what ventilation system should i be looking for?
O'k guys I have a few question concerning my grow room,I was wondering what I could use to dump the heat in the room and at the same time draw fresh air back into the grow room......here is my set up...
The room is 9ft long 5ft wide and 8ft high
my grow table that I have my plants on is about 5ftx4ft under a 1000w hps
I am into my 3rd week of flowering and boy is the room getting hot! alot hotter then I anticipated!,I keep opening up the door to the grow room and at most times I leave the door open all day during the lights on cycle,but the security is a bit of a issue considering people pop into the house and I have to close the door to the grow room sometimes for hours until my guest's leave but by then the heat is built up and is very hot!,so with this said I have to make a change in the grow room in order to keep the door closed at all times instead of closing the door every time I hear a knock on the front door lol....
Now before anyone thinks this guy is dumb! to set up a grow room and not prepare!,,,in my only defense lol,my grow room has a attic hatch directly above the grow table and I thought that seeing that hot air rises,I would remove the attic hatch which has a 2x2 opening and let the heat escape into the attic,it worked somewhat but isn't doing the job never the less,so there ya go I thought a little atleast lol..
So the grow room is in the middle room in my house,has no window or no access to fresh air other then opening up the door for hours at a time and even then that isn't really fresh air because that is the air that is just sitting around the house! so here is what I want to do and I need help knowing what exactly what product is there that could take care of my problem.
I was planning on running a heat exaust from the grow room up through the attic seeing that there are several venting plates throughout the attic so the attic can breath,I was planning on hooking up to one of the attic venting plates to exhaust my hot air and then hook up a venting intake from another attic venting plate for fresh air into my grow room!....
So what ventilation machine could I use to get this up and running,the reason I ask this is because I figure that venting the heat up and outward should be no problem,but to suck fresh air from 10 feet from across the attic to the attic hatch then down another 6 feet to reach my plants sounds to me like I would almost need a one of those central air exchangers that are put into new homes!.....is there a smaller machine to run my 9x5 grow room? and are there any 2 in one systems that do both heat out take and fresh air intake?...........Sorry I wrote so much to exsplain my situation but I thought a good in depth exsplanation would give you a better understanding of my situation....
So the question are?
what system could I use for my grow space 9x5?
is there a smaller version of the central air exchanger that newer homes use that would be suitable for my grow room?
Or am I completely thinking in the wrong area? with the central air exchanger?......any how any input or guidance would be greatly appreciated...
Remember I could just pump the hot air straight into the attic and the natural air venting in the attic through the venting plates itself would take care of heat and odor! but what got me thinking mostly is in order for me to run duct work 10 feet across my attic floor from a attic vent,and then down another 6 to 7 feet from the attic hatch itself to the plants on the table I would need a powerful system?or maybe not,to be honest I havent got a clue!? anyhow looking for some solutions...thanking you in advance..
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
I should also mention that I have to big ass fans blowing at the plants all the time but still the heat build up is intense after a few hours with the door closed.
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
anyone interested in helping out a fellow grow buddie :p
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
What you can do is to build an active charcoal scrubber to control odor and remove the heat as well.
You use 4 forced air filters & 15 pounds of active charcoal to make a sandwich.
Filter
5 lb Charcoal
Filter
5 lb Charcoal
Filter
5 lb Charcoal
Filter
Use gray tape to make it one big thick filter sandwich. Fit it tight into the hole to your attic and install a fart fan (bathroom fan) turn on the fan and let it run. That will cool your room some but more important it will also control odor. You need a glass heat shield over your light and a blower moving air across the bulbs to remove the heat. Air in from one side, through the light and out the other side.
That will take care of your heat problem, and the odor problem you may not even be having yet.
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
Thanks Zandor for answering my question,and what should I do for fresh air? or do you think the air that is already in my house is good enough,or would my plants do even greater with a fresh air vent directly to my grow?....thanks.
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
Use either passive (vent hole in the bottom) or active where you force air in.
Passive will allow odor to escape out active will not.
Either way fresh air in moving across the plant is a good thing. Make sure you monitor the temperature at the top of the canopy 24/7 from outside the room so you have real world data.
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
Also an actic vent thermostate (hard to fine sometime but only cost 10 bucks) will turn on the fart fan when the temperature rises above a set degree and turn off when it is below that set degree.
CAP makes one for 77.00 bucks too.
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
Great!.....thanks :) ,another thing my friend,Just wondering about radiant heat? is that actually heat from the bulb itself, or is it actually uv burn that is produced from the bulbs uv?......
I ask this because I know a few guys who told me that,even after backing the 1000w hps from the top of plants within a range where the back of their hand felt comfortable under the lights,the plants still recieved a dried out look and a crispy feel to them,and they said it was radiant burn...
Of course I know that you can burn the plants with a 1000w hps bulb because of the heat..
But didn't know that radiant heat is a uv burn from the light that actually isn't hot at all...
Care to comment or was my conversation with those guys a waste of time?
Thank you......when I heard about radiant heat at first I always thought it was the heat from the bulb,whats the truth on all of this..
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
Your standard UV rays come in two wave lengths....
UV-A
UV-B
Because of the thin glass most bulbs come in, most all A & B rays are distributed to the plant leaves.
Most often, it is not the light or the rays that fry the plants...rather it is the radiant heat that comes from the reflectors.
