A Bored Electrician to Answer Your Questions

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mellowyellow

Active Member
I have a grow space built inside my outdoor laundry room, roughly 9' x 4' x 7' (length x width x height). Since the laundry room, and thus the grow space, is poorly insulated and our daily temperatures usually range from 55 at night to 85 or 95 degrees F during the day, I intend to insulate all the walls and the ceiling before starting a grow in the new space. Should I wait to have an electrician do any necessary wiring before I cover the walls with insulation and mylar? Is it a fire hazard to have wires sandwiched between my wooden walls and newly placed sheets of insulation?
 
powerslide

powerslide

Well-Known Member
not really an electrical question but it sort of is. what will put out more heat a 400w and a 600w or one 1000w.

I'm also looking at buying a portable a/c unit and have limited amounts of electricty(only 2 outlets). what numbers should i be looking at on the ac unit to use the least amount so im not tripping breakers?
 
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onetwothreebah

Member
i just bought a low bay light (400w metal halide) and it seems really dim. it came with two bulbs and both were dim. may it be the ballast and if so what can i do to fix it? i also had to rewire the light to 120v (it was a multi-tap light)
 
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sow217

Well-Known Member
i have a question for anyone who could help. the room i hope to start my next grow in is a 10x15 storage room that also is where my washer and dryer are located. It has approximately 5 outlets. One of these outlets is a 240volt washer outlet. How many watts of power could i get away with in this room. I would love to run 2000 watts of lights plus fans without having to use extension chords to other rooms in order to power it. Adding a new breaker isnt an option either. (the washer and dryer will be unplugged majority of the time and will run my dryer and washer during the lights off phase so i can use extra watts).
Also my chords for my lights are only 120 volt outlet compatable. how would i convert my light chords to plug into my 240 volt dryer outlet as the regular 120 volt prongs on the chord dont match up with the dryer outlet.

thanks for all your help. + rep

if you have anymore questions please let me know
 
Danielsgb

Danielsgb

Well-Known Member
I know you need to know if the other 4 outlets are on the same breaker (and its Amp), and you need to know the breaker of the 240V Dryer outlet. I think further back he has a list of breaker's and the 80% you can safely use. The Plugs are different because a 240, is two 120's, and it'll fry 120V stuff. That's a bit of help. IAm5toned explains it great.
Daniels
 
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paco.carioca

Member
hey i dont know if this has been asked already but i dont think i can go throu 100+ pages lol, anyways, i wanna know if one can raise a red flag at the electric company by having a bunch of wattage go on and off at the same times everyday, and just a few tips in general to stay safe
 
IAm5toned

IAm5toned

Well-Known Member
karmeron said:
Im having a problem with my ballast. Its a magnetic 600w. Basically when plugged in it just hums/buzzes and the bulb doesnt light at all. I had this problem with it before on a previous grow and usually when you unplug it and plug it in again a few times it works (but it is taking more and more tries each time). I thought it was the bulb so bought a brand new one and im still having the same problem. It ran for 3 days no problem then only started getting this problem again. Ive tried different sockets, different reflector, new bulb but nothing fixed it. Is it just as simple as the ignitor is dodgy because once it gets going I dont have any problems with it? Any advice appriciated.
Click to expand...

yep, thats a bad starter/cap.
 
IAm5toned

IAm5toned

Well-Known Member
indoorsavant said:
Whats going on man.So im having a few issues.First what does it smell like when there is an electrical problem.I was having an issue recently and my grow seemed to smell like chlorine to me.None of my outlets were bad,no fuses popping in the grow.But today when in my room i had my ac on,and that and my squirrel cage fan are in the same outlet,with the heat lamp for a bearded dragon.Just a small one but still.The fuse popped.The grow was off,but the fan on.Now I have an outlet in the light socket im my closet.I run my grow off that.Because of the smell ive gotten worried.The only thing that changed is i opened my ona gel,and added the cage fan.I thought it may be my ballast,but im not so sure now.I run a 400w mh,90w led,2 24w cfls.inline fans for my aircooled hood,and one from my tent with the ufo.and one more inline for the cab with the cfl.Do you think this is a safe load.I dont think the ac and closet are on the same fuse.because i always run my ac now in the summer.and until i added the plug for the cage fan i had no issues.well other than this weird smell.Could the smell of chlorine be electrical or what do you think it is?the ballast?can you describe what a bad ballast would smell like.Ive had no fire,smoke,or even a popped fuse in my closet.But because of the smell ive gotten freaked out.
I mean if it was an electrical issue and everything is on the same fuse.Wouldnt it have popped when everything was on,not when just the fan and ac are on?please get back to me asap,i appreciate it very much man ..
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pull the plugs off the wall, and check the connections from the house wiring going to the outlet., in like page 1-3 of this thread i had a post explaining the proper way for the wiring to connect to a receptacle. more than likely, what is going on is that there is a bad connection causing one of the wires to overheat... explaining why the fuse tripped.
 
