First timer from PA, be gentle. I bought a 4x4 grow tent kit, soil grow/LED, to place inside an 8x8ish, partially finished room. The room is walled off from the rest of the basement with a door and except for normal basement humidity, stays dry. I run a dehumidifier 24/7 in my basement, it kicks on and off as necessary. My basement is unheated, year round the temp stays between 50s-70s. I cut up some pieces of Styrofoam insulation to place under my pots to keep them off the cold concrete floor. I am fortunate in my setup because I have a small, outside window directly behind my tent. So here's my question. Given the cold winters, do I run ventilation ducting out the window through like with a dryer vent? Only in summer? Not at all since it's an LED setup? If I don't vent, would the carbon filter work well enough to keep smell out of the house?
If you don’t vent outside your house, it will depend on how many plants and how dank they’ll get lol. Some strains get real stinky and some don’t, so I’d say this will be circumstantial
Ah the great winters. You can dump your exhaust outside, make sure its away a bit from the house so the condensation doesn't build up. Expect to pay a lot more for heating though. I'm thinking check out Staples and look at their 4-in-1 AC/heater/humidifer/dehumidifiers for ~$600+. Seems like a lot, but add all the different units and you will get near the same price. If you go that way, you can control most environmental conditions, but probably better to run that kind of unit outside the tent and keep a smaller humidifier in the tent during vegetative growth. Recycle into the house, the 4-in-1 would pick up the excess. Odor control is maintained using carbon filters.
i would try to vent in and out in the room, control that 8x8 room's temp/humidity and your tent will be perfect, if the room's door stays shut and no air moving into it u might have to run a bathroom fan, exhaust a small 40 cfm fart fan into the basement, this will keep enough fresh air moving into the room.! like Nex said, this is dependent on your filter/s and crop smell.!!
I'll take any advice, thank you for your reply. So what I ended up doing was popping that basement window out, crafted some insulation to fill the empty window space and ran an exhaust hose outside. I placed a vent (clothes dryer) cap on the outside pipe to keep the critters out of the house. I ordered a combination AC/Heater/Dehumidifier for the room? I'm not sure if it goes in the tent? As far as fresh air, I haven't figured out a means of providing fresh air to the room with the door closed. Your idea to add a bathroom fan is an interesting idea to consider. Thanks so much for the suggestion, I hadn't thought of that!
it is for the room, the tent will suck the room air in, hopefully u can get the room to 65-75 deg and 35-45% RH with enough ventilation this will let your tent run at 75-80 and 40-50%.! with the combo a/c unit it will have to vent out of the window, a single hose unit will draw air in from the room and exhaust it outside, this is the hot air from the coils, if this is your set up then it will be a good thing, u can vent your tent into the room and let the a/c pull fresh air in, this will be way more efficient at maintaining temps/rh because your inline fan would remove way more air from the room and tossing it outside.! as far as the door being closed..... if u have a 1-2" gap under the door u r fine with just the a/c unit pulling air in, if not cut it off to get the 2" gap, if u r using your inline exhaust fan to vent outside then u may need to cut a vent in the door, the bigger the better, this is why u will loose efficiency, more air out is more air in and u have to change more air to desirable temps/rh, but with u already having controlled basement air coming into the room the change won't be terrible.!
I can't thank you enough for your help. So I got the AC/Heat/Dehumid, can't believe how large the thing is. Thankfully, you said run it outside the tent. Since I'm using a basement room that keeps between high 50s to low 70s F, will there ever be a need to run the AC that I should bother worrying about it's venting? Seems like heating the room is going to rock my electric bill. Concrete floor, blueboard insulation, outside window, humid air... ugh ... So I'm going to add my before and after photo of my solution to exhaust the inside air to the outside. I replaced the missing window with more blueboard and Gorilla taped everything for the best seal possible. I will likely add rubber sealant to the window edges for more insulation. If I close the only door to the room off, there is only a 1" gap under the door for fresh air. Instead of cutting the door, I've decided I'll add a small, louvered vent into the adjacent laundry room wall. I think I'm on the right track, but having never done this before, I may not be in the correct lane... If you have any other suggestions or a criticism, I honestly would love for you to share. I just found the a pinned FAQ on ventilation. Wish I had noticed it before.
