Dual duct portable acs inside vs outside tent

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learningthebasics27

Active Member
I have 2 10x10 tents going each with 4 hlg 550s. One tent is in a 14x13 room, and one is in a 18x15 room. Inside each tent is a 8 inch hurricane inline fan and a 750 cfm 8x24 phresh filter exhausted through the ceiling into the attic I have two 16 hurricane wall mount fans mounted per tent. Right now I am only in veg with 2 lights on per tent, dimmed to half power, and I am about 2 degrees above room temp. The room is 78-80 and the tent is 80-82. I am going to start flowering soon and I am pretty sure with 4 lights on 100% its going to get pretty hot. I dont know exactly how hot yet.

I already have two dual duct 13k btu portable acs that are brand new. I am just trying to figure out what to do about these portable acs. Would it be more efficient to place the unit inside the tent, or would it be better to cool the room that the tent was in further and continue using a passive intake or duct cold air in. I have seen some people build little boxes on top of their portable ac unit and duct the air inside. I think I might have an issue with smell if I have the unit inside the tent. I heard some dual duct acs can still exhaust air from the actual room, which would smell because it has not been scrubbed upon exit yet. If I have the ac unit outside the tent and duct the cold air inside I am pretty sure I could just exhaust the portable ac outside the window and then I would not have to worry about smell.

I am not doing co2
 
TintEastwood

TintEastwood

Well-Known Member
I vote outside the tent. They produce heat and some pull in air that's around them.....both not good. Heat that will go into the surrounding room if outside the tent....so keep that in mind.
Also run stand-alone fan/filter in each tent to scrub odors and contaminants.

Humidity?
 
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learningthebasics27

Active Member
TintEastwood said:
I vote outside the tent. They produce heat and some pull in air that's around them.....both not good. Heat that will go into the surrounding room if outside the tent....so keep that in mind.
Also run stand-alone fan/filter in each tent to scrub odors and contaminants.

Humidity?
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I cant get over 30 humidity in veg in the tent, pretty sure it will change during flower. Yeah each tent has a 8 inch 745 cfm hurricane fan attached to a 8x24 750cfm phresh filter running constantly.
 
TintEastwood

TintEastwood

Well-Known Member
Renfro said:
Hey I built a fogger for another use, I put a tiny PC fan on the outside and a lid with a vent hole in the top, then you get a steady stream of fog pumping out of the tank.
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I too had fun cobbling one of those.... From when I was trying to run unsealed room. Oversized...but its what I had. Lol
0113180851a.jpg
 
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Apalchen

Well-Known Member
Well I see one problem with how you have it set up. The exhaust is going to attic right? So when you turn on the ac your exhaust is gonna pull your cold air out. Best bet is to do away with the vent to attic. Run an AC and dehuey outside the tent and run your exhaust fan out of the tent but back into the room. The only problem I could see with this could be it could drop your C02 levels below ambient if the rooms the tents are in are sealed pretty well. I still think this is your best option as even if the rooms are sealed pretty well you could crack open the door.

I am temporarily venting to attic but very temporary just until I get money for c02. That is just an exhaust fan. But I would say no for sure about venting the ac to the attic, the air coming out of a portable is usually full of water (esp if yours doesn’t have a water tray to empty) and when outside temps drop your attic will be cold when that hot wet air hits the cold attic air it will rain in your attic. Making for a wet moldy mess.
 
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learningthebasics27

Active Member
Apalchen said:
Well I see one problem with how you have it set up. The exhaust is going to attic right? So when you turn on the ac your exhaust is gonna pull your cold air out. Best bet is to do away with the vent to attic. Run an AC and dehuey outside the tent and run your exhaust fan out of the tent but back into the room. The only problem I could see with this could be it could drop your C02 levels below ambient if the rooms the tents are in are sealed pretty well. I still think this is your best option as even if the rooms are sealed pretty well you could crack open the door.

I am temporarily venting to attic but very temporary just until I get money for c02. That is just an exhaust fan. But I would say no for sure about venting the ac to the attic, the air coming out of a portable is usually full of water (esp if yours doesn’t have a water tray to empty) and when outside temps drop your attic will be cold when that hot wet air hits the cold attic air it will rain in your attic. Making for a wet moldy mess.
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I am not venting the ac into the attic, I don’t have it set up yet. Only exhausting the tent air through the carbon scrubber into the attic currently

I figured both the tent exhaust and the ac exhaust both need to be vented out of the room? Am I wrong?
 
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Apalchen

Well-Known Member
learningthebasics27 said:
I am not venting the ac into the attic, I don’t have it set up yet. Only exhausting the tent air through the carbon scrubber into the attic currently

I figured both the tent exhaust and the ac exhaust both need to be vented out of the room? Am I wrong?
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That’s what I mean the only air vented out of the room should be the ac air. If you vent the tent air out of the room the cold air from the ac goes right with it making your ac work full time and possibly not even keep up. I would vent the tent into the room with the ac in it. You also will be pulling ambient air from outside the room by exhausting the tent to the attic which will make your ac work even harder since you said your ambient temps were kinda high anyways.

Or if you really want to exhaust for maybe better smell control then you need to run a smaller exhaust fan or set yours on a timer. I just feel that running an 8 inch fan all the time is going to exhaust more cold air than the ac can make and also put unnecessary load on your ac trying to to keep up.
 
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learningthebasics27

Active Member
Apalchen said:
That’s what I mean the only air vented out of the room should be the ac air. If you vent the tent air out of the room the cold air from the ac goes right with it making your ac work full time and possibly not even keep up. I would vent the tent into the room with the ac in it. You also will be pulling ambient air from outside the room by exhausting the tent to the attic which will make your ac work even harder since you said your ambient temps were kinda high anyways.

Or if you really want to exhaust for maybe better smell control then you need to run a smaller exhaust fan or set yours on a timer. I just feel that running an 8 inch fan all the time is going to exhaust more cold air than the ac can make and also put unnecessary load on your ac trying to to keep up.
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Since I am not doing co2 I thought I wanted to exhaust the tent air completely out of the room. That way the stale air is gone. Isn’t the air going to be hot that comes out of the tent? Like I am going to be trying to cool down the room the tent is in and the tent exhaust is going to be blowing hot air back into the room?
 
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