Cutting cost by 20% around your energy consumption within your grow up

Growing Environmental Controls
21

So with Oklahoma just recently legalizing August of 2018, I had the opportunity to design my building for the slab up. I designed the structure out of metal because of the tornadoes we have here I did have to go with a thicker gauge to withstand the force. I closed cell insulated the whole structure to create my seal. Everything from veg/pre/flower are all gravity fed watering systems that feed from the bottom instead of top-feeding to reduce not only the energy used by electricity but human input as well. Im balancing my living soil by using red-worms and mites and this seems to do well for me to keep the soil energized until harvest. I used LED lighting in every part of the building from grow lights to security to shave my energy consumption again and by my use of living soil I require no outside inputs to my soil and no water waste. I hope I can see more people moving towards designing grow facilities like this. After the first 1/4 I will share what my total energy cost were compared to anyone’s of the same to measure differences and how either of us can improve.

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22

I think other growers would find that very helpful. Thanks for offering that!

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23

Saw these insulated studs the other day. Pretty cool technology for new buildouts. Insulated Studs? This is a BIG Innovation in Framing! - YouTube

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24

I would be curious about the Zero Water waste. How do you eliminate water waste within your water treatment? I can see it if your water source has low contaminates levels but it does guarantee consistentcy. RO provides sustainabilty with the feed water, and there will always be waste with RO.

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25

Apologizes, you are correct that I do have the waste of my filters coming from water treatment . When I referred to water waste, what I was referring to is coming from using living soil with the mix of the Auto-pot system out of the UK to bottom feed and eliminate my need to run nutrients in my lines and the plants have to opportunity to self-water via gravity feed. So I was referring to the actual runoff and plant waste. Until Graphene becomes the new standard for water filtration I think it will be impossible to eliminate all waste unless you just have great water.

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26

Hey now, this is definently something to think about for future builds!

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