I just purchased a 1000 watt bulb. I planned on doing a 4x4, 62 watts per square foot grow box my first time. The height of the box I'm unsure of. I'm thinking 6 ft? I purchased a fantech FX 6XL 392 CFM fan to deal with heat for my lamp but I'm not sure how well they work (for the price I'm going to have to assume they work great). I plan on pushing all exhaust into my attic elminating any warm air from reentering the grow environment. Now my question is, can I bring cold air in from my AC through ducts i run directly into the grow box? I like to keep the house around 72 obviously but I have a feeling it will be hard to regulate the temp in the box based on the temp of my house since I'm trying to keep them completely seperate. Is this worth while? I've also seen little swamp coolers that claim a 12 degree difference... Whats a good general temp for a grow box of my size and lamp?
yes, you can do that, just make sure that the duct blowing directly in there doesn't make the box too cool. The best way to keep a box in check when you have a high wattage HID, is to use an air-cooled hood, or better, a SunTube or cooltube. This way, you can cool off the source of your heat and keep the box in check easier. It also allows you the advantage of keeping your hot bulb air seperate from your grow chamber air so you can augment it with CO2
I do have an air cooled hood. Do you think it might be best to bring the AC directly to one of the ducts, while having my have fan push exhaust out the other side? I worry about cold air on such a hot bulb. Should I be worried? I also worry about this fan sucking my ac and blowing it into my attic. I'd hate to see all that expensive cold air go to waste. I'll try to figure out a way to recycle this if need be. I guess I'll need to play with my grow box to see see how hot it gets. I just want to try my hardest to get this as close to right my first time around. All these little science experiments are going to be fun... Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.
Use the fan with the reflector... make the fan suck the air away from the bulb and out into the attic... it will also suck air from the grow room... therefore your getting freshair and cooling your bulb... and the cold air you dont have to worry about on the bulb...
Nah, if you use a tube/hood, you can probably get away with pulling outside the box air through a duct, through the tube/hood, through another duct, and through the Vortex fan and out to wherever. Try this first, and then see how hot your box is getting.
you mean because of adding humid air to your attic? it should be a negligible issue provided your attic has the ventilation that it should.
Yes I mean mold in your attic due to added humid air. I have heard of alot of people who have gotten mold in their attic do to inadiquate ventilation.