i have a 7' long by 5' wide and 6'tall grow area, sealed, mylar 4' high from the floor up, and 2x 400w hps (800w) one with a hortilux and the other a sun agro bulb, at one end is a 11' box fan i run on med cause, on high it about blows smaller plant's over, but either way on med or high the temps are the same.. above normal my exaust fan will clear a 10x10' room in minutes with no prob, its a box style, old skool conair, air cleaner with a round filter for perfume beads to go in it that fits onto the bottom. i filled this with carbon, wrapped a stocking around it and just poped the filter back in. works great i built this room inside a bedroom and want to keep that bedroom door shut. but the prob i'm having is coming from the ballast themselves. they sit on the top of the grow space roof outside the grow space itself. so they are heating up the room around the growspace. so my temps climb to a 104 mark, so for now i keep that door open to get a nice 84 high temp. i want to run a small a/c window unit to the surrounding room itself, so i can just shut the door when i'm back and forth.keep nosey guest away ya know. but i'm also using my central heat and air... my windows are boarded up with plywood but you cant tell from the outside cause i left those blinds up. keeps eyes away from my spot. helps control temps. how do i run my window unit? since i'm using the central a/c system, could i simply just put it on top of my grow space and 90 degree the cool air to my grow space or do i need to 90 degree the evaporator coil to the grow space, and let the cool air run to the surrounding room, outside the grow space? i plan on using a tube and 5 gallon bucket for a drain system. i could just put it in the window but then that smell would leak out across the hood. what to do....
I dont know what part of the world you live in but I am assuming it's a very warm one as an A/C unit running in winter would look suspicious in a cold climate. I ran into this problem living in the south once what I did was built a 5 sided, sealed, box out of fireboard, brad nails, and silicone. I cut a 4" exhaust, and an 6" passive intake hole, and attached insulated ducting using ducting clamps and a 4" gasket and ran ducting to a vortex 4" inline fan and into the attic. Now all you do is cut holes for the power cords, drop the box over the ballasts, and kick on the fan and voila no more ballast heat issues. Now in my situation I was able to do what ever I wanted to rig my op up so when I needed a 4" hole to vent through I just cut a hole in the wall and ran ducting into the attic. Plus this will be much cheaper to run than an A/C unit.
if you plan on useing the window unit you will have to block all vents to your central a/c making your room air tight, if your air is exchanging itself b4 it goes thru the A/C then having the a/c is pointless. the problem with central a/c is that its central, making all rooms the same, if you just shut all traps/holes leading to the cenral air then your window unit should work fine. by installing your window unit in the window, you could cool the surrounding air so that the air you intake will be cool, and the air exausted will get cooled by the a/c
Lowes and Home Depot sell small freestanding units that only require a small vent hole like a dryer vent to the outside. Pick a spot, cut a hole, run your duct, and plug it in. Close the registers in your grow room and you should be all set. Much less obvious than a window a/c unit and what little noise it makes is in the room, not the window.
thanks for the input mr fresh. see i understand that my central is making the rooms the same, but the ballast are making this paticular room hotter than the rest of the house even with the central running. i want to just put it in the window like you normaly would, but the smell would then get pushed outside.
with a window unit, the smell only would leak out with the leaking water, the way it works is the air from the room is sucked thru the a/c and spit back into the room, no air gets exausted outside, you should have a carbon filter anyways in your grow room right? and like i said, in order for the window unit to work efficiently and properly you would have to block all the vent traps for your central in this particular room lol
the reasons a window unit has to be put outside is that the heat from the compressor may be evacuated and the water from the condensation may be drained
there we go! great input. thanks. i'm a great grower,not much of an a/c man though. i usually use only a 400w hps but i figure what the hell. use 2 of them! cheers
Lum Next Gen 400 watt ballast are very efficent. Very little heat is every produced from those babies.
true, true... i have been lookin at those but i just spent 119 dollars at HTG for a 400w hps system, hood and all with 2 year warranty. not a bad price, cheapest i've found yet and work's very well. the digital ones range about 250 with no bulb. so then add that 60-100 on a good hps bulb. and im 350 bucks and only 1 400w hps later. i'm trying to hold out for those puppies to drop about 50 60 bucks before i fork out that kinda money. much thank's for the info though. i agree there nice and top notch, but i'm on a budget. i'm thinking of spending 200 and getting a ufo triband or quadband led @ 90watts. putting it in there between the two 400watt hps. that is as soon as i get my heat prob under control. thank's again.
got an idea, don't know if i can get it to work or not. build a box to house just those two ballast and have it vent into one side with a large cpu fan and exhaust the other end outside via dryer duct. that would take care of those joker's heating up the air that surround's my grow booth right? thus cooling my grow room temps, and i could still use my central a/c system.
sounds good, just be sure to make your box out of asbestos just for fire hazard safty, when ballasts get too hot they can spark a fire