I have my grow closet completed. I have a question about venting the closet. I have a 465 vortex mounted in the attic pulling exhaust thru the ceiling of the grow closet 24/7. I have one 4" intake hole cut in the bottom of the closet pulling central air from another room into the closet. Is this enough intake to the closet? Would the closet temp stay cooler if i opened up another intake or two? Thanks
from my understanding you dont want the intake to be larger than the exhaust holes as it may counteract it and make it neutral...but im nto positive, it sounds as if yoru 4 inch hole should be good, just make sure u dont have any ligth leak
I got the light handled. It's pitch black in there on dark time. It took alot of black foam tape etc around the interior side of the door. The intake is built with s shaped elbows painted flat black inside and there is no light getting out or in through that. My grow room stays 81 - 83 so that is ok. The plants like that temp. I've decided to fix the 83 degree water problem with an inline water chiller that cycles the grow buckets continuosly. I'll chill the solution down to 68-69 and keep it there assuming it works as advertised. Others that have tried it swear by them so we will see. Thanks
get some dryer hose from somewhere (make sure its new) and tape it to wherever the central air comes from (wall or floor register) and run it directly into the room, just make sure its not blowing right on your plants
That is the way I have it now. I'm thinking it needs a larger intake hole or at least more than the one 4" one I have now. Maybe I could get more volume of cool central air in there that way. I want to make sure that will work before I go cutting more holes in the wall. My wife gives me these uncomfortable looks when i start cutting holes in our walls. She is already po'd that I can't harvest her any smoke until Sept / Oct....lol no patience....
No, I think the 4" hole is fine. A 465 CFM pulls a LOT of air. Think about it, your growspace is how large? If you had a 10x10x10 space, that fan would replace all the air in the room in a little over two minutes. So even in a room that big, the air wouldn't have enough time to heat up, or be used up of CO2 and O2 by the plants, I'm assuming you have a smaller space than that, so you should definitely be fine.
if you already have it like that then i suggest using another fan to boostyour intake, anything over 80 degrees causes your plants to stretch if your not using Co2... as for your exhaust fan, i udes to have a 450 cfm on my exhaust but it still wasnt enough, now i have a 5500cfm on my exhaust and my 450 is on my central air intake and that keeps my 4000 watt system at 80 degrees
my space is 5' x 6.67' x 8' or 267 cf. I know the 1000w light produces heat but I figured if I had another 465 vortex specifically pulling cool central air thru the light from another room and exhausting to the attic, that it wouldn't heat up my grow space. The aluminum ducts I have attached to the light do not get hot and barely warm for that matter. My veg cab sits in my grow closet and it exhaust into the grow room however I only have (3) 10 day old plants in a 2 gal bubbler in it. I have 4 30w cfl's over them. They don't produce much heat. I'm stumped on the 11 degree difference from the adjoining room to the grow closet.
I have the room intake at the bottom of the grow room. Should I aluminum hose it up 4' - 6' high in there since cool air falls?
figure out where your plants will be height wise at the end , place it about 6 inches above that... and then try to create a cyclonic motion with the air intake and exhaust combo to eliminate the need for a circulation fan this spinning air will also help hot air rise and force colder air to hang out at the bottom of the room where it should be as long as the mixing air right above your plants isnt too hot (around 75-80) it shouldnt matter how hot the rest of the room is...
very good. that should be easy enough to create. I'll try it tonight and post the results. I really don't want to spend any more cash on this project for a larger fan. I had a budget of $1500 and after ordering my water chiller today, I'm over projected budget by $300. It ends up costing me double when the wife thinks she needs to get even...any one here that is married knows where i'm coming from....lol I'll post the results a little later.
you should also use your light to exhaust your room, disconnect the the hose from the side of your reflector that goes to your central air so that it removes the hot air from your room this will allow cooler air to rise to to a higher level thus cooling the bulb you shouldnt be having heat problems with 1 1000 watt bulb and you shouldnt have to spend any more dough you just gotta make a few minor adjustments by the way, nice setup!!!
thank you. I had originally planned on exhausting the room via the reflector but didn't want to exhaust any odors into the attic and then chance it creaping back into the house somewhere. I read Mordgrow had done that and had the odor issues when he started. I am trying to be as stealth as possible. Being new to the hobby, i wasn't sure and still don't know how effective a scrubber would be (no need for one yet). That's when I decided to go ahead and get 2 vortex's instead of one. One to cool the light and exhaust that odorless air to the attic and the other vortex to exhaust the grow room via pipe out of the top of the roof. The grow room exhaust that exits the top of the house sits 40'+ off of the ground. That air will eventually be carbon scrubbed before it exits up there. I'll get that installed in the next couple weeks as needed.
