http://www.compactappliance.com/xq/...ductID.16635/qx/shopping/product/EAC210TS.htm It is for my closet grow.
It might do alright as an air cleaner, but I'm not sure how long that will cool a grow room using ice packs. (Gotta love that "green" cooling technology) Seems pretty high priced for a marginal carbon filter/air cleaner...but then I'm cheap.
At this point I am just running out of ideas. Our grow room has been running too hot with holes punched out to the outside to ventilate air in and out....but all it is really doing is brining in hot air from the outside and I cant put a air conditioner in there. I am putting in do it yourself cool tubes for the lights....but that will not be enough. I figured that the combo of that and the cool tubes would get me down to the needed temp in the summer. My first grow was ridiculous.....I did 12 plants and will be lucky to get 4 oz out of them and it took forever. I know the heat had something to do with this. Since the room is skinny but tall we are going to put in shelving and run a two tiered growroom. Which means another set of lights (in cooltubes) with more ventilation and probably about 22-24 plants.
I also need a solution to this problem, I have a nice cupboard which is ideal apart from it is completely unventilated and I do not want to damage the door to the cupboard by drilling multiple holes. What is the most economic way of temperature control in a sealed cab?
I have wondered about these kinds of passive cooling systems myself. They use water to cool the air -- or to give it the feeling of being cooler to our skin because of evaporative qualities. If anyone has actual experience with these kinds of air coolers please post your impressions. My guess is that it can lower the temp a few degrees but that's all. For your situation I recommend not growing this time of year, that is what I have had to do -- my grow op is in the garage, and I usually grow October through April to avoid the heat. If you add more lights you are only going to make your problem worse.
You will still need a constant flow of air to provide enough CO2 to sustain plant life. You cant grow without ventilation. Summer can be a tuff time to grow. Make sure you have enough oscillating fans in the grow. I know it's blowing hot air around, but it really helps. Make sure you have enough intake holes. I cut twice as many intake holes as exhaust. Cool tubes are the way to go, they will help more then you think.
Rumple.. you are of course right. However when your ladies are flowering 12/12, would simply opening the door (cooling with fans) when the light is on during the day, door CLOSED at night? i.e. 7am open door and cool throughout the day with lights on. 7pm turn off light and allow to cool down before closing the door. Do you think this would work? and if so, at what sacrifice? (if any)
That is what we did this year I think we just did it a little too late. We have kids that are in our master bedroom a lot so we were not able to do it as much as we liked.
the answer to cooling your grow area (if its completely sealed) is to not cool it at all. evaporative coolers dont work well, and the more humid the air is, the less they will cool. portable ac units cost alot of money (cheapest one i've seen is about $300), and even if you can get a small in wall unit for like $80 the operational costs will add up. the cheapest and best solution to heat problems is to get a co2 setup (about $200) for everything including the tank. that way you can safely let the temps go up to 90-95 deg F with no negative side affects, because when using co2 the plants like hotter temps then when not using it. then not only will you have solved your heat issue, you will increase your yield and growth rate
Thanks for the info, co2 is a good idea but still could be expensive huh? Would you just have the co2 on a timer or continuous? how long would a bottle last?
cowart69 do you have any type of fan regulating the air flow in or out the holes you've made? i recently installed a 'bathroom' fan in a closet to help suck some of the warmth into the attic. & if ya are handy enough to do your own cool tubes & have the space the 'green ac' maybe you could use a homemade AC. http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~gmilburn/ac/geoff_ac.html has such a thing. while i think it is awesome, i think the water could be reused somehow.
We have fans but they are just blowing hot air around (we have intake and exhaust holes....but that does not solve the heat issue. We were flat out dismayed at how little we got out of our plants at harvest time.....they grew short, not a lot of bud, and took forever. We grew them from clones that looked like they had been revedged when I put the pics up and another site and it took 4 (out of 12 plants) just to come up with a oz of dried bud. Since we gave them plenty of light and the best nutes and soil the only thing I can think of was heat.....the grow room would get over 100 degrees and so we started opening up the closet to let cool air in. By that time I think it was too late. Another mistake we made was run our lights during the day instead of the evening.....we will do them at night on our next grow.
over 100 oh wow that's extreme! do you have to use your holes for both in & out take? could you set em to exhaust, hopefully some heat, & use the oppertunities ya get to open the door for intake? coarse these are just ideas...
Even a 5,000 btu a/c running most of the day will add up to $75 a month. So Co2 isn't a bad idea... Doesn't solve the problem though if you're doing hydro., you'll need a water chiller which too is pricey.