Are you looking at building a grow room but don't know where to begin? There are many different elements involved in creating an optimum plant growing setting. The area you select to build it in is not near as important as how you construct your grow room. In order to have a productive experience, you must be able to control all of the elements of your grow room, and in order to do this you must have control over your air. This is why one of the most crucial features of this room is the fan. It is crucial that you do your research before starting because everything from temperature to humidity is dependent upon quality air circulation.

Without correct air circulation, your plants will use up all the CO2 in your room. This is not so great news since CO2 is what plants feed on. Your ventilation system must have an intake and an exhaust in order to keep a regular flow of CO2. These two components permit old air to flow out and new air to flow in. There are other purposes that this system serves as well.

Artificial lights are required when growing a garden indoors. These supply both light and heat, but if too much heat is generated your plants will suffer. Air-cooling your lights are a good way to prevent this; this allows for control over both the atmosphere and the temperature inside your grow room. By placing your intake fan at ground level and your exhaust higher, the intake fan can run cool air across your lights and as the heat rises the exhaust will let it out. Depending on the size of your grow room you will need a smaller or larger fan and exhaust so that you can adequately control temperature. There is a very simple way to calculate this.

First you must determine the volume of your grow room. If you are using a typical rectangular area, this is relatively simple. The formula is volume=length x width x height, so in an 8' x 8' x 8' room your volume would be 512 cubic feet. There are other ways to compute the volume if your room isn't rectangular.

Determining the Cubic Feet per Minute or CFM is the next step. In order to adequately cool your space your grow room fan system should be able to totally exchange the air in your grow room every 3 minutes. Using the example above, 512 cubic feet/3 minutes=171cfm, which is the minimum CFM you need for adequate air exchange.

Finally you should look at additional factors that can change the CFM needed. Some examples are:

1. High Intensity Discharge (HID) Lamps - For each and every air-cooled HID Lamp add 5% and for every non-air-cooled HID Lamp add 10-15%.

2) Add another 5% if you are using a CO2 enrichment system.

3. Carbon Filters - If you are using a filter with the exhaust system add 20%.

4) Add 25% if your grow room is situated in a hot climate for instance Southern California. For hot and humid temperatures (like Florida) you may have to add up to 40%.

While all of this sounds complicated it is important to ensure your indoor garden thrives. Just don't forget, the most important thing is to keep air flowing every one to three minutes. Three minutes is most likely fine if you live in a cooler climate, but air should circulate every minute if you live in a hot climate.

You can look into buying a grow room fan system for your indoor garden once you have determined the amount of air exchange required for your grow room.