The standard seems to be 3.41 btu of cooling per watt of lighting. Does this take in to account air-cooled hoods or is it just for suspended bulbs? I will have 6000 watts cooled by 2 745cfm inline fans. My 14'x16' flower room will be completely ventilated every 4 minutes. Will I even need an AC?
Too many variables. Best to do a test run before starting the grow. Temp of the intake air matters a lot too. If you got cool ambient temps, high ceilings and good airflow, you might be ok. If it's still too warm, exchanging the air every minute (with cool intake air) or AC. For that much light, you'll need a large unit. 1-2 ton AC I imagine.
Yeah im def. gonna do a test run. Problem is I'm doing SOG and using the proceeds to add more lights, so I'll only have three in there initially. If anything the most I'll need is 3.4 x 6000 = ~20,000 btu AC. So I'd still like to know if anyone has run a comparable grow and what size AC they've used. Or, if anyone has used an AC with any amount of air cooled hoods and what size it was. I know this may be a strange question but any help is appreciated.
I used to run a 8k flower room. Initially I had a 25k BTU AC that would allow me to run 7 lights and still keep decent temp and humidity, this is without air cooled hoods. This was years ago, mind you. I still think there's way too many variables to determine how much you'll need. Your climate will affect it as well, it's easy to cool a room in the winter, but if you're looking at 110f temps in the summer outdoors... heh.
Way too many variables. I'm assuming you won't use the entire space as its big and if you circulate the air (prevent heat from building in any one place) you should be fine. Do you have ac for the house? Can you leak that in
Thats awesome man, yeah I live in socal so temps can be an issue lol. You say a 25k worked nicely, what were your temps like during the summer during lights on? I assume you flowered at night. Yeah bro Ill be using the whole room since I specifically built it just for flowering. Leeching AC from the house is not feasible, as I flower at night, and I don't want my entire house to turn into a freezer. AC needs to be dedicated. And yes I will be circulating my air. I think I'll just go with a 20-25k and maybe up my exhaust.
Eh, I tear my shit down in the summer mostly. Might run a 400w or something, but I pretty much only grow fall through spring. Once it starts getting into the 85-90f temps, I can't control the heat anymore. and I actually flowered 24/7. I ran 2 rooms on relay.