suspect, after thinking about your suggestion a little more, I think I figured out how I could make that work rather easily and without the odor issues down the road. I could get a duct 'Y' adaptor and exit both vortex's exhaust thru the same pipe out of the roof. That sounds like the easiest thing to try 1st and I really didn't like the idea of pumping more hot air off of the light into the already hot attic in the first place. It would also eliminate the attic pressure that I am currently creating by piping in that air. I will be taking care of that task in a couple hours. I'll stop off at the hardware store on my way home to pick up a duct 'Y' adaptor (hopefully they stock them). I will throw up some pics later tonight and the temperature results. I appreciate all your help.
no problem sounds like youre on the right path, keep on learning, its a neverending process good luck
You're on the right track.... I try to triple my room's CFM, so for you 3 x 267 = 801 CFM,,, sounds like alot, but when temps, humidity and smell start to rise you'll need it. I had the same problems as Mordgrow and emailed him to see if he ever resolved it, he did,,, he harvested,lol. I tried everything out there for smell, ozone, the gonzo lava rocks, (2) different carbon scrubbers off Ebay, (1 worked, while the other one I had to modify to work efficiently) But the best was increasing my air flow, I use a 4 inch dryer vent out the side of my house hooked to a 6inch inline duct fan coming off a Y with (2) 4 inch fans feeding it. They cool my lights, room and remove humidity and smell. A variable light switch made them adjustable for the different life cycles of grow, which at some points are smellier then others. I noticed on you 6 inch vortex with what looks like 6-4 inch reducers, that reduces your actual CFM and makes the fan work harder. So if I saw that right then it is something to think about. Also in your attic you should have passive vents on each end of the gable unless it is a hip roof, you can put fans in the vents exhausting heat and moisture, which would help with summer temps in the house and prevent the possibility of mold forming. I also put vents at the bottom and opposite of my exhaust vents which are near the ceiling. the intake vents look normal for stealth on the outside, while on the interior of the room is a vent with (2) 200cfm fans hot glued to the vent and wired to a 12volt DC adapter. From the pics, the house looks new, so congrats on the relatively new house and the well thot out grow room.... your plants and your nose will tell ya if ya need to improve, lol GL, Dewave
well since your set up is fairly common to what mine will be when i get my place, lt me explain what i was gonna do as for teh veg cab, i was going to just have the exhaust aircool the reflector and pull anything else out of there, veg cab will roughly be 4ft x 5ft x 8ft, then teh flower was going to have a carbon scrubber hung up above the light, connected on teh end of the cool tube, and that connected to a y onto a vortex 400 cfm fan, flowering chamber is 4ft x 4ft x 8ft...total the cfm of teh two cabs will be around 250-300cfm. so the fan should have enough to pull through them, i really dont want to get two fans. and for a carbon scrubber, there are some great tutorials on teh internet if you really want a cheap one, it may need replaced more but its only about 50 dollars to make and then you need to just replace the carbon
Dewave, the house is fairly new. We bought it new 4 years ago. I do have 6 to 4 reducers on there. I will probably upgrade to the straight 6" as you suggested to speed up air flow. My new 3 day old Evolution 1000w digital ballast to a crap tonight as it is blowing fuses (2) and tripping the circuit breaker the 2nd time. That's when I quit jacking with it. I was told the new batch of 1000 watters had that problem fixed. I guess they didn't...or I was lied to and got an old one. I'll be chewing on somebody's ass on Thursday about it. so I am back to 30w cfls's for awhile. This grow is most likely screwed depending on how long it takes them to replace my ballast which I purchased across the country in Florida. thanks for the recommendations.
HEY LINEDRIVR, Well congrats on the new home, from the sounds of it ya have close to a 5000sqft home... On the reducers, I can assure you that after ya give them 6 inch pipes they will breath better... also remember as you said you are venting up 46ft,,, thats alot of moisture to carry. Sorry to hear about the ballast problems, I'm sure you know your loads, so that shouldn't be a problem.... Rofl, those CFL's will keep them going as long as ya take care of them... practice topping, Fim'ing and maybe LST while ya wait dewave