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, humidity, and VPD inside a few degrees and a few percent, lights-on and lights-off, or the crop is gone.
Latent Load Is the Job, Power Density Is the Catch.
Unlike comfort HVAC, a grow room's load is moisture, not heat — a mature canopy transpires nearly all the water it's fed, and the hardest hour is lights-off, when sensible load collapses but the room still has to be dried. We size dehumidification and grow-light power to the canopy that's actually planted, hold VPD stage by stage, and keep flower surfaces off the dew point so mildew never starts — documented to NEC Article 410 Part XVI, 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 at planted canopy density, not nameplate
- Stage-by-stage VPD, temperature, and dew-point targets from clone through veg, flower, and dry
- Dehumidification sized for the lights-off hour, when cooling coils alone can't pull the moisture
- Canopy-level airflow and turnover to break up dead spots that breed powdery mildew and bud rot
- CO2 enrichment delivery with life-safety monitoring for elevated-CO2 displacement hazard
- Redundancy and staging so a single equipment failure doesn't take the crop down with it
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 per NEC 410.184
- Special-provision horticultural lighting distribution per NEC Article 410, Part XVI
- 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, drained, and recovered — engineered as a closed cultivation loop.
- Fertigation and irrigation mains, manifolds, and zone coordination with the grow-system vendor
- RO/DI and source-water treatment sized to peak fertigation demand
- Condensate capture and reuse 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 that keeps neighbors, regulators, and inspectors satisfied.
- Carbon-filtration odor control sized to room exhaust and air-change rates
- Building pressurization mapped so terpene odor stays inside the envelope, not in the parking lot
- Filtration and airflow supporting integrated pest management 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
Quick answers about how we deliver design support for this sector.
Because the driving load is latent, not sensible. A mature canopy transpires nearly all the water it's fed, so the room is fighting moisture, and the hardest moment is lights-off, when the lighting heat disappears but the humidity doesn't. 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 will never 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 per Section 410.184. We also build in per-room submetering for energy benchmarking and utility incentive programs.
Bulk humidity isn't enough — outbreaks start in stagnant microclimates inside a dense canopy and when a lights-off swing pushes flower surfaces to the dew point. We hold VPD stage by stage, design canopy-level airflow and turnover to eliminate dead spots, and keep flower surfaces off the dew point through the dark cycle. The goal is an environment where the pathogens never get the conditions they need.
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 so terpene odor stays inside the envelope and out of nuisance-ordinance trouble. On water, we design fertigation and RO/DI distribution, capture and reuse dehumidification condensate, and coordinate nutrient-laden wastewater pretreatment with the local discharge authority.
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