sed8ed

Present room specs:
room size approx 8x8x24 feet sealed except for door (had to remove the airlock due to cooling issues
2 - 4x8 tables
1 - 2x4 table
3 - 600w digital (ballasts inside the room)
2 - 400w mag (ballasts outside the room, aircooled hoods)
2 - 1000w mag (ballasts outside the room)
780 cfm exhaust fan set up for room purge right now, was planning on recircing the room air through a carbon filter through this one
2 - 430 cfm exhaust fans (1 set up for room purge incase of overtemp, 1 pulling the exhaust from the ac out of the room)
1 - 12,000btu danby portable ac (dual hose) intake from the household cold air return, exhaust to the household heating ducts
1 - Danby dehumidifier
CO2 system
Harvest master room controller

All plants in soil until I perfect this system then going back to top feed recirc
Presently I am only running 2 of the 600w over the veging clones due to heat problems

I seem to have run into a problem with cooling the grow room lately, I can't seem to get the temps down below 85 with the lights on and 78 with the lights off... ambient outside night temps are around 75 but nothing seems to make a difference, even purging the room with both the 6 inch vortex and the 8 inch vortex. With the room sealed up, the lights and fans off but the ac on full can I achieve 78 deg at night.

*note* the reason all the lights are not air cooled is that I don't have enough available intake and exhaust ducting leading to and from the room

Anyone have any ideas on what could be going wrong? In theory, the ac should be more than adequate, unfortunately I can't feed the ac intake and exhaust outside due to this being in the basement (concrete walls, I was hoping these would work as a heatsink). I really need to get this fixed asap since the vegging clones desperately need to be repotted and then they won't fit in the one tray they are packed into, furthermore, i'm pretty well maxed on available power so another ac is out of the question

4GeTfulGrOwA:)~

sORY MIGHT BE A DUMB quistion but what size air intake have you got?
Where does you fresh air come into the room?

Lou Cypher

Your A/C is too small for the room.
Also a portable one that keeps cooling the hot air in the room it's not enough.
Applications that size require split units where the A/C it's cooling the air coming from outside.
A 2 tone mini split should do the job.
Air cooling for you lights can go through the top 10" of your door also.
Another thing you can do is, put the A/C outside the room and bring the cool air with a duct through the door, that way your A/C its cooling outside air.
Much more efficient.

__________________
100% Stealth Grow part I
100% Stealth Grow part II
100% Stealth Grow part III
CLONNING MADE EASY
PERPETUAL GROWING
Wos Afghan Kush
Nirvana AK48
Nirvana BB

GreenDragon2k

I see... A few problems.

First of all you gotta make a choice between one of the following:

• Forget both the a/c and co2 in order to use active ventilation

• seal the room 100% and use solely air conditioning and co2

• aircool your lamps on a sealed ducting system and attempt to seal the room, using co2 as well as an air conditioner

It appears as though your attempting to mix the first two options and that just doesn't work. You wind up sucking all your cold air out (and your co2) with your exhaust fans that you spent so much electricity to keep cool in the first place with the air conditioner.

Let me get this straight though; your using an air conditioner and the outside temps are 78?
Are you just using the ac because your trying to use co2??


~~
So the first option increasing the size of your exhaust fans, to about 2300 CFM total exhaust, and have a passive intake twice the size of your exhaust holes. Forget using the AC & co2 entirely. This should keep the room temp at about ~2 degrees above ambient intake source temperatures.

Second option you need to get rid of your exhaust fans entirely and buy another 12000 BTU AC, (or preferably, as lou mentioned, a 2 ton split ac system... Using that to cool your growroom... This allows you to have no glass for aircooling your lamps, creating a 10% increase in yield helping offset the increase in air conditioner costs + 15% increase from co2.

Third option is more difficult to finagle and you have to really work on sealing up your ducting properly, but if you've already got aircooled hoods this might be an option for you; basically get that aircooling working, and have the ducting suck outside air and exhaust outside air, so the ventilation on the lights is completely separate from growroom air... Then you inject co2 and use the air conditioner you've already got... What can I say; i've tried this one and gave up. Dont do it haha. Its not worth all that trouble for only a 5% yield increase...

If you can just use active ventilation its worth forgetting about co2. Because you don't have to use glass in your hoods for aircooling them, so even though you get a 15% increase from the co2, you get a 10% decrease in yield from using glass in your hoods; basically not worth all the hassle of refilling tanks etc. for only a 5% yield benefit over active ventilation.

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- Timothy Leary

alleycat

sed8ed--Well first off, get those ballasts out of that room. Are you planning on running all those lights over those 3 trays?? How and in what way are you planning?? Got any windows in the basement?? And with running co2 in there, you should be able to do those temperatures, as long as the fans aren't sucking it out, but sounds like you don't have the ventalation near enough to suck that room out. Can you throw up any pictures of it, those really help me with suggestions of changes that will help you. I take it your running your lights 18 hours a day, and are off during the afternoon when the heat of the day is outside too??

