Cannabis & Indoor Agriculture
A cultivation room is a data center with a swimming pool inside it. The lights pour heat and connected load into the space while the canopy transpires nearly every drop it drinks — so the MEP has to hold temperature and humidity inside a few degrees and a few percent, and VPD on its stage target, lights-on and lights-off, or the crop is at risk.
Latent Load Is the Job, Power Density Is the Catch.
Unlike comfort HVAC, a grow room's design problem can be dominated by moisture — the lights still pour sensible heat into the space, but the hardest hour to engineer can be lights-off, when sensible load collapses and the canopy is still releasing moisture. A mature canopy can transpire most of the water it's fed, and the room still has to be dried. We size dehumidification and grow-light power to the canopy that's actually planted, and design to hold VPD stage by stage and keep flower-surface temperatures above the air dew point through the dark cycle, so the canopy has fewer of the conditions that favor powdery mildew and botrytis — documented to the NEC edition your jurisdiction has adopted (Article 410, Part XVI in the 2020 and 2023 NEC), the IMC, and your state's cultivation rules, sealed by the licensed engineer of record on your project.
Climate & VPD Control
The environment held inside a narrow band through every stage of the cycle, lights-on and lights-off.
- Sensible and latent load calculations run per room from the lighting schedule, irrigation rates, and planted canopy density, not rules of thumb
- Stage-by-stage VPD, temperature, and dew-point targets, set with your grow team, from clone through veg, flower, and dry
- Dehumidification sized for the lights-off hour, when cooling coils alone may not pull the moisture
- Canopy-level airflow and turnover to break up dead spots that breed powdery mildew and bud rot
- CO2 enrichment by the grow-system specialist, with its power and life-safety gas detection coordinated
- Redundancy and staging to reduce crop-loss risk from a single equipment failure
Grow-Light Power & Electrical
Service and distribution built for one of the densest connected loads in any building type.
- Service, feeder, and panel capacity sized to the full connected canopy lighting load
- Horticultural luminaires listed to UL 8800 on GFCI-protected branch circuits where cord-connected (listed SPGFCI above 150 V to ground under the 2023 NEC), per NEC 410.184
- Special-provision horticultural lighting distribution per NEC Article 410, Part XVI
- High lighting-power-density distribution for LED and HID canopies, sized to the fixture schedule the canopy actually demands
- Lighting and environmental controls integrated with the BAS and photoperiod scheduling
- Per-room and per-system submetering for energy benchmarking and utility incentives
- Standby and power-quality provisions for controls, dehumidification, and irrigation pumps
Fertigation & Plumbing
Water in, dosed, and drained — engineered as one coordinated cultivation-water system.
- Fertigation and irrigation supply connections coordinated with the grow-system vendor
- RO/DI treatment equipment selected and designed by the vendor; CoreX coordinates its building-side water, drainage and power connections
- Condensate drainage from the dehumidification and cooling equipment
- Trench, floor, and area drainage graded for wash-down and runoff capture
- Backflow prevention separating nutrient-dosed water from the potable supply
- Wastewater pretreatment and nutrient-discharge coordination with the local authority
Odor Control & Filtration
Terpene and exhaust management designed to address neighbor concerns and applicable regulatory requirements.
- Carbon-filtration odor control sized to room exhaust and air-change rates
- Building pressurization mapped to reduce terpene-odor escape through the envelope
- Filtration and airflow supporting integrated pest management (IPM) protocols
- Exhaust and make-up air balanced against the sealed-room recirculation strategy
- Odor-mitigation basis documented for state and local nuisance ordinances
Scope & Hazardous Coordination
Clear lines around the specialty extraction scope that others carry.
- Conventional HVAC, power, and plumbing designed around the grow rooms and process flow
- Volatile-solvent extraction, C1D1/C1D2 area classification, and NFPA 496 purged panels by others
- Gas detection and emergency-exhaust interlocks coordinated with the extraction specialist
- Processing-kitchen and packaging MEP integrated with the cultivation systems
- Whole-set coordination with architect, grow consultant, and equipment vendors in BIM
Because the load can be predominantly latent. A mature canopy can transpire most of the water it's fed, so the room is fighting moisture, and the hardest moment can be lights-off, when the lighting heat disappears but the canopy keeps releasing moisture. We run sensible and latent calculations per room at planted canopy density and size dedicated dehumidification for that lights-off hour, which a comfort system sized only for cooling cannot reliably hold.
Yes. Grow lighting is one of the densest connected loads in any building, and we size the service, feeders, and panels to the full connected canopy. The horticultural lighting is designed to NEC Article 410, Part XVI, with luminaires listed to UL 8800 on GFCI-protected circuits where cord-connected (listed SPGFCI above 150 V to ground under the 2023 NEC), per Section 410.184. We also build in per-room submetering for energy benchmarking and utility incentive programs.
Bulk humidity isn't enough — outbreaks can start in stagnant microclimates inside a dense canopy and when a lights-off swing pushes flower surfaces to the dew point. We design to hold VPD stage by stage and keep flower surfaces off the dew point through the dark cycle, with canopy-level airflow and turnover to reduce dead spots. The goal is an environment that, alongside sanitation and IPM protocols, reduces the conditions that favor pathogens.
No — volatile-solvent extraction carries hazardous-area scope that a dedicated extraction specialist handles: C1D1/C1D2 classification, gas detection, emergency exhaust, and NFPA 496 purged-and-pressurized panels. We design the conventional HVAC, power, and plumbing around that classified envelope and coordinate the interlocks, so the two scopes integrate cleanly behind the engineer of record's seal.
Yes. We size carbon-filtration odor control to the exhaust and map building pressurization to reduce terpene-odor escape and support compliance with applicable nuisance ordinances. On water, we coordinate the vendor's fertigation and RO/DI equipment, route dehumidification condensate to drain, and coordinate nutrient-laden wastewater pretreatment to the local discharge limits.