Marijuana Grow Room Dangers

Carl Brahe

As medical and recreational marijuana becomes legal in more states it also becomes legal to grow at home for certain people. The number of houses and commercial buildings that are used for growing marijuana is increasing. Grow rooms are becoming more common. Grow rooms can cause great damage if improperly built or operated.

Poorly wired or overloaded circuits can result in fire, shock or damage to electronic equipment. The most common danger for grow rooms is overloading the circuitry. An average bedroom may share a 15 amp circuit with another room. This means that the wire is able to safely handle 15 amps of electricity at a time. To keep the wire from overheating from too much electricity flowing through it at one time a circuit breaker, or fuse, is wired into the circuit to stop all electricity flow if it gets to be too great. If the wire overheats a fire can result.

If a grow room is made inside this average room a 1000 watt grow light will require a little over 9 amps to operate. That leaves only 6 amps for all other equipment. Add in 100 watts for a circulating fan and 60 watts for an external light source. That consumes your entire available 15 amps. (amps = watts/110 volts)

A larger circuit breaker/fuse might be used to stop power interruption, but that drastically increases the fire hazard. The wire, and outlets, can only handle so much electricity at a time. Increasing the size of the fuse or circuit breaker will not increase the capacity of the circuit. It will increase the temperature that the wire, and outlets might be allowed to reach. In most cases additional circuits can be easily added by a licensed electrician.

Wiring type and quality as well as the kind and condition of breaker/fuse boxes and fixtures should be inspected by a professional. Aluminum wiring and certain breaker boxers increase the likely hood of fire. The cost is little compared to fire and what goes along with it.

Poor quality electrical work may not only endanger your life and property but may also lower resale value. No one objects to having extra, or larger, electrical circuits. It’s a plus, but handyman quality, or worse, wiring makes a house harder to sell and will probably sell for less.

Inadequate ventilation can cause several problems. If humidity is allowed to get too high, or if ventilation exhausts in improper places, like attics, chimneys or crawlspaces, mold, wood rot and mortar damage can result. Once moisture content reaches about 19% in building materials for 48 hours mold and rot will grow to begin digesting the building materials. An average cubic foot of air on earth has around 100,000 mold spores. When sufficient moisture is available mold grows.

Ventilated into chimneys the excess moisture can combine with creosote to produce acids that dissolve mortar. Chimney can then leak into living areas. As mortar crumbles bricks/stones are displaced and can fall out.

Growers require ventilation to exhaust heat, moisture and odor, and bring in fresh air, in most cases. Some growers opt for a completely sealed room with no ventilation. A sealed room presents even more dangers to building and occupants.

A sealed room may require a dehumidifier to keep moisture levels in the healthy range. This consumes more electricity. Materials to cover walls to attempt to keep moisture from the building materials may be used. Failure to control humidity can result in portions of the building requiring gutting to correct moisture, mold and wood rot problems.

Plants require CO2 to breath. Without it they die. If a room is sealed the CO2 is consumed by the plants and must be replenished. Propane powered CO2 generators may be used introducing the possibility of gas leaks and explosions. Where industrial propane burners are used to create CO2 to boost production ultrafine particles and CO can accumulate to lethal levels.

Another method is to vent furnaces and water heaters into the room. This probably works fine for the plants, but put all animals and humans at risk for gas poisoning. Besides CO2 which is fairly harmless to humans gas burning appliances produce carbon monoxide which is deadly and sulfur dioxide which is highly corrosive.

These vents are designed and installed specifically for the appliance. If the venting is altered toxic gases may leak into living areas. If vent gases allowed to cool too much sulfuric acid forms and damages vent pipes and appliances. Hot vent gases could cause a fire.

Excess humidity can cause burners, vent pipes and cabinets of water heaters, furnaces and boilers to rust. Moisture vented into areas with gas burning appliances or not vented from room with furnace air returns, can also cause this.

Another result of excess humidity is the growth of insects and rodents to eat them. The most common things that are hazardous to your property or that create an unhealthy environment involve too much water.

