Heat issues. Can I put a window unit in my closet?

texashustle

texashustle

Active Member
Can I go up to my local walmart and buy a window a/c and put it in my closet? I dont know much about them and need some help. I can, if I need to cut a four inch or less exhaust hole in my closet to vent outside but thats about as much of a hole that I want in my house.

Whats the best, cheapest way to do this?

Thanks guys!
 
K

Kushalicious

Member
texashustle said:
Can I go up to my local walmart and buy a window a/c and put it in my closet? I dont know much about them and need some help. I can, if I need to cut a four inch or less exhaust hole in my closet to vent outside but thats about as much of a hole that I want in my house.

Whats the best, cheapest way to do this?

Thanks guys!
Click to expand...
Someone can feel free to contradict me.. i may be wrong.. but since it just vents hot air.. i used to do the same thing, cept I didnt cut a hole to the OUTSIDE of the house.. instead i cut a 4 inch hole into the wall, and ran a duct straight into my wall in the closet.

I'm on the second floor, so it just vents into the attic eventually i think.. works awesome.. night time temp of 66F lol.. nice and purple for my purple wrecks :)

AC unit was $99 at lowe's.
 
texashustle

texashustle

Active Member
Kushalicious said:
Someone can feel free to contradict me.. i may be wrong.. but since it just vents hot air.. i used to do the same thing, cept I didnt cut a hole to the OUTSIDE of the house.. instead i cut a 4 inch hole into the wall, and ran a duct straight into my wall in the closet.

I'm on the second floor, so it just vents into the attic eventually i think.. works awesome.. night time temp of 66F lol.. nice and purple for my purple wrecks :)

AC unit was $99 at lowe's.
Click to expand...
Cool. Did the a/c come with a 4 inch place to hook up a hose or did you rig it? What about water dripping?
 
digitalliquid

digitalliquid

Active Member
get a portable ac unit... spend the extra money it will be worth it. either that or invest in an icebox , i know i have told you this before but it will wapy off in the long run
 
texashustle

texashustle

Active Member
digitalliquid said:
get a portable ac unit... spend the extra money it will be worth it. either that or invest in an icebox , i know i have told you this before but it will wapy off in the long run
Click to expand...

Oh ok guess i didnt understand your reply. I reread it and now I get it. Youre making a homemade a/c using a chiller. Do you have plans or a link you can send me? Id like to see what you have in mind.
 
Azgrow

Azgrow

Well-Known Member
portable air unit's are prone to breaking very fast..usually within the first year...the back of even a small 5k btu window unit vents hot air threw a 10x14inch port....there are mods to be made to a window unit to make them a proti unit...but have the same issue's of breaking fast....if your in a closet iwth 600 watts or less gettin an air cooled hood glass cover an a small 200ish cfm fan to aircool the light an duct the hot air away....az
 
texashustle

texashustle

Active Member
Azgrow said:
portable air unit's are prone to breaking very fast..usually within the first year...the back of even a small 5k btu window unit vents hot air threw a 10x14inch port....there are mods to be made to a window unit to make them a proti unit...but have the same issue's of breaking fast....if your in a closet iwth 600 watts or less gettin an air cooled hood glass cover an a small 200ish cfm fan to aircool the light an duct the hot air away....az
Click to expand...
Im using cfls and 4 fans and its still hot.
 
K

Kushalicious

Member
texashustle said:
Im using cfls and 4 fans and its still hot.
Click to expand...
Honestly with just cfl's id see if i could just pump air from the room into the closet rather than go thru all the trouble for the ac unit.

I'll elaborate a bit for you on the ac setup though.. yea i ghetto rigged it with pieces of cardboard and duct tape to bring the large square (10x14 i guess) exhaust down to the 4 inch circular duct. There are kits, but it was just a temporary thing for me. I had it sitting on top of a rubbermaid tote lid to guard against any condensation. It only occasionally ever had any though, and it always evaporated very quickly.

Instead of doing that, they also sell units for twice as much, 250ish, that already come with exhaust lines you can run.

I don't use it anymore, i chopped a hole into my main ac duct for the house and ran a duct and inline fan down into the closet now, and then i just exhaust back into the wall ;)
 
wyatte

wyatte

Active Member
Ok.. I feel that I need to chime in on this... As a Mech Engineer and someone whom also helped put himself through college doing HVAC I can honestly say that building a box around the ac unit and venting the hot air outside is... well.... ok if you are only going to do it for a while. What will happen is that the coolent will eventually become to hot and it will cause the dryer (yes there is a dryer in window ac units) to fail... and then eventually cause the compressor to fail. What I would reccomend doing is building a box with 6inch ducting comming out of the back and putting an inline fan in teh process so you can remove the air faster. Then pipe the ducting to a window or attic so that you can push the hot air out of the room completely.

I personally think that portable air conditioners are a better solution to this problem... because basically they do, what I just said. However, depending on where you are you might have a hard time finding one and, lower quality ones WILL burn out faster. If you get a high quality one it will last... but you are also looking at 400+

hope this helps.
Cheers
 
digitalliquid

digitalliquid

Active Member
https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/234834-diy-icebox-3.html heres my personal icebox i made and im just waiting on the water chiller to get here (im a cheap guy for now) so i ordered an aquarium chiller but at the small amount of water i will have in my bucket (only for this not for nutes) it should cool the water 30 degrees and my ambient room temp is usualy around 85-90 so i expect this to bring it down about 70-75 if not more... but then again we will see this is all just numbers and thoughts , reality is another story
 
texashustle

texashustle

Active Member
digitalliquid said:
https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/234834-diy-icebox-3.html heres my personal icebox i made and im just waiting on the water chiller to get here (im a cheap guy for now) so i ordered an aquarium chiller but at the small amount of water i will have in my bucket (only for this not for nutes) it should cool the water 30 degrees and my ambient room temp is usualy around 85-90 so i expect this to bring it down about 70-75 if not more... but then again we will see this is all just numbers and thoughts , reality is another story
Click to expand...

So youre going to recirc water through a transmission cooler with a water pump? Hows the air going to blow out?
 
K

Kiso

Member
texashustle said:
Can I go up to my local walmart and buy a window a/c and put it in my closet? I dont know much about them and need some help. I can, if I need to cut a four inch or less exhaust hole in my closet to vent outside but thats about as much of a hole that I want in my house.

Whats the best, cheapest way to do this?

Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

Have you ever plugged in a window unit inside of a home and seen what happens. The front blows out somewhat cool air on the coldest settings and the back lets out heat in access of 80 degrees.

I think it would actually heat your room unless it has the heat escaping into another area. So just do one of two things:

Put the window AC unit into a window and have the room with the growing plants having access to the cold. (Which is what I've done)

Or, get a small portable AC unit to put in or really really close intake into the grow room.
 
digitalliquid

digitalliquid

Active Member
texashustle said:
So youre going to recirc water through a transmission cooler with a water pump? Hows the air going to blow out?
Click to expand...
8 in canfan im basicly just moving the same air i have been moving , but its all going to go through the 'icebox' first , you would be supprised at how much those things can cool air. not only that but its so cheap to run.

check this out for a better understanding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0uRrMvfucY
 
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