11 Apr Why Price Should Not Be the Deciding Factor in Designing a Cannabis Grow Facility
When designing your cannabis grow facility, you want someone who will take the time to stand there and argue with you. The old adage of getting what you pay for is incredibly true when designing and building your grow facility.
If the price is your determining factor, you’re going to end up with a team of yes-men, who nod their heads to everything you say. They just want to build it to your specs quickly, then onto the next one. This can lead to a lot of problems down the line. They’re not thinking about your future, they’re only thinking about their present.
Here is what you need to think about when choosing who to work with.
You Want a Company That Asks More Questions
You want a company that’s a bit of a pain in the butt upfront because they’re asking so many questions. They’re not detail-driven, they’re detail-obsessed. They’re pushing hard to get every piece of equipment and the personnel that you will use within that facility identified. So, when they do their calculations, they are accurate.
They didn’t miss anything.You want a company that will notice there’s a great big piece of machinery in the corner that will pump out 10,000 watts of heat per six hours, and the air handling equipment needs to deal with it. Those are things that can’t be missed.
The Cost of Building it Right is Always Lower Than a Retrofit
Look for a company that has time to give a damn, and ask the right questions. Their past experience should show up during the first two weeks of your job, to ensure that all the proper questions are actually answered. I can remember one site we were quoting. We noticed they had a 24-hour
security guard. Most companies wouldn’t question why someone was pacing in front of the gate.
“They’re clearly just guarding the facility. This is expensive equipment that’s going to grow high-quality weed. That’s why they need the security guard, right?” Wrong.
Because we asked the right questions, we found out he wasn’t guarding the facility, per se. It was because they upgraded the electrical services in that building. The guard was actually watching a very expensive length of copper wire that they needed to do their termination. If this isn’t something that’s taken into account, it can lead to very expensive problems later on.
Past Experience Prevents Future Expenses
Will your designer/ builder argue about keeping flower rooms to no larger than 1,200 square feet? Or will they just build you one that’s 4,800 square feet because you told them to? You want someone who will ask you why you want one big room. What if something happens to it? How much money is it going to cost you if you lose on of your four rooms, as opposed to losing everything in one big room?
I was just going over drawings for an extraction facility and there was zero hyperfiltration or carbon filtration in it. A fast and cheap company would just send the quote, but we had to stop and tell them: “Listen, the place is gonna stink like crazy in you’re in a multi-unit industrial park. Your neighbours won’t love that. Or you’ll get shut down. Health Canada won’t even allow you to open the doors.”
We’re about alerting our clients to any deficiencies in their drawings and getting them to trust us enough to say, “Let’s do this right.”
Bigger Facilities, Bigger Problems
The whole cannabis industry has historically been run by the seat of a grower’s pants. When you’re growing in a basement or a 10 x 10 tent, if something goes off the rails, it’s a lot easier to bring it back to spec than a whole facility. A lot of today’s growers don’t have experience when they scale up. They may say, “Oh, no, no. We don’t need any of that technology. I know how to do this.” But they are failing to understand the scope of how to scale up their operations. What happens when (not if, when) one of the lines gets blocked? Now, half your room may or may not be getting a supply of nutrients. What’s gonna happen to those plants? They won’t be happy. Neither will your customers.
We Want to Build Long-Lasting Relationships, Not Just Facilities
Mistake-proof and disaster-proof your facility by putting in more time and effort upfront to avoid issues later. At Grow Optimum, our motto is, “Know your growth.” We can build you the facility and help you know your own growth. We’re backed by a team with over 35 years of building this stuff, designing and building everything from cannabis facilities to pharmaceutical-grade laboratories.
How can we help you? Click here to find out.