I need to rent a grow room, problems?

bashfullly

The thread title sounds bad and that's why I need advice really. I work in horticulture and want to set up on my own in the new year. I specialise in a certain type of plant(not illegal obviously) that if I want to grow year round needs to be grown and grows best under growlights. I'll be selling online to collectors.

I do this on a small scale at home for hobby purposes at the minute and it would be the same set up should I find a place to rent. It's just garage shelving(I hope you know the type that I mean) with low power LED grow lights attached and plants growing under said lights. The plants are only small like 2 inches tops before I sell them so we aren't in anyway talking about some forest of giant plants. There is minimal watering - light watering once a week, no more heat from the growlights than there would be from a light in a display cabinet and no chemicals involved.

I can't run a business from my home so need to rent somewhere but I don't know what type of space I need or if landlords would be put off letting a place because of what a grow room sounds like I suppose. I only need a small space, like the size of an average double bedroom because like I said the plants are small and are grown on shelves and I will only be a start up. My only requirements are access to electricity, water and heat.

Does anyone know what type of space I should be looking for and what problems I could run into in trying to rent a space? I have never run a business and know no one doing similar so looking for commercial premises is all new to me, perhaps it won't be an issue at all and I'm overthinking it due to the fact that it sounds bad due to the obvious illegal connotations.

If anyone has any advice it would be great. Thanks.

Gloomtastic!

First thing you need to do is learn about Owning a Business in Ireland. Your local enterprise centre should be able to help.

https://www.localenterprise.ie/Discover-Business-Supports/Training-Programmes/Start-Your-Own-Business-Programme/

After this, if you still want to go ahead, rather than renting your own premises, I'd look at subletting space from a local business. Your two biggest problems will be assuring them that your a not growing anything illegal and access to heat. Heating a room 24/7 in the Irish winter is going to be costly. Thinking laterally, places that are always warm - bakeries, restaurant kitchens, old folks homes, hospitals, swimming pools. Any of those near you?

bashfullly

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

First thing you need to do is learn about Owning a Business in Ireland. Your local enterprise centre should be able to help.



After this, if you still want to go ahead, rather than renting your own premises, I'd look at subletting space from a local business. Your two biggest problems will be assuring them that your a not growing anything illegal and access to heat. Heating a room 24/7 in the Irish winter is going to be costly. Thinking laterally, places that are always warm - bakeries, restaurant kitchens, old folks homes, hospitals, swimming pools. Any of those near you?

Thanks for the reply, I would never have thought about subletting to honest, it's definitely something I will look into further. I would hope that it wouldn't be too difficult to assure them that I am not growing anything illegal, as I've been doing this as a hobby for a while I have a quite a large social media following(about 50k across platforms that goes back about 5 years) and when you google what I grow and Ireland I'm the top 4 results so it would be quite a big switch for me to start growing illegal plants.

I was thinking last night that it probably wouldn't hurt to re frame how I phrase things. I will be essentially an online specialist garden centre, I just need somewhere to grow and hold my stock.

Gloomtastic!

Go on then, whatcha growing?

pedroeibar1

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

First thing you need to do is learn about Owning a Business in Ireland. Your local enterprise centre should be able to help.

https://www.localenterprise.ie/Discover-Business-Supports/Training-Programmes/Start-Your-Own-Business-Programme/

After this, if you still want to go ahead, rather than renting your own premises, I'd look at subletting space from a local business. Your two biggest problems will be assuring them that your a not growing anything illegal and access to heat. Heating a room 24/7 in the Irish winter is going to be costly. Thinking laterally, places that are always warm - bakeries, restaurant kitchens, old folks homes, hospitals, swimming pools. Any of those near you?

I partly agree with your comments. The OP has no hope of renting a room due to the collateral damage of heat/humidity. Sharing/subletting can be ruled out for health and safety reasons.
A room is not necessary, what the OP needs is a 'growth chamber' This can be knocked up quite easily with sheets of shuttering, insulated, fitted with appropriate light/heat on timers/thermostats and there he has his own micro-climate. OP needs a friens with a garden, most others would run.

bashfullly

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I partly agree with your comments. The OP has no hope of renting a room due to the collateral damage of heat/humidity. Sharing/subletting can be ruled out for health and safety reasons.
A room is not necessary, what the OP needs is a 'growth chamber' This can be knocked up quite easily with sheets of shuttering, insulated, fitted with appropriate light/heat on timers/thermostats and there he has his own micro-climate. OP needs a friens with a garden, most others would run.

