12
GROW WITH BARON WASTELAND
THE QUEST FOR SILENCE
The Baron Wasteland SHUSH System Growing plants indoors requires decent ventilation, pure and simple. Without adequate air exchange in the room your plants will suffer from all kinds of problems, from a little reduced vigour through to crop decimating mould outbreak. So there’s really no option to compromise on ventilation. Big powerful extractor fans will do a great job of venting all the stale humid air. Oscillating fans will move air around wonderfully to make sure every leaf has fresh co2 touching it at all times... Shame it’s all so darn noisy! A decent ventilation system will cause a constant 50hz electrical hum that vibrates right through the rafters, floorboards and walls potentially causing neighbours concern and annoyance, especially if it keeps humming all through the night. The uninterrupted whooshing sound of air being sucked through a carbon filter and ducting sure sounds strange, and those oscillating fans give a distinctive rhythmic hum as they turn unceasingly from side to side. You can buy silent fans and ventilation silencers, but these are incredibly expensive. Also there will still be the ventilation noise and hot air problem going into the outside world. In some locations it would not be feasible to grow at all because of the distinctive sound of the ventilation system too close to neighbouring ears. Unfeasible unless we silence it all of course! Now this is no easy task, but we can do it in a day, saving hundreds on the cost of highend silent shop bought alternatives. 5IF CBTJT PG UIF #BSPO 8BTUFMBOE 4)64) 4ZTUFN JT B OP DPNQSPNJTF TUBHF extraction silencing system: 1. Good quality insulated ducting 2. A soundproofing box for your extractor fan, designed to absorb the mechanical noise 3. An air expansion chamber to silence the rushing of air from your extractor fan 4. An air baffle immediately outside the ventilation outlet to silence the air further, and also help cool the hot humid air down to ambient temperature
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PART 1 – FAN SILENCER BOX Firstly we need to make our fan silencer box. In essence, this is a large wooden box that your extractor fan is suspended inside, packed out loosely with insulation then sealed up.
Ideally you want to build the biggest box you can comfortably fit in your grow room. For an 8” RVK style fan, you would be looking at a box of approx 60cm square. This leaves Fan silencer Box plenty of space around the fan to pack loosely with insulation. Although the box will be quite the behemoth, it can safely be used as a work surface afterward, so it will not waste space in your room. Cut your wooden sheet to size, suitable to make a box. We won’t go into this part too deeply here, as I’m sure you can handle it. Essentially you will need 6 sides to form a cube, so divide the size of your sheet up: A 2400mm x 1200mm “builders” size panel will provide what you need. Don’t forget to compensate for the thickness of the wood for 2 sides, so you can get a solid finish that will be easy to seal up inside. There are a tonne of tutorials online for this sort of thing, try searching “Basic wooden box building” or similar. Don’t worry about fancy finishing, as we are leaning towards function over form here. Assemble the box using the corner brackets, but leave the lid off. It should be nice and sturdy. You can also use some screws through the base into the side walls to make it even tougher. Now seal up the inside with good quality silicon sealant to make it airtight – this will help dramatically with soundproofing. Measure the diameter of your insulated ducting, and cut holes in 2 opposite sides of your box. The ducting should be a tight fit. Install your screw-in hooks inside the box, towards the top either side of the circular holes. You will suspend the fan on Bungee cords here. Loosely fill the bottom third of your box with insulation – wear your dust mask and gloves for this part! Next attach all 4 of your bungee cords to your extractor fan. The easiest way to do this is by using a suitable sized “Jubilee Clip”, Inside Fan Box commonly used to tether the ducting onto the extractor flange. You probably already have a couple kicking about. Make sure they are on tight! Drop the fan inside the box, after double checking you have it positioned in the correct direction for the air flow. Position your fan inside the box and stretch each bungee cord up to clip onto a hook. Keep your dust mask on too as the insulation can throw up nasty particles when disturbed. The fan should now be securely suspended inside the box. Next feed in your ducting and attach to each end of the fan. Use more jubilee clips. You may as well just trail the power lead out through the same ducting hole too.
Inside Fan Box FIXING
Seal up the gaps around the ducting and the box, before filling the rest of the box with loose insulation (wearing your gloves again please). The insulation works better at attenuating sound when it is loosely packed, so don’t cram too much in. Fill the void above the fan too.
Screw on your lid, and fire up the fan – you will be amazed at how quiet it is! The vibration will be killed as well as the mechanical noise. Woo! Although this works incredibly well, you can improve it even further by double layering it with acoustic plasterboard. Just cut to size and screw it on the outside of your box. You’ll find the plasterboard usually comes in the same dimension sheets as your wooden board. This step is optional, as you most likely won’t need it! Next we need to do something about that pesky air-rushing noise, so it’s time to build our Air Expansion Chamber.
