So its my first grow and ive run into a heat issue. Ive got about a 4x8' closet im growing in and im using about half, 4x4'. i have 2 400w mag ballasts and im using 2 CMH lamps in batwing reflectors for veg. I plan to switch to 2 HPS for flowering and i expect the room will get even hotter then. Currently i just leave the door open all day long with a fan blowing hot air out into the bedroom but id like to be able to keep it shut. with door open temps are around 80, closed it gets into the 90s pretty fast. So heres my idea. I want to use a 5000btu window ac unit that is in the bedroom and somehow transfer the that cooling power to the closet without ducts because i rent the place and cant go blasting holes in the wall. i figure i could cut down a Styrofoam cooler that would attach to the face of the ac unit and completely seal off the fan so it constantly recirculates cold air inside the cooler. Then use some 1/4" copper tubing looped back and forth inside the cooler to act as a radiator. Then attach insulated rubber tubing to both ends of the radiator and run it from the window unit, under the closet door, to another copper tubing radiator inside the closet. One end of the hose (the one attached to the top of the window unit) would attach to a pond pump sitting in a small resivour. The other hose (coming off the bottom of the closet radiator) would dump back into the resivour. I would like to know if anyone has tried something like this with decent results or if there is a much simpler solution that im overlooking. I tend to make things way to complicated usually. Thanks yall, T Sharp
I'll try my best to explain my setup which works great for me. I am using a small 5000BTU window ac unit (craigslist 50$) sitting next to my tent which is in a closet about the size of yours. The AC's exhaust is running through a duct into my tent and plugged into my exhaust fan intake duct. Basically, the fan in the tent is also sucking the warm air out of the AC after it pulls air through my cooltube. The tents negative pressure is sucking the cool air in through intake holes near the bottom of the tent. Two problems so far... The tent gets too cold - below 70 degrees, so I have to manually turn it off and on. I'm going to get a timer+thermostat and try to time it so that it comes on 10-15 minutes at a time. The AC is reducing the humidity in the tent down to around 25% relative humidity so I may have to stick a cool mist humidifier in there to see if that brings it back up around 50%. Hope this helps...Seems like it would be easier that running all that copper tubing.
Thanks for the reply arciem, this definitely sounds like a good idea. i plan on building a tent in the closet in the near future and might try something like this. there might be a simple way of solving the t-stat issue without buying a remote one or using a timer. if the ac unit isnt digital there should be a temp probe up against the cooling radiator on the front of the unit. you should be able to take the front off the unit, cut the probe loose and solder extended wires to it and place it in the tent. As far as a humidifier i assume your talking about using an ultrasonic mister in the tent, my only concern is that it wouldnt be able to keep up with the dehumidifying rate of the AC. I have a single transducer ultrasonic mister (Mainlandmart M001) and the output is pretty lacking.