Humidifier shopping.

Jacq036

Jacq036

Member
Hey folks,
I'm a grower that's growing in Canada right now, and I must say I'm having a hard time with these cold days and nights. My setups in the basement of course,right next to the furnace. The only place I have.

What I need is a humidifier, and from what I've been reading it needs to be and analog one. I've been looking around and they don't seem to make too many of these. Has anyone found any on Amazon or has one that knows it an analog. that could point me in the right direction. I got a controller and I wanted to set it up with the controller, so it has to be analog, these digital ones just keep staying off.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
I generally find my humidifiers at thrift stores. Stay away from ones that use heating elements to produce steam. The one I have now has a tube that sits in the water attached to a spinning wheel with fan blades along it's edge. Water is drawn up the tube and comes out as a fine mist.

It's a bitch keeping the Rh up here too in northern Alberta. My exhaust fan rarely comes on so it's staying a bit higher in the grow room in the basement but I only have 1 - 600w HPS going right now. Toss in a 400 or switch to a 1000w and the fan comes on a lot more often and sucks all the moisture out of the room. Even with a good humidifier it won't keep the RH up with regular fresh air being drawn in.

If you are growing in a tent or room within a room you should use a humidifier in the main room so every time the exhaust fan runs it's pulling in moist air from the larger space. If the unit is in the grow space your RH is going up and down like a yo-yo all day.

Keep your nute feedings lower with a low RH as the plants pull up a lot more water when it's dry and also more nutes which leads to Toxic Salts Buildup that will show up mid flower with dry, crispy leaves and drove me nuts for years trying to figure out what was going on. 1/4 strength nutes is lots in those conditions.

:peace:
 
natureