Grow room setup

YOU CAN.............but i dont think its worth it.

 

Anything that's white or silver will do the job, some better than others but generally will be fine

But yes, I believe that is a type of mylar (could be wrong of course) so it should be on the better side of things

If it's in your price range then go for it I say

 

I like that thin foil faced foam insulation board.

 

I line my hydro buckets with it to keep the reservoir temps down.



Seems to work great for something like that, but I wouldn’t want to line an entire room with it. Depending on the size of the room, you’ll need multiple rolls and coverage isn’t all that great per roll.

Panda film is a good way to go.

 

RMax Insulated Bord with Panda Film glued to it. Works well

 

sweet!

 

Panda film is the most cost-effective way short of painting in my opinion. I don't like using highly reflective surfaces such as foil. Flat White Paint followed by Panda Film are my top choices.

 

I haven't persopnally ever done it........but I AM SURE there are people out there who have done/tried it............but from what I understand...........none of that stuff REALLY makes a difference..........im not saying that is true..........just saying thats what I believe to be true........at the moment.............has anyone here done an experiement on growing exact conditions expect for the "mylar" or reflective material??? I can't see how it would make a difference in yield.........and if it did........I can't see it being more than maybe 2 grams..........

 

White paint is about 75-85% reflectivity
Panda Film is 79-85%
Aluminum foil (Shiny side) about 78%
Mylar 95-98% (When perfectly clean)

Also you have to take into account how much of your light is actually hitting the walls? Unless your light is poorly designed or an HID with no/crappy reflector, very little is hitting the walls, and most of that would be directed below the canopy or at best lower areas of the side.

The difference in real world results is very little tbh, and with really metallic reflective materials "hot spots" could theoretically form with focused reflection on a spot but I've almost never seen any evidence of this from anyone I've spoken with.

 

OHHH damn............must have changed since I last looked into it.............I thought mylar was like 30 ish %.........I AM NOT saying you are wrong........im just stating whats in this crazy brain of mine.

 

quick google search says.............. @Jemgomez is correct with his info.

 

Well, that's it's theoretical reflectivity. In the real world though every slight spec of dust, grease, etc greatly affects it's ability to reflect, more than a flat white surface. So if you like cleaning your walls weekly and don't mind the fact that it's so damn delicate and easy to mess up mylar could be for you I suppose lol

 

You can do it, I did it. But you have to watch for hot spots. This is basically when the Mylar crinkles up it can cause a much hotter reflection to the plants causing a certain area to burn. Didn’t happen to mine but I thought I’d pass off the warning just Incase.


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Here's some real world testing:

 

It's working great in my flower room and the big advantage is you can hang some to make a wall to make better use of the light

 

sweet, i have the winner! i have used aluminum foil a few times white painted walls a few times and the good tent stuff and never experienced hot spot problems but the again i doubt i go much over 900 par either. one thing i did notice is the amount of heat radiated into the different materials. seems like the more you can actually reflect the less heat that is built up over time??? or something like that

 

As to the heat thing, ambient heat will be the same regardless of what lighting or wall material you have, with the exception of if the wall material is porous enough to allow some heat to escape, or a good enough conductor to transfer heat to the exterior. For every watt-hour used within the grow space 3.4BTU of heat is generated (I think that's the right number, something like that). Exhaust or artificial cooling are the only ways to reduce this, different lighting styles, light reflectivity etc will not changes this. The only thing you could change with reflective materials or light styles is surface temperature of your leaves which is important for maintaining a proper VPD curve, but I am pretty sure the higher reflectivity your walls are, the more radiant heat is directed at the plants thus raising leaf surface temp. Not probably going to be noticeable really unless you have rows of 1kDE HPS fixtures but that's the only variation in temp you would see with different walls.

 

exactly.