IAm5toned

IAm5toned

Well-Known Member
mellowyellow said:
I have a grow space built inside my outdoor laundry room, roughly 9' x 4' x 7' (length x width x height). Since the laundry room, and thus the grow space, is poorly insulated and our daily temperatures usually range from 55 at night to 85 or 95 degrees F during the day, I intend to insulate all the walls and the ceiling before starting a grow in the new space. Should I wait to have an electrician do any necessary wiring before I cover the walls with insulation and mylar? Is it a fire hazard to have wires sandwiched between my wooden walls and newly placed sheets of insulation?
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the only things to keep in mind when encountering wiring when installing insulation is that the wiring needs to be on the climate controlled side of the wall cavity. that is, the insulation should go behind the wiring, so that the wiring is facing the drywall portion of the wall, on exterior walls.
on interior walls, the wiring can be on either side of the insulation, but not in between bats of insulation. the reason being is that wiring does get warm, and if the cables are completely surrounded by insulation, that warmth cant dissapate, and what is normally just slightly warm becomes dangerously hot.

and yes, you should have any electrical work done before you cover the walls, its always better to have concealed wiring vs. exposed, unless you plan on having a very temporary setup.
 
IAm5toned

IAm5toned

Well-Known Member
powerslide said:
not really an electrical question but it sort of is. what will put out more heat a 400w and a 600w or one 1000w.

I'm also looking at buying a portable a/c unit and have limited amounts of electricty(only 2 outlets). what numbers should i be looking at on the ac unit to use the least amount so im not tripping breakers?
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one 400 and one 600 will put off more heat than a single 1000w
well, what matters is the size of the breaker feeding the outlets.
if its a 20 amp breaker, you have a max of 1920 watts, if its a 15 amp breaker, you have 1440w. go over those numbers, and you will have nuiscance tripping left and right.
 
IAm5toned

IAm5toned

Well-Known Member
onetwothreebah said:
i just bought a low bay light (400w metal halide) and it seems really dim. it came with two bulbs and both were dim. may it be the ballast and if so what can i do to fix it? i also had to rewire the light to 120v (it was a multi-tap light)
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verify that the lamps are the correct type for the ballast.
not all hid lamps are compatible with any hid ballast, and that is true for both HPS, and MH. the lamps and ballasts both have what is called ANSI codes, and those codes must much, that is a r20 lamp goes in a r20 ballast. if your lamps are mismatched to your ballast, it can damage the capacitor, and cause your lamps to be dim. another possibility is that your are trying to run a multi-tap ballast that is tapped for 240v on 120v. take the cover off the ballast and verify the plug is on the wire for 120v.
 
IAm5toned

IAm5toned

Well-Known Member
paco.carioca said:
hey i dont know if this has been asked already but i dont think i can go throu 100+ pages lol, anyways, i wanna know if one can raise a red flag at the electric company by having a bunch of wattage go on and off at the same times everyday, and just a few tips in general to stay safe
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not paying your bill raises a red flag quicker than anything else you can come up with....... modern households use so much wattage thats its hard if not impossible for the power company to investigate every single spike.
 
IAm5toned

IAm5toned

Well-Known Member
sow217 said:
i have a question for anyone who could help. the room i hope to start my next grow in is a 10x15 storage room that also is where my washer and dryer are located. It has approximately 5 outlets. One of these outlets is a 240volt washer outlet. How many watts of power could i get away with in this room. I would love to run 2000 watts of lights plus fans without having to use extension chords to other rooms in order to power it. Adding a new breaker isnt an option either. (the washer and dryer will be unplugged majority of the time and will run my dryer and washer during the lights off phase so i can use extra watts).
Also my chords for my lights are only 120 volt outlet compatable. how would i convert my light chords to plug into my 240 volt dryer outlet as the regular 120 volt prongs on the chord dont match up with the dryer outlet.

thanks for all your help. + rep

if you have anymore questions please let me know
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the 240v dryer outlet is really all you need for the lights.
what you really need is a 240v control board, like this:

http://www.4hydro.com/growroom/30ampTimerBox.asp

im sure you can find several models, that one is just an example, not a recommendation... seems a little pricey.
 
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sow217

Well-Known Member
IAm5toned said:
the 240v dryer outlet is really all you need for the lights.
what you really need is a 240v control board, like this:

http://www.4hydro.com/growroom/30ampTimerBox.asp

im sure you can find several models, that one is just an example, not a recommendation... seems a little pricey.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. How would I go about installing one of these? or is it simply ready to go, all i would need is to plug it in? (may be a stupid question but as you can tell electical stuff is not my forte)
 
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