how to handle smell from Portable AC

my grow room consists of a room build in a unfinished basement. i have a portable AC that has 2 ducts on the back of the unit one intake and one exhaust. the issue is if i put my carbon filter in my grow room it can not clean the air before it is exhausted by my AC so the rest of my basement stinks. also the air exhausted from the ac is really warm and makes the rest of my basement warm and that hot air is pulled right back into my grow room! should i just build a room to exhaust the ac into and put a filter in it and then exhaust the filter to outside of the home?

for people using portable AC's how are you exhausting the air and how are you dealing with the smell issue?

bump!!!

no one has a portable ac and it pulls bud smell out of their room? no one has had to deal with this? come on help me out !!!!

xceptional said:

bump!!!

no one has a portable ac and it pulls bud smell out of their room? no one has had to deal with this? come on help me out !!!!

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Im interested in this too. Ive been trying to find info but cant get much. I saw where one guy used a big trash with a lid and blew all of his a/c exhaust into it while also placing a carbon filter in there on a seperate duct attached to another fan cleaning that air and pulling it out of the room. You need to get that hot humid air out i would think.

Does that make sense?

I'm interested in portable coolers I'll be listening also

Do u have a picture of the portable AC? Cuz I do HVAC with my pops and was thinking ways you could mod it with either Flex or more duct so u could cut in your carbon filter so it would have no choice but to pull the smell through it. There has gotta be a way! GL

u could build a manifold (sorta like the trash can thing.) mount your exhaust fan in a custom box with the carbon filter hooked up right after it. before sealing the box up make the amount of holes to fit the right flanges.. hardest part is mounting to ceiling dampen noise and vibrations when your renting. too bad u dont run ozone. id just run it to the mix box.

2 intakes one from ac one for lights?room.
_ V_V____________
[______carbon--fan__]>---------------air that way------>

Here is a pic of my portable ac. now what is not visible is on the back side where those ducts come from is a filter and a second intake.

what i plan to do is move the damn thing outside the room completely and with cardboard and duct tape and some 6" duct build a duct that connects to the font and supplies the dry or cool air to the room. either that or flush mount it so cut the panda and with lots of duct tape mount it so the controls and the front exhausts are in the room and outside of the room are all intakes and exhausts. this should keep the exhaust clean since my room will be sealed and co2 so that way i can just exhaust to outside the house with no smell.

only bad thing is this will create positive pressure in the room and then this will push the co2 out of my room.

serious someone has to be using one of these damn things besides me! how the hell do you stop the smell? bought a CAN 100 filter was expensive and it does not kill all smell because this damn thing pumps stink out the room. i cant even vent to the outside because of the smell.

I think the garbage can idea would work. YOu would need an additional fan that has the same cfm as the exhaust on your ac unit so the push matches the pull.

spandy said:

I think the garbage can idea would work. YOu would need an additional fan that has the same cfm as the exhaust on your ac unit so the push matches the pull.

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Make one of these and exhaust out with it. Attach it to the end of the outlet/exhaust tube.

Or a UVC Ultra Violet Light and Hepa Filter. You can also find the intake for the exhaust and fit screen carbon over or in the return air

I am not sure you will efficiently be able to "push" air through a filter without creating back pressure. I am not sure how much light you are using? If you are venting your room well the a/c wouldn't be on that much. I mean those untis are like 13,000 BTU's and are you are cooling a few hundred cubic feet and they are designed to cool 10x's that much. I have a hooded 600w HPS with a thermostat contolling the fan. It cuts on and off with setting of 3,5 & 7 degrees. My basement stays very cool year round. For the price you pay for a portable a/c I would by a chiller and cool my lights as I would need the 13,000 btu a/c only a minute or 2 at a time. Do you have to wire the a/c unit to a temp sensor in the room? I wouldn't think you could count on the a/c settings to contol temps in the 3 degree range. I was really thinking more about running one outside my intake vents if I even needed to cool the air coming in but more to warm the air when the basement gets into the 50's in the winter as they also work as heaters.

wineart said:

I am not sure you will efficiently be able to "push" air through a filter without creating back pressure. I am not sure how much light you are using? If you are venting your room well the a/c wouldn't be on that much. I mean those untis are like 13,000 BTU's and are you are cooling a few hundred cubic feet and they are designed to cool 10x's that much. I have a hooded 600w HPS with a thermostat contolling the fan. It cuts on and off with setting of 3,5 & 7 degrees. My basement stays very cool year round. For the price you pay for a portable a/c I would by a chiller and cool my lights as I would need the 13,000 btu a/c only a minute or 2 at a time. Do you have to wire the a/c unit to a temp sensor in the room? I wouldn't think you could count on the a/c settings to contol temps in the 3 degree range. I was really thinking more about running one outside my intake vents if I even needed to cool the air coming in but more to warm the air when the basement gets into the 50's in the winter as they also work as heaters.

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i'm running 3k in a cool midwest basement. the portable ac was a craigslist buy for $100! you can find these things dirt cheap if you look for them in the winter.

last rip i had 2k with 1 6"440 cfm venting my magnum xxxl hoods and venting my room with a passive intake at the floor level and the fan hung high.

this rip i've added 1k and co2 so i am running the room sealed. without ac i was running around 80 so I'm afraid that with this light and no ac i will get too close to 90 for my liking. i'd rather add cold air then vent obviously because of the co2.

i have close neighbors so killing smell before i vent this heat is a must.

I personally run the AC for noise in the winter and if you turn the AC on it gets so hot behind it and the room is cold in front and hot behind it. I am a IAQ Specialist and I do mold removal but we sell these air purifiers That use a lil ozone but mostly photocatalytic oxidation but it kills odors and destroys mold and bacteria in the air and on surfaces....so you could put one in the basement and it will kill the smell but I would have the exhaust going out of the house....plus they make a core for HVAC systems so maybe that would be better than the unit if you ran ductwork out of the house and put it in between, then all you would smell outside is the oxidation and it would smell fresh like after it just rained..similar smell to ozone but not as dangerous...

I would definitely have the exhaust going out of the house though cuz the air coming out is super humid...

If your actual carbon filter does not clear all the smell be4 it get exausted by the A/C means there is not enough turn around(your filter too small).
Get a bigger filter/fan. OR Run another small DIY filter to your A/C exaust.

And if you're running CO2 now, 85-90F is the ideal temperature with a 1500+ ppm of CO2.

yeah i'm afraid i will exceed that temp xan2. hitting 79 80 with 2k and venting in the middle of winter so i think with 3k and sealing the room in warmer months i will get to hot.

my fan is a CAN 100 (81.5lbs of activated carbon) running on a 745CFM fan. you cant really get much bigger without going crazy and spending like a grand on fan/filter.

i do have a ozone also the CAP Ozone Jr. issue is the hot humid air coming out the exhaust vent needs to leave my basement it's like 100 degrees moving at like over 400 cfm if i had to guess so it just makes the whole basement feel like a damn tropical forest.

here is what i think i'm going to do. i'm going to sell the damn portable and build one of these....

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=95491

a AC box for a window unit. basically these portables are shit for growing unless leaking smell isn't a issue for you. the window units have a intake and exhaust on both sides the front and the back and the air from each side stays on it's side so no smell is ever left. with a quick little build you can get a stronger cooling, more efficient and cheaper cooling solution then a portable AC.


i was just going to build a lung room like you guys mentioned with the trash can. that was my idea orginally but i think it is overkill considering i can get a few hundread for the portable and then build one of these