There is no heat and humidity really though? I don't need a micro climate, I need somewhere that is room temperature and humidity would kill my plants. It would certainly be nothing a standard dehumidifier or open window wouldn't fix. Look at hairdressers they would produce far more humidity than anything I would and heat too I would imagine but there are hairdressers on every street. Florists for example also have plants and water knocking about everywhere and again there are florists everywhere. Like I explained in my OP it is simply shelves with LED growlights that do not produce heat, well no more than a standard light bulb. There is absolutely no need for 'growth chambers'.

Bandara

bashfullly wrote: »

There is no heat and humidity really though? I don't need a micro climate, I need somewhere that is room temperature and humidity would kill my plants. It would certainly be nothing a standard dehumidifier or open window wouldn't fix. Look at hairdressers they would produce far more humidity than anything I would and heat too I would imagine but there are hairdressers on every street. Florists for example also have plants and water knocking about everywhere and again there are florists everywhere. Like I explained in my OP it is simply shelves with LED growlights that do not produce heat, well no more than a standard light bulb. There is absolutely no need for 'growth chambers'.

How much per month do you feel you could pay for a suitable location ? I’m guessing it’s Dublin or surrounds ?

KevRossi

Would this grow in a Polytunnel? Or a greenhouse? Maybe some place that has one would rent you the space. If you don’t need a heater then you should be Ok as it would be easy to calculate electricity use.

searay

bashfullly wrote: »

The thread title sounds bad and that's why I need advice really. I work in horticulture and want to set up on my own in the new year. I specialise in a certain type of plant(not illegal obviously) that if I want to grow year round needs to be grown and grows best under growlights. I'll be selling online to collectors.

I do this on a small scale at home for hobby purposes at the minute and it would be the same set up should I find a place to rent. It's just garage shelving(I hope you know the type that I mean) with low power LED grow lights attached and plants growing under said lights. The plants are only small like 2 inches tops before I sell them so we aren't in anyway talking about some forest of giant plants. There is minimal watering - light watering once a week, no more heat from the growlights than there would be from a light in a display cabinet and no chemicals involved.

I can't run a business from my home so need to rent somewhere but I don't know what type of space I need or if landlords would be put off letting a place because of what a grow room sounds like I suppose. I only need a small space, like the size of an average double bedroom because like I said the plants are small and are grown on shelves and I will only be a start up. My only requirements are access to electricity, water and heat.

Does anyone know what type of space I should be looking for and what problems I could run into in trying to rent a space? I have never run a business and know no one doing similar so looking for commercial premises is all new to me, perhaps it won't be an issue at all and I'm overthinking it due to the fact that it sounds bad due to the obvious illegal connotations.

If anyone has any advice it would be great. Thanks.

A lot of farms have outhouses or small sheds that used to be used for storage but are too small for modern farming, but would probably suit you for now. The owners probably won’t advertise them for rent but might be happy if you approach them.

If you drive around your locality and knock a few doors you should find something to suit.

Idbatterim

could this be done from a cube van etc?

bashfullly

Thanks for all the replies, I tried to reply earlier but boards was acting up on me.

I'm in the West of Ireland and there are lots of small towns around me where rent is pretty low so affordability isn't really an issue as it might be in Dublin. The plants I will be selling are relatively high value as they are rare and sought after by collectors so I wouldn't have to shift a great deal to cover my costs.

Part of the reason I need to rent somewhere is that I need a business address, I rent my home at the minute and it is against the terms of my lease to run any kind of business from home. I suppose I figured that I could kill two birds with one stone, have more space to grow and a somewhere I can legitimately run a business from. A van wouldn't cut it for that reason either. Perhaps I am overlooking something when it comes to getting a business address though?

I have a polytunnel myself and that has it's uses but isn't suitable for year round growing, there just isn't enough light, it isn't warm enough to grow year round and humidity is an issue.

It does sound like it might be an issue finding a place that will have me though without out of the box thinking.

duploelabs

What about buying a shipping container and fitting it out? All you'd need is a plot of land to plonk it on

Mrs OBumble

You could join a co-working space to get the business address? Drop in once a week for an hour to collect your mail and update your accounts or such like.

Fionn101

have a chat to your landlord*, a lot of those clauses in rent are to prevent you from running machinery all hours of the day.
If your first test batch of plants can promise to keep the noise down , then I doubt your landlord will mind receiving some business post to the address.

*this is what I did.
Hopefully this will allow you to test the viability of your idea without having too much setup trouble.

G-Man

surely some out of town light retail or industrial unit would do the trick. I would imagine outside dublin, commerical is not doing so well, so there should be some units available.. Normally you would have to put in all the guttering in drainage and lights and stuff.