Thread: For GPSFrontier
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Old 01-15-2017, 03:59 PM
shillamus shillamus is offline
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Location: Eastern Shore, Maryland
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Originally Posted by GpsFrontier View Post
Hello shillamus,
Yes, water drainage is what I was trying to illustrate in the second and third drawing. When it's below grade there are two ways to drain water. One, draining it right into the soil/ground. Two, using a sump pump. The simplest and cheapest floor is crushed rock. A 2-4 inch layer of crushed rock will allow water to pass through right into the ground, while still keeping your feet out of the mud and keeping your feet dry as you walk around on it. Crushed rock is cheap, and depending on the color and type of the rock generally range in price from around $8 to about $24 a ton. Our rock yard will deliver it for free if you buy 8 ton's or more. Both our front and back yard are covered in decorative crushed rock. It's very common here in the Arizona desert.

While crushed rock will keep your feet out of the mud and keep your feet dry even when your using the hose, it's not a totally stable and solid surface. So if you have things like tables or racks that you want a solid footing for, you can rake the rock out of the way and set them on the ground. Then rake the rock back. That way they are setting on dirt, but surrounded by the crushed rock. That works well, but over time if the ground is wet and becomes muddy/soft under the footing a lot, the weight of the tables and racks will cause them to sink, thus lean/tilt.

So if you want a more solid footing you may want to consider using decking. Just like an outdoor deck, it will give solid footing while allowing water to pass through the slats. Again keeping your feet dry and out of the mud. But won't allow the tables and racks to be sitting on the dirt that can get soft when wet. Composite decking is more expensive than wood decking, but it's maintenance free and will never rot. So it's better for longevity, as well as saves you from having to move everything out of the greenhouse to do regular maintenance.

Cement flooring is cheaper than composite decking, but won't allow excess water to pass through. So if you want to have a cement floor, you need to install floor drains and a sump pump system. You can even run sink drains into the sump pump.

The rotating hydro systems have been around for quite a while, at least a decade. I'm not saying it is, but that video reads like a commercial. Especially in regards to the led lights they were using. They claimed that the LED used less electricity and produced little to no heat. Neither claims are true. They said it was a 504 watt light, but used 420 watts. Now that may very well be true, LED's often consume less wattage than advertised. In reality your getting short changed when you don't get the wattage the light advertises. But even with 420 watts, that light isn't able to provide much sq footage (coverage area) for the amount of electricity used.

400 watts of HID lighting would be able to do the same thing, and even give more coverage area. So what electricity are you saving? Nothing. You could have even replaced the LED lights with eight 4 foot T5 florescent lights (432 total watts) and been able to accomplish the same thing. So again I ask, what electricity are you saving? None. Granted with Florescent lights the actual energy consumption will be about 10% higher because of the ballast, so the actual energy consumption for 8, 54 watt bulbs will be more like 475 watts total. In that scenario the LED's are using 55 watts less. Almost the exact wattage of one of the florescent bulbs.

In reality you can easily use 7 T5 bulbs instead of 8, and your back to the same electrical costs. But Lets say for the sake of argument that you save 55 watts using the the LED's over florescent lights. Running those lights for 18 hours a day, those 55 watts less are only saving you 10 cents a day, that's a total savings of $3 a month. Vastly different than the manufacture wants you to believe. Now I don't know how much that LED light costs, but you can get a 4 foot twin bulb light fixture with the bulbs for about $40. Times 4= $160. I'd bet the LED used cost more than twice that. With a whopping cost savings $3 a month it will take a long, long, long time to break even in cost savings compared to the much higher equipment cost. That's just compared to florescent lighting. Compared to HID lighting there won't be any cost savings, in fact the LED's would cost more in electricity.

As for the claim the LED's produce little to no heat, again that's simply not true. The LED' bulbs themselves produce little to no heat, the heat is emitted/released by the circuitry. A watt is not only a measurement of electricity, but a measurement of heat as well. LED's use a internal fan to cool off the circuitry. A 400 watt LED light is still putting out 400 watts of heat, it's just doing it out the back end where the circuitry is, not through the bulbs themselves. By saying that LED's produce little to no heat their misleading consumers.

The rotating Hydro system is nothing more than either a drip or flood and drain system depending on how their water system flows. The rotating doesn't really do anything for the plants. While it looks neat, the motor needed to do the rotating is just wasted electricity and has to run 24/7. The rotating system doesn't do anything to make the space more productive either. You can easily grow the same amount of plants with the same footprint and height on stationary shelves. In reality the rotating action is only needed to evenly water the plants. However if you turn the system on the side and water from the top, there is no need to use electricity to rotate it. Anyhow I agree it's fancy. but fancy means more complicated and expensive, not necessarily more productive or better. So Ive never been impressed with rotating systems. You can't even grow taller plants with them like tomatoes or peppers, all you can really grow with them is different varieties of lettuces and micro greens.

Yeah I thought it more a novelty.. If you had a choice between LED shoplights and flourescent shop lights which would you pick.. HID eat a lot of electricity and cost a lot.. you seem to think they are effective?

LED's are attractive because of long life.. but I have not had much luck with the LED housebulbs lasting after plopping down 10-15$ for one.. The last two "100W" I bought seem to be doing very well and they were less than 10$.. If I could find the old silver refelctors cheap I would put up some light sockets with these bubs,,

I do know growers that are all hyped up on spectrum.. I can't afford them.. I helped my associates in California with their indoor medical grow. I did all the electrical to install 12 Solarstorm 880 light fixtures. They bought 20$K in lighting fixtures

https://californialightworks.com/pro...lar-storm-880/

The young growers insisted it had to be that light fixture even though there were other grow lights at half the cost and power that were effective. I think it was overdone. But it works at 80 amps an hour and the electrical bill is astronomical.


Last edited by shillamus; 01-15-2017 at 04:29 PM.
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