The surface of a plant is far more sensitive to radiant heat than the human hand is. That hand test is good for testing burn temps but prolonged exposure to radiant heat will fry a plant in a matter of hours.
The UV rays damage the plants chemistry....not the foilage.
The MJ plant produces more resin to protect the flowers from the UV-B rays thus negating the damaging effects.
Neither UV-A nor UV-B from an MH bulb will kill a plant.
Besides.....your HPS bulbs emit almost ZERO UV-A or UV-B rays.
So we know it isnt the bulb itself then.
Again, its almost always the case of using a relector that causes the radiant heat burn / crisp / death.
And, a 1000W bulb needs to be placed a nice distance from the tops. At least 18" or more.
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
The heat is from the bulb and the air around the bulb, A cool tube will allow you to get the light close or even a heat shield will work. You still need a blower to move the air through the hood or cool tube and out the other side.
For the record I can get 1000w hps as close as 12" and the plants love it. Yes I do have AC in that room but there is no cool tube. The lights come on in a few and I will show you how close it is.
Your friends had other problems; there are a few nutrient problems that have the exact same signs.
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
Hello there Bruiser. I myself am a closet grower and just like you I struggled with overheating and ventilation problems when I first began growing in a smaller space. I know some of the other guys have given you some pointers and I would like to suggest this to you. I myself use an item called an Squirrel Cage Blower which is highly effective at removing heat. These blowers are basically like high powered bathroom exhaust fans. I have done my best to calculate the cubic feet of your room with the information you provided. It is 460 Cubic Square Feet large. I suggest you go to this website http://www.mdhydro.com/squirrel-cage-fans.html and consider buying the 465cfm model(CFM=Cubic Feet Per Minute). They are very easy to setup and the website I directed you too is very affordable and very possibly the cheapest place on the net. I buy almost all my equipment from these guys and I trust them 100 percent. I'm almost positive that this will eiminate your heat problems. Now I'm not sure if you know about rates of air exchange but it is advised that you cycle all the air out of your room at least once per minute or five time a minute for optimum results. If you don't know how to calculate that what you do is take the cubic square feet of your room and purchase a cage fan that meets your CSF(cubic square feet) or exceeds it. With your 460 CSF grow area you would need the 465cfm model to exchange air once per minute with five cfm's left over. In order to exchange the air in your room five times a minute you will need a exhaust fan capable of 2300cfm's a minute which is damn near impossible to find so I would suggest going with their 800cfm model if you want to push more air out of the room faster. I hope I could help and good luck to you. ;)
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
I forgot to mention to you that exchanging the air five times a minute is not totally needed to grow cannabis. Removing all the air out of your room once a minute will remove all the hot stale air from your room well once a minute. The reason growers like to move air five time a minute has nothing to do with heat but has to do with making sure your plants are getting enough fresh air to convert sunlight into energy for maximum growth potential. Peace.
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
Well thanks alot zandor,harddon :) ZERO Revolt.,all your information has been more then helpfull! :) ,thanks for taking the time and helping out a fellow grow buddie,also Zandor could you post the pic of your 1000w light 12" away from the plants,I would love to see it!,also do you have the AC close to the lights? anyhow show me a picture would ya dude!.......much appreciated..
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
I was wrong on the estimate, it's 13 1/2" from the average top of the canopy.
Yes that is a temperature probe, the temperature is 68 lights off and as high as 74 with the light on. No cool tube, no hood no venting, no exhaust just one 1000w Hortilux bulb start to finish.
My camera does not like taking pictures of 100w bulbs.
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
The place where i work has a shop floor - ( where i work ) and Offices. All the dickheads in the office were complaining recently about how hot it was in the office ( even though it`s far hotter where we work and no-one gives a shit)!!
Anyway - they went out and bought a small portable air-conditioning unit and i was quite stunned at how amazing these things are !! You walk from the shop floor into the office now and it`s like walking from the sahara to the North pole in a split second!! -- i thought `` GROW ROOM ``` straight away.
All they do is suck air in from outside and chill it but fuck me they drop the temp of a room hugely!!!
u`d have to have a 4" (120 mm) hole in ur wall for intake and i don`t think they come cheap but by the sounds of it ------ if u`ve got a grow room that size then ur obviously not just growing on a small scale and it would be an investment.
i`m planning to have a room of similar size soon just for growing and if my budget can stretch then i`d certainly consider 1. depends on the scale of ur grow though really.
I know all about the problems of heat -- killed a few babies from heat recently so been looking into all aspects of controlling temps.
Hope this isn`t just a waste of ur time ---- just my thoughts in type!!
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
lol Zandor, I see you talk so much about your plants and I have been tyring to find a picture of your grow room and plants. I finally see 2 of your plants and PART of your grow room, you're one amazing grower man. You should be nicked dr. greenthumb
what ventilation system should i be looking for?
Joel this is a typical KBS grow and I have grown KBS for several years now.
I have taken down my KBS room thinking we were selling our house and moving but my wife put that off for another year and there is no point in rebuilding it for only a few rounds. There are so many other way's to grow I'm just playing this year, working on book's and other projects. KBS is a full time job and requires a lot of time and money to run.
The second picture is not mine it's a friend's. I taught him how to grow trees. I guess he was a good student that plant yielded just over 3.5 pounds dry and one of the largest harvests I have seen in many years.