Insulating outside walls...

Hey friends.

My tenants just moved out of my upstairs apartment and we'll be moving into the whole house. There is a particular closet that is very out of the way and perfect for growing. It's roughly 3' x 4' with 10' ceiling.

I'm seriously considering moving up there from my current basement setup for a few reasons. here's a quick pro vs. cons:

pros:
1.) way more secure/discrete than the basement
2.) perfect area to Clone/Veg/SOG/SCROG (do a split level thing flower on bottom, veg/clone on top)

cons:
1.) has 2 outside walls that i'm worried about thermal imaging
2.) it gets HOT up there in the summer
3.) water is 3 rooms away.
4.) it's an upstairs closet, not as spill friendly as the basement.

Security and consolidation are the BIG selling points for me. I can run a hose from the kitchen to the closet or lug a few 5 gal buckets no prob. My biggest concern is the exterior walls. How exactly does thermal imaging work and what is the best way to protect against it?

thanks. if i decide to do it i'll log the move for you all to see.

Skeet.

Also, if i do this, i'll probably be venting into the attic directly above. To reduce heat in the closet...i was thinking about putting my ballast in the attic and running the cord through the ceiling down to the lamp. It gets very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer up in the attic. Would that stress the ballast too much? i'd have some fans blowing the heat/vented air around the attic to keep any heat signatures down.

thanks.
Skeet

I'm interested in this also. It may be paranoia as police officers do not go around randomly scanning houses typically, but it's still something I want to be prepared for.

I have this idea involving radiant barrier tin foil that you use in your attict and you staple it to the bottom of the rafters. It keeps up to 80% of the heat out of your attic supposedly.I was thinking that this could be applied to the inside of the room.

The materials cost for radiant barrier is actually fairly cheap when considering what it does. I think you can find 1000 sqft rolls for around the $300 area. Again I don't know about thermal imaging but just from the application this material was made for it stands to reason that this could work.

Anyone else with ideas?

how big/many lights are you running? have you had the opportunity to get temps in the room? do a dry (no plants in yet) running of your lights and check the max temp of the room. if you can keep that an ambient 70-80 degrees (or roughly the same temp as the rest of the house) my thoughts are that the only thing which would show up on FLIR is the actual lights. you can buy stuff which supposidly blocks the thermal signature, its like mylar but more expensive...
I have a closet of similar dimensions which has one outside wall, so i'm curious to learn also.

something of note. if you are venting into your attic and you live in an area which gets snow covered roofs, you don't want to be the only house on the block with no snow.
you might want to think about taking it all the way outside...in which case you'll want to look into scrubbing

Well...I have 2 400 watt HPS...In the closet i'll probably only be using 1 of them. Temps in my current room are 75-85 but i plan on properly venting everything for the move.

As far as the actual lights showing up on the FLIR...I believe that would not be a problem. I've done a fair amount of searching on this topic and my understanding is that FLIR can't "see through walls". all it can detect is exterior surfaces that are different temperatures. So...if your light was heating the room so much that the heat was making the outside of the wall warm then they could see that...but if you vent it right and the exterior doesn't heat up then they can't see it.

I get tons of snow in my area. It gets REAL cold in my attic...to the point where i doubt a stream of 85 degree air would make much of a difference...especially if i blow it around with some strong fans. My major concern would be the heat of the ballast and warm vented air causing condensation on or around the ballast and damaging it.

in fact...thinking about it now...i'd be taking that cold air in to cool my lamp...would the temperature difference between the cold air and the hot bulb cause the bulb to break? i mean...most street lights are HPS right? they sit in the brutal cold all the time and are ok...right???

lots to think about...
Skeet

most street lights are 600w hps (i used to work for the street dept) but they are also sealed in some heavy duty glass, idk if the temp difference would be enough to crack the glass, i would like to think our goods are higher quality than that ya know?

you would be suprised how a stream of 85 degree air can make a difference. you don't have to melt the entire roof, just a layer to allow the rest of the snow to slide right off.
if you have a flat roof, obviously this doesnt happen.