this may cause RH issues, the washer and dryer running create a lot of moisture.! u may need a/c when the basement gets in the 70's, it is okay though, a/c dehumidifies.!! yes, its outside vent is necessary for dehu. also. I would remove the tent's exhaust duct from the window and use it for your a/c outlet hose.!!! just let the tent exhaust into the room and let your a/c adjust the temp/rh, the 1" gap under the door with the a/c exhausting should draw in enough fresh air for Co2 and u will be running much more efficient.! this will probably let your carbon scrubber work better also.....????? with a 4'' inline drawing air this would not be enough, but if u go with the above mentioned room exhaust it will be plenty.!
You really think the fan of the AC/Heater will pull enough air out of the room to prevent odors? And then let the fan hooked up to the filter exhaust itself within the same room? It would be fantastic to more efficiently recycle the already heated air. I gotcha on the laundry room. I'll add a louver to a different inside wall, away from laundry. Oh, and the two fans that came with my kit are 6"
I found the pinned ventilation FAQ. I see what you're saying, there's no way around it, I have to exhaust the AC/Heat/etc unit. It says to have a complete exchange of air every 5 minutes. There's no possible way the AC unit can do that. I'll have to exhaust both.
This is referencing your tent, and it does need exchanged every 2-5 minutes to displace heat and humidity, this is what your 6" fan/filter will do.! using the a/c unit to trickle fresh air into the room is only to keep Co2 up for the girls, between the a/c exhaust and u visiting the grow there should be plenty of fresh air.! I m running 360w of LED, 6" HO inline, and a Can-66 filter, my box draws air in from the garage it is in and exhausts into the same garage, but i have a/c, heat, and dehu in the garage keeping temps/rh right, i do not have any active intake/exhaust for the garage, only the doors opening from normal use (coming and going). I would not steer u wrong.!! I want to see your harvest pics, wide angle pics to show the whole bud.!!
lol, I haven't even removed the seeds from the mailing envelope yet. I'm trying to get everything setup and except for the internet, I have no one to turn to. I'm growing more confused by all this. What I'm understanding here is, run the ac/heat/fan/dehumidifier all-in-one unit outside the tent. Exhaust the air of the unit right out the window. Have the fan that draws air through the charcoal filter sit atop the grow tent with zero type of exhaust control. Just let it sit there sucking air out of the tent and blow around the room the tent is in. Don't make any changes to the fan that I have sitting on the floor, outside the tent, allow it to pull air from outside the tent and go into the tent through ducting. (But I may have to place an additional vent in the room wall to draw more outside air into the room for the good of what's in the tent. i.e. tomatoes) And you're saying there should be no smell as long as the charcoal filter is in working condition. Am I understanding this correctly?
yes.! yes, air from the top of the tent > filter > duct > fan > duct out into room at ceiling height and blow around the room the tent is in.!! I would wait, the crack under the door and any other cracks in the room will be enough.! correct, the filter will have more passes to scrub the air, sealed environment Co2 rooms have a filter sitting on the floor with the fan bolted directly to the top of it circulating in the grow area, then when their exhaust does come on their exhaust filter is not overloaded and scrubs out the remaining smell.!!
well, even though I have to semi-tear my work apart, this makes me happy. the all-in-one unit is NOT going to blow nearly as much heated air out of the house as one of those in-line fans. I've been thinking, "heat the room, then blow that expensive hot air out of the house." very happy, indeed thank-you
with a filter > fan > outside set up there might be times when even the best of filters not get all the smell, like when u r rustling the plants around trying to water, training, or harvest time.... with the filter > fan > inside room it will have a 2nd chance to scrub before the little a/c unit exhausts any stink. I have exhausted outside while using 800w of HID and I like my current method much more, ventilating inside a room gives me more control over my environment.!!
Bust out the window and replace it with plywood. Cut it to size. Use a 6in hole saw then silicon caulk to fit it in. This got me by for 18 months before I elected to get glass block put in with the appropriate 6in vents built in. Sent from my SM-N950U using Grasscity Forum mobile app