THE QUEST FOR SILENCE: THE SHUSH SYSTEM ››

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.

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

MATERIALS NEEDED

NEEDED IN GENERAL

PART 1 – FAN SILENCER BOX

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 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”, 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.

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.

Fan silencer Box Inside Fan Box

Inside Fan Box FIXING

PART 2 - AIR EXPANSION CHAMBER SILENCER

Those fans move a lot of air, fast! The Air Expansion Chamber slows the rush of air out, relieves the air pressure and dampens the sound First you will need to AIR EXPANSION CHAMBER cut a circular hole in one side of the plastic box for your insulated ducting to poke through. Cut it offset from centre. Make it a tight fit and pull the ducting in just enough to hold it in place. Secure with tape.

Next cut a hole for your final vent to the outNow securely attach your stiff wire screen to the outside, to prevent any rodents from having a party in your ducting. This setup is now almost completely silent, but if you stand immediately outside the final vent, there is still a whisper of airEXPANSION CHAMBER IN PLACE CLOSED flow. Also this warm air will shine like a glowing beacon to any infra red sensitive cameras, which can cause trouble if you have an infra red security system set up, or of course if there are nosy infra red cameras snooping about. Let’s solve both problems.

side world in the lid of the box and cover this hole with your mesh bug screen. Ensure the vent hole is not positioned directly opposite the ducting, as we want the air to swirl around inside the box, not pass straight through. I prefer to make this outlet hole in the lid, as it is easy to fix to your external wall, and joining the 2 halves together is as simple as snapping the lid back on! Of course the size of your room and position of your wall vent may influence where you can cut these 2 holes in the chamber, but this is the ideal principle. FIXING DUCTING AND FOAM INSIDE EXPANSION CHAMBER

(Carefully glue the “studio” acoustic foam tiles onto all inside surfaces of the expansion chamber, including the lid. You can easily cut it to shape with scissors to ensure a tight

fit around the ducting inlet and the vent outlet. The foam achieves 2 things – the rippled surface disrupts the flow of air, slowing it down and also absorbs the sound of mechanical whirring from inside the ducting. Attach the vented lid to your wall vent hole. You can just screw it onto the wall. Seal up the EXPANSION CHAMBER IN PLACE OPEN gap between lid and wall with some silicon and close up the chamber. You should seal around the sides of the lid too to preserve full efficiency.

PART 3 - SOUND BAFFLE AND AIR COOLING MAZE

Physics 101 – energy is never lost, it just changes state. Every time sound is forced to turn a corner, some of the noise is converted to heat (miniscule amount). Likewise every time hot air comes into contact with something cold, there is heat exchanged and the air gets cooler. If we build an elaborate, open maze using bricks or stones immediately outside our vent, the hot air will be broken up, slowed down and also cooled to ambient temperature in one smooth move. Stones hold their temperature much longer than air, and remain cool in the shade even on the hottest days. You can use any large rocks. Rough ones with uneven surfaces will work better at silencing the noise and cooling the heat due to more surface area. Differences in size will also help absorb a wider frequency range for better sound performance.

Build up your maze outside the vent making sure you leave enough space for the air to travel around unimpeded. Think about how much space you need to leave – if you have a 10” vent opening then you must allow at least the same amount of air gap at every stage, otherwise it is going to increase the pressure, speed up the air and make it noisier again. Leave a few inches expansion room immediately outside the vent, and then start building up the rocks. Leave gaps of an inch or so between every rock, and keep on building it up until you don’t hear anything at all. This really works wonderfully, and is a great way to make use of some old junk rubble. You can disguise this unusually placed rockery with all sorts of explainable things. You could use some plants, build a wood pile, bits of old junk or just let the weeds grow up around it. Building this system is not for the faint of heart, but is something you only need to do once for a lifetime’s peace of mind. Materials are cheap, saving you hundreds of Dollars against shop bought alternatives and you get a real sense of achievement too. Just keep it to yourself...SHUSH!

SHUSH SYSTEM OVERVIEW

PUSHING FOR LEGAL UK MEDICAL CANNABIS United Patients Alliance

By Clark French

The UK has been one of the slowest European countries to modernise their outdated cannabis laws. It has been a frustrating time for those of us in the UK that use cannabis for medical reasons. GW Pharmaceuticals have a Government license to legally grow thousands of kilo’s of cannabis which is concentrated into oil form and put into an oral spray called Sativex. This legal cannabis extract is sold for several times the comparable street price, and is so expensive that the UK National Health Service can’t afford to supply it. GW Pharmaceuticals are allowed to grow pot for medical use but I am not. The UK law is badly in need of reform.

I, like many other people in the UK that have Multiple Sclerosis (MS) am denied the legal cannabis extract on cost grounds. So I have to buy and use cannabis illegally, supporting the criminal black market when I do so. Meanwhile in Europe, North America and elsewhere people that need cannabis for medical reasons are allowed it. The situation in the UK is clearly ridiculous. That’s why

we formed the United Patients Alliance (UPA) to campaign for legal use of cannabis for medical purposes in the UK.

The UPA is an organisation focused purely on the legalisation of cannabis for medical use. In the USA we have seen state after state present the case for legal marijuana, and state after state has legalised it. What the UK needs is an evidence based debate, but historically UK politicians have dodged the issue far too easily in the past. That is starting to change, and the UPA plans to be at the heart of it.

Our focus is two pronged, firstly we want to concentrate on the political activities in Government, this has been the way other countries have made progress. And when politicians are presented with the facts about the numerous medical uses of cannabis

we have seen remarkable progress in the debate. The prohibitionists don’t like being faced with un-refutable evidence, so that’s what we plan to do.

Secondly we want to help raise awareness of medical cannabis for various conditions. To do this it is important that we encourage other medical patient’s to share their stories in the media. I feel well placed to help with this after having experience on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and SKY as well as many newspapers and magazines. Keiron Reeves similarly has taken to the Radio and News papers with his story of how much cannabis helps his epilepsy. Keiron’s story proved to be very popular making the front page of his local paper which lead to him talking on BBC Radio and Spirit FM. It is important that we raise awareness of medical cannabis and seek the help of the general public. If the public are on board then it will make lobbying our elected representatives that much easier.

We are a new lobby group in the UK, but we are confident. We know we have a winning argument, we just need to get it heard. My local MP, Caroline Lucas of the Green Party, has given us great support and has helped us launch the UPA . She supports evidence based policy and is not afraid to say so.

In addition to meeting with Caroline Lucas MP we have also met twice with Norman Baker MP who is the Home Office minister with high-level political responsibility at the top levels of Parliament. Keiron Reeves of the UPA and I met with Normal Baker at his local constituency office in Lewes. We were then very pleased to be invited to Westminster where we met in the Home Office with Norman Baker. He was sympathetic to the MS that I deal with and the Epilepsy which Keiron Reeves uses cannabis for. Both of us are illegal medical cannabis users, we break the law everyday and under current UK law we are criminals alongside probably hundreds of thousands of other medical cannabis users. We explained to Norman Baker that we needed protection from the law, and that the law needs fundamental changes to bring the UK into line with other nations. We also explained that we need help now, not in a few years time when lethargic Government officials have had a few more years to dodge the issue.

The UK misuse of drugs act has cost billions over the last few decades and has dished out damaging and pointless criminal records to over a million UK citizens. It is unfair, illogical and expensive. The UK Misuse of Drugs act is also ineffective, drugs in the UK have never been as pure or as cheap. The only winners from UK cannabis prohibition are the organised criminals who have been gifted full control of an unregulated drugs market on which they pay a nominal rate of 0% income tax. It’s ridiculous and the only question is when, not if, change comes.

When the UK originally made cannabis possession, cultivation and supply illegal there were perhaps half a million regular users. Now even Government statistics indicate the UK has 2-3 million cannabis users. By any standards,

the UK Government has spent £Billions over the last 4 decades to achieve absolutely nothing. These are the arguments we are putting directly to the heart of the UK Government. The cherished UK Misuse of Drugs Act has cost billions and the sick truth is that the only result of it has been the financial enrichment of organised crime.

In the old days it was political suicide for a politician to get involved in cannabis legalisation debates. Now the tide is turning, politicians are starting to make themselves look bad by arguing against a well presented case for the legal use of medical cannabis.

The UPA has not complicated the debate by arguing for the legalisation of recreational cannabis, this was a difficult decision for us to make but we felt it necessary at this stage. If we did push for legal recreational weed straight away it would make it too easy for the politicians to dismiss us. We believe that legal medical cannabis will be the first step, and we believe that with the correct approach we will be able to help push the UK law in the right direction. It is a matter of urgency that UK patients have access to this vital medicine. Watch this space, it’s time for the UK to catch up with the rest of the world.

Clark French and Keiron Reeves at the Home Office