It is never a good idea to cut holes in a foundation. The entire building and all of its weight rest on the foundation. Any alteration to the foundation will affect everything above. In Colorado, at least, most grow rooms and even commercial grow houses probably pose few threats to future buyers and residents. People growing medical marijuana for their own use, in their own homes are probably not as likely as large-scale illegal growers to damage their own living environments.

Ignorance is likely the biggest threat to these home growers and the people and property around them. Industrial Hygienist Caoimhin Connell writes: “Remediating a grow house is not difficult and does not usually require gutting the property. The biggest problem in remediating a grow house is getting rid of the odor of marijuana; that can be very difficult.” As an afterthought Mr. Connell warns that the airborne levels of THC are high enough that any person living in a grow house, or in an adjacent living unit, will test positive in a urinalysis without actually consuming the marijuana. People in positions that require UAs, such as airline pilots and professional drivers, may be fired or prosecuted as a result of the positive test. All residents of multi unit buildings can be adversely affected in this way.

Hazards Discovered in Grow Houses:

Electrical

• Unsafe wiring
• Oversized fusing
• Damaged fixtures

Structural

• Holes for ventilation and electrical access
• Wood rot
• Rusted hollow columns

Ventilation

• Damaged vents from water heater and furnace
• Rusted gas burning appliances like furnaces
• Mold from venting to interior, attic or crawlspace
• Deterioration of chimney mortar from venting to fireplace

Environmental

• Pollution from hydroponics wastes
• Groundwater
• Wastewater
• Improper use of insecticides
• Health
• CO2 Devices
• Mold
• Insecticide
• Fertilizer

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Industrial Hygienist Caoimhin Connell rates some hazards associated with grow rooms:

• One of the most hazardous situations common in each of the grows was the presence of ultrafine particles and excessive levels of carbon dioxide (CO2). The growers typically will use industrial grade propane powered burners to purposely produce elevated levels of CO2 to promote plant growth. The propane burners also inadvertently produce huge quantities of ultrafine particles and carbon monoxide. As a result, normal residential ventilation is incapable of handling these contaminants. The concentration of these contaminants can be so high that they can kill a person – and I performed a criminal investigation wherein this is exactly what happened and a five month old little girl was killed by the presence of the grow.

• The next most common hazard is the electrical wiring situation. Very extensive and elaborate wiring is present inside these houses. The wiring never meets electrical code (obviously), and treacherous exposed and convoluted wiring arrangements are almost always found. The residential wiring system is simply incapable of handling the electrical needs of a grow, and as a result, growers frequently tap directly into the overhead power lines to obtain the necessary electrical power.

• Next greatest hazard is the grow-lights used. The grow lights produce massive exposures to UV light. In turn, the UV spectrum can not only damage unprotected surfaces, but also, the UV light is energetic enough to break down airborne materials (such as vapors or pesticides, etc) into a soup of other unknown contaminants with unexpected and unpredictable health consequences.

• The majority of grows in which I have been involved, involve growers who essentially consider themselves “environmentally conscience” and as such don't typically use 24D, 24T, chlordane, lindane, or the like. More often, they choose to use grow products that market themselves as “organic” (the fact that the other compounds are also truly organic is not important to the grower).

Issues for home buyers:

• The primary issue for a home buyer will be the residual odor.

• The second most notable concern will be the liability associated with the proper disposal of chemicals that have been used at the property. Have hazardous materials been properly discarded? If the property is on city sewer, it is likely that most of the chemicals will have been illegally dumped down the sewer. If the property is on septic, the septic system should be evaluated for explosive vapors and corrosives, before it is pumped. The leach field may also have been killed off or the soils may now contain hazardous materials.

• The third most notable concern will be residual chemical exposure in the property. The primary chemicals will be whatever the grower used, and the THC from the grow. Also, in our experience, illegal drug use/manufacturing and dealing are associated with many of the grows (even the legal ones). Therefore, testing for meth is not inappropriate (we have only encountered one grow that did NOT have meth). Proper trash-out cleaning should be adequate for restoring virtually all of the properties thus effected. A small portion of them will require industrial type cleaning.