me and my brother because he pretty much wore a flannel shirt every day of his life for almost 20 years Id say, enough that when me and my brother were teenagers we just started calling him flannel man …and then just flannel, it stuck.

Aaaaaanyway. When I was a early teen lets say in the 2000s ? I had a crack at growing my own . Seeds pulled from a baggy and a few months later TA…DA busted by Mum moving them around the house during the day to catch the sun hahaha. At the very serious family sit down Flannel said, “well I don’t know what were doing with those two but Im keeping that one” pointing at the largest of the plants. We tended it together for a bit then cured and smoked it together with a few of his friends at a get together. Sadly my green thumb days ended there as I turned into a antsy teen and we fell out for a good long while.

But im back !

And Ill be buggered if im gona pay the going rate for the average weed going around in this city.
Flannel uses for medicinal purposes , it helps him to relax his legs and sleep so I have a semi legit reson for wanting some real medicine that I know hasnt been fiddled with.

Also on my side , I pretty much had to cut the herb superb out for a soild decade when I ended up working in the oil and gas industry. All that hard work and playing it straight led to a house , mortgage , wife , kid and eventually a serious mental breakdown related to the half dozen or so near death experiences I had while at work.So lets just say that a change of pace was on the cards anyway and an invitation home to help out and get a 9 to 5 that would let me see my family was welcomed with open arms.

Enough of the context … on to the growing.

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width

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short end

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Tall end

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So here is what I have to work with. Its a sloped roof which is a little unusual . You will notice the white walls… thats from my early teen years as a indoor grow god…for 5 minutes before it became obvious that 1) the light pouring out of the cracks was going to give me away and 2) Mum didnt appreciate her water fountain pump going mysteriously missing.

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The plan is

  1. build a small form work and pour some cement at the entrance and down the side with Gib board , that way if in the future I decide to go mad scientist and get all hydroponic on it I will have a water barrier in case of old man murphy rearing his ugly head.

  2. Gap filler all the gaps.

  3. White plastic all the walls

  4. Drill intake and exhaust holes through concrete blocks, yes I know that this job sucks…I did two already in this apartment.

  5. Begin questioning OG peepz on likely set up for this size room. Im thinking 4 plants ? that amount would likely only get me a smack on the wrist with a wet noodle if by some act of the almighty I got found out by Mr. 5-0

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Welcome to OG brother!
This looks like it could be fun; A dedicated blank canvass, very cool.
If you haven’t brought lights yet, I’d highly recommend led for the power saving aspect alone. There’s some shithot led aficionados around here as you’ve probably seen.
And so much good advice for the asking.
Formwork is some hard yakka. Could you just clean up the floors and a foot or so up the walls and use a polyurethane membrane? If murphy plays with any future hydro project, nothing would leak away(which might not be such a good thing either).
4 plants can yield a nice amount, while not being a constant chore. For that size of growth I’d think you might build a chamber in there to help concentrate the light, say maybe 1200 square or so? It would depend on your lighting of course. Use mylar film or similar instead of white plastic if you can.
I don’t envy you the core drilling job either mate. Especially considering you ideally want one up high and the other down low diagonally opposite each other. Heat shouldn’t really be a issue(?) but setting the holes this way will improve all air circulation.
My 2c mate, I’m keen to watch the show.
Front and centre seat to, woohoo!

OG the world!
Jay

Edit because brownies :yum:

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Nice space, if your planing on doing hydro or well any kind of growing and you haven’t even pourd the concreate floor.
I would highly advice you to look into a floor drain, if that is a option that won’t be too costly.

Im on for the ride, this looks like it will be good!

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Hi @Flannelb4itWasCool
Welcome to OG!

If I may be frank, I like your avatar.

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Welcome tell your dad hello also!!!

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Thanks everyone for the welcome love. Will post up some outdoor I have going as a side project while this build gets under way. The space you see in the pics was cleared out of all manner of stuff that “nah cant throw that away” so it all needed a new home which I installed today in a roof cavity elsewhere in the house. Now that that chore is out of the way I can start getting into it.

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:wave:

That’s a challenging space. :slight_smile: I’m concerned about structural compromise with the exhaust/etc. Can you go through the sheetock/gypboard wall seen at right?

:evergreen_tree:

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@cannabissequoia . Yes that is something I had thought of just a few hours before your post. It is actually doable with a bit of squeezing into tight spaces to run an exhaust and intake from that side. Thanks for the suggestion.

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Here is some outdoor I have been tending to. Planted them waaay late in the season and they took a bit of a thrashing from the high winds we get but they seem to be coming along nicely. Will be taking steps to get budding under way soon. I think they are getting some light leak from the house which is stopping budding in proper from kicking off and also the fert I have been using is a bat guano mix with a fair bit of N. So if I can eliminate the light problems and switch to a fert that aids bloom, she should be right maayte.

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:sweat_smile: No sweat :thumbsup:

A whole block removal could possibly compromise the whole section & I am unsure of what size the air vents would be but that’s still relatively small, imo. There’s also the option of running a small dehumidifier & a big carbon filter recirculating (no exchange) to lower odor. (rrrrreally big heheh)

:evergreen_tree:

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