Happy Growing

Alleycat

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sed8ed

Well I was very tired and very frustrated when I first posted this and I think I forgot a few
details... The room is in the far end of the house, no windows, concrete walls on 2 sides up past the ceiling... the two walls that meet the inside of the house and the ceiling of the room have been insulated and vapor barriered. Great room right??? NOPE, the first problem I ran into was there is only a 6x10 inch heating duct and a 6x10 inch cold air return inside the room, that is it for intake's and exhausts, I don't really want to break another hole in the concrete wall (I had to add a drain into the room, the sewer main runs directly below the room) in order to access the outside air, even if I did, digging a 6 foot deep pit outside the house is not on my dream list. Hence the reason for going with AC and CO2, I just couldn't find a viable method of ventilating the room.

Alleycat: my concern is that I can't get the temps below 78 with the lights off (lower density) as well as the fact that only 2 lights are on and the temps are 85+ (this morning they were 87) what happens when I fire up the other 600, the two 400 not to mention the 2 1000's

So until I go and get you pictures, here is the layout:
Alleycat:
3 - 600w on adjustawings over the first 4x8
2 - 400w (will be in a cooltube) over the 2x4
2 - 1000w over the second 4x8 on a light mover for better coverage
The only ballasts in the room are the digital 600's and they actually do put out no heat, they are cool to the touch after being on for 17 hours, however I discovered one problem with them, they wont ignite an hps bulb if there is more than 15' of 14ga cord between the bulb and the ballast hence why they can't be outside the room (lumitek ballasts)
As for timing of the cycles, yes I am running the lights during the coolest part of the day, come time for 12/12 I plan on running from 9pm to 9am

There is a can 50 carbon filter with an 8 inch vortex up in one corner of the room that is ducted back to the far opposite corner of the room (this is to reduce the amount of smell as well as to increase the air circulation in the room, it can be louvered to vent the room if necessary

Lou Cypher:
The portable ac is hooked up to the cold air return for an intake and to the heating duct for an exhaust (this utilizes a 6inch vortex to compensate for any back pressure from the heating system and it's long ductwork) It sits in the room.
Unfortunately the nearest window in the house is just over 31 feet from the closest point in the room so ducting across the living area and through someone's bedroom is not really an option

The 2 - 400w are in the only cooltube in this room, they are hooked up between the two existing ducts, these lights are in a 24" cooltube that is specifically made to house 2 - 400-600w lamps

There are 8 oscillating fans in the room

The heating duct is blocked off in each bedroom in the house and is modified in the furnace room to dump the excess heat up the chimney

I have a 2200cfm squirrel cage blower from a previous grow and a can 150 filter, I am going to try ducting out the door into the upstairs to see if it can lower the temps (crosses fingers)

GreenDragon2k

Hmm... That is a bit of a pickle for sure. If i were you i'd prolly get one of these puppy's. AC-World&reg

Obviously,,, you'd have to install another circuit to handle the load. But I bet it could be on the outside of the house where the outdoor unit is located... So it should be fairly safe to call an electrician.

/edit nevermind it says you gotta put the electrical hookup indoors

__________________
How to keep your hydro reservoir cold

"People use the word "natural" ... What is natural to me is these botanical species which interact directly with the nervous system. What I consider artificial is 4 years at Harvard, and the Bible, and Saint Patrick's cathedral, and the sunday school teachings."
- Timothy Leary

Lou Cypher

Green, that's exactly what I was talking about.
A 2 ton mini split.

sed8ed You have a serious operation there buddy, and from what I see you spend a good amount of $$$ at it.

A mini split can be mounted outside the house and only two 3/4" copper lines will have to go through the 31 feet to your room.
Portable A/C's put out a lots of heat in the room.

You can air cool all your lights on the same 8" duct, that way you only need one exit for the exhaust.

Running a long cable on the ballasts it's easy.
Get a power regulator and connect all your lights to that.

IMO I think you have way too many lights for the size of tables.
Also, if you going to run Co2 you can go as high as 95F with out any problems.

Ducting out of the door will be the best thing, but you will need one powerful extractor.
Ones you light up all these lights temps will get to 110F easy.

If you're working with clones, I don't see the need for so many lights.

Are you using the same room for veg & flower?

__________________
100% Stealth Grow part I
100% Stealth Grow part II
100% Stealth Grow part III
CLONNING MADE EASY
PERPETUAL GROWING
Wos Afghan Kush
Nirvana AK48
Nirvana BB

sed8ed

Ok, here are the pics of the room as promised...

Furthermore, i've discovered that if I plum the exhaust and intake to the ac directly outside in one of the bedrooms, the temps drop signifigantly compared to when the ac is plumed into the cold air return for an intake and into the heating ducts for an exhaust... I may have to core the concrete after all (really didn't want to have to do this)


if you need to see any other pics they are in my gallery starting at img_1286

*please excuse the mess, i've practicaly torn the room apart trying to solve this heat issue

sli phox

wow...looks ok to me!

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