Now that growing cannabis in Canada and an increasing number of US states is legal I’d say the largest remaining risk is the potential for a fire. LED lights help mitigate this risk since they do not run as hot as HPS. Plywood grow boxes are sturdier than grow tents but both methods have inherent risk.

You deserve peace of mind while away from home. This post discusses Nest smart fire alarms, webcams, thermocontrollers, air pump placement & cable/load management

Regardless of how low the risk is, the potential for a fire always exists. Even if your grow is legal (4 plants or less in Canada) insurance will try anything to get out of paying. This is why it is important to take steps to mitigate risk and avoid being found negligent.

Automatic Fire Extinguishers

Automatic fire extinguishers are filled with dry powder fire retardants and are heat activated. “Made of Environmental harmless Dry Powder (NH4H2PO4) harmless to humans and environment and has a fire activation mechanism activated with contact to a fire flame“.

At around $30-50 apiece these things are the most cost-effective method to mitigate fire risk in your grow. They come in a number of models which all operate on a similar premise:

Mount this as high as possible next to (or ideally right above) your grow tent or grow box. The balls are flame activated and will disperse a dry powder neutralizing any flames in a 2′-5′ radius.

Wyze Cam + “Dumb” Smoke Detector

Perhaps the most eloquent solution for fire protection is combining a “dumb” smoke detector with a Wyze cam. You get the benefits of being able to watch over your grow, record timelapses and with this new feature get instant alerts if a fire alarm noise is selected. This makes the smart fire alarms discussed below kind of obsolete as you can now make any regular smoke detector a smart one.

Open the Wyze app and navigate to Device Settings > Alarm Settings

Smart Fire Alarms

The most robust way to get peace of mind when you’re not at home is a nest smart fire detector. Classic smoke detectors are relatively useless when no one is home (unless paired with a wyze cam as above).

The nest will send you an alert, you can then check your webcam to see if there is cause for alarm.

Scheduled Webcam Pictures

The webcam is not an instant monitoring system, but it can give you an early indication of if something is wrong. Water leaks and scorched leaves from high temperature can both be detected by looking at a daily webcam picture. With DWC you certainly don’t need to check on your plants daily, and chances are that after the honeymoon of your first or second grow you won’t be.

I have my camera setup to send me a picture every morning at 630am. I use a d-link 931 that I have had forever but the resolution is rather low.

Blink XT2

The best battery powered IP grow camera on the market right now is the Amazon Blink XT2.

This camera has 2-year battery life on lithium AA batteries. This allows for a clean wireless install and will keep running if you blow a fuse. It comes with free cloud storage which is huge for making timelapse. With the d-link I am limited to 480p resolution for emailed pictures and timelapses eat up my email storage.

Wyze 1080p Cameras

The most economic options is the Wyze series of cameras. Both the Wyze 1080p Regular (above) or Wyze 1080p w/ Tilt & Panning are excellent options. The Wyze app works well for remote control. You can define up to 4 waypoints for automatic panning if you have a larger room. There is free cloud storage for 12-second clips but you can also install a microSD card for recording longer videos or time-lapses. The stream is in full 1080p unlike with d-link cameras. It also has IR for optional night vision and multiple users can access the app if you want to share with friends.

Automatic Temperature Controller

In my power consumption article, I discuss temp controllers as an excellent way to save power. They are also useful for preventing overheating inside your box. Many people use a dimmer to control their fan. This is a “dumb” controller that will not respond to increased heat from a rouge electronic that may be overheating in your grow box.

With a temp controller, the fan runs at full power giving it excess capacity. If anything were to start overheating in the box the fan would be able to respond with increased exhaust capabilities.

Exhaust requirements are lower during the night cycle when plants are not engaging in photosynthesis and there is no heat being generated by your LED boards. Since my night cycle is during on-peak hours, this saves me 12 hours * 115kWh * $0.208. Using the calculator from the power consumption article this results in an annual savings of $105! Enough to buy two or more digital temperature controllers. They pay for themselves.

Cable Management

Avoid keeping electrical connections on ground level. DWC poses additional risks due to the amount of water contained in your nutrient reservoir. If this spills out it could short circuit any wiring carelessly left on the floor.

To keep my wiring clean I use twist ties and a staple gun to attach power bars and adapters to the side of my plywood box. Wires are run using nail in cable clips for plywood or zip ties for tents.

Air Pump Placement

Always place your air pump above your DWC reservoir. In the case of a power outage (if your pump is lower than your reservoir) water can flow out of the reservoir, down the airline, and out through the pump flooding your grow room. It also looks cleaner when your pump is not on ground level.

Electrical Load Management

With how efficient LED lights have gotten overloading your circuits is less of a concern than it was with high pressure sodium lights.

You should still be mindful of overloading your breakers, especially if you ever find yourself tripping the breaker.

My box pulls a total of ~517 Watts which at 120V is equal to 5.6 amps. This is pretty low considering the majority of household circuit breakers are rated for 15 or 20 amps.

15 amp breaker = 1,800 watts
20 amp breaker = 24,00 watts

Signs that you may be overloading your breaker:

Power Bar Organization

To get more out of your power bar I suggest using these CableMatters 3-outlet power cubes. These will allow you to fit bulky power adapters and timers onto your PowerBar without taking up all the space or needing to run multiple bars.

Power Bar Surge Protection

As far as which PowerBar to use? Well I always reccomend getting one with surge protection to protect your expensive lights and growing equipment.

This beast of a 12-outlet Belkin power bar hits all the checkpoints. It has ample room for timers and plugs, with pivoting outlets to make sure you never run out of space and is rated up to 1875 Watts. More than enough for any microgrow, including the biggest 4’x5′ Vivosun 2-in-1 tent I discuss in the Grow Tents for DWC article.