Heat Problems and air exchange questions!! please help!!

Hey everyone, okay, so i got my room setup and have been going good, i added a 1000 watt lamp in there and i'm always around 90, i want to get down to around 75 without spending so much on my ac unit energy. Please help and tell me what my possibilities are with or without co2 because i'm thinking about adding that. Now the plan is of the basement, there's one small window near the stairs and it is usually cold in the rest of my basement. I have 2 600w hps and 1x1000w hps in the middle of them. the tent is a 4x8x78 tent where i grow, the "lung room" is where i put my stuff, possibly my mother tent. Also the lung room is where i set my timer/box electricity at so there's no moving from this room atleast for the first few harvests. What's going on fellas/ladies? how can i set this up to keep my room optimal and cool?? the carbon filter is sitting at the top with fan sucking in air and shooting it through the lights and out to the laundry area. also the exaust of the portable air conditoner has a line going that way for heat too.I have customized the front of the portable ac unit and have a 4" duct going into the room blowing straight air conditioned fresh air. Is there another way to keep my room cool? Do i have to push out the air from my hoods or can the air conditoner handle that? am i exhausting the cold air and not giving the hoods a chance to cool? Any setup ideas or criticisms are greatly appreciated i'm trying everything. OH, also i'm using a 6"centrafugal fan 440cfm. I also hve two 4"180 cfm fans at my disposal. Thanx everyone
 

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pazuzu420

Well-Known Member
Not sure on the room size but a 10x10x8 requires 417 CFM so if it is smaller than that then ditching the tent is a possibility. Ofcourse if your like me you have a reason why you have to be in a container that may not be the best solution for you. Alot of times it is benificial to not only to vent the heat out of that room but out of the house. As I was looking over your diagram and your post I was noticing that the portable air and the exhausted air are going into the same room? This would make a tremendous amount of heat that will raise the ambient temps in the basement. Perhaps you could vent upstairs or outside?
I'm currently setting up in a basement myself I love that it stays a pretty constant cool temp with out any outside factors. Right around 65 :)
 
right my tent is 4x8 so i definitely know that the fan is more than enough. the room i am exhausting hot air to is surprisingly colder than you'd think. i'm not sure what to do still.....:(
 

wowzer

Member
I have this almost this exact same set up, what I did is run 2 fans the first is 6" carbon combo to clear the air from the inside of the tent and a 6" just for the lights I dump all air into the other room and my temps with 2 1000's is 78-81. Hope this helps gl.
 

joe dymz

Member
Dont sweat the heat as long as you have good venting on both the supply and exhaust with good fan movement you should be fine but if you could create your air supply from a room in the house that can give cooler air. I try to keep it in low 80/s due to low profile grow it can be tough but ive had no probs with low 90/s in late cycle but only for about an hour with a low of about 73. Remember you want your temp swing to be no more then 15/20 d's.
 

Devildog93

Well-Known Member
I look at your setup and I see too much restriction.

You are pulling thru a carbon filter which, if properly configured should restrict the fan a bit, then taking that air and then pushing it thru what appears to be a fair length of ducting, including 3 lights/hoods, and what appears to be some serious bends. Also, I doubt your AC pushes air into the tent near the same rate the fan extracts it.
(if it even pushes cool air in, or just recycles and cools the air.....big difference on your airflow)

A straighter duct system would help if possible.

An inline "assist" fan might boost the exhaust system.

A better passive intake, with the AC cranked cooling the lung room? Not quite sure of your AC system....got a pic of it? Or is it a swamp cooler kind of setup?
 
it's a royal sovereign 12000 btu system. i have a box with the 4'' piping directing flow through one of the sleeves of the tent. its a true ac unit. now would closing off the tent and just cleaning the air in the tent or room be better than forcing air thru the hoods? i kinda see the "push" the fan causes going through the hoods rather than extraction. but what do you think?
 

DrGreenthumb333

Well-Known Member
As said already, the carbon filter is too restrictive, there for not that benificial for cooling 3 good sized lights, that is whats creating all the heat in your room....so hook up 1 180cfm fan to suck air from the outside of your tent with ducting runnning down connecting your lights exausting out the other side of your tent, cooling off the lights. then use the set up u got with the carbon filter and just exaust it out that corner of the tent instead of running it thru the lights..that should make the ac unit u have set up almost unnessecary, maybe to use up that 6" fan u got you could set it up on the opposite side of the tent as the carbon filter and use it as a intake fan to take in fresh cool air into your room from the "lung room" but remember set it up low on the outside of the tent because cool air will be more towards ground level since heat rise's.
 

Devildog93

Well-Known Member
Your AC is a "circulator" type. It sucks in room air, then cools and passes it along. It is not really designed for moving large volumes of air.

If it's "output" is snugged up to the "intake" of the tent (meaning it is the only place air can be sucked into the tent is thru the AC unit), then it is most likely too restrictive.

Your fan/filter set up is trying to pull way more air than the AC can push in.

I bet your tent walls suck in real good. This is what you want when it comes to smell elimination....but not so much vacuum that it sacrifices in quantity of air that can be moved.

This is what I would do......(based on what I see)

- Take your AC unit. Either detach it from the tent and crank it and just have it cooling the "lung room"........OR.....take it, and mount it up on the wall in your tent room. If you are good at making stuff, should be no problem. That unit shouldnt be TOO heavy, I would think.
I would then just leave the hole the AC was pumping into, open. Leave it as a passive intake.

- If you can afford one, go get an inline duct fan. Add it on the "laundry room" side of the 90 degree bends. Have it pulling and assisting the main exhaust fan. This way you have a solid exhaust system.

- The lung room itself, also needs to allow air in. If you have it sealed right up, now your whole exhaust system is trying to evacuate air not only from the tent, but the whole lung room/tent room. If you don't allow air to move into the lung room as well, your exhaust system is just spinning it's wheels.
Allowing the air to come into the lung room will encourage circualation in the basement.

That is what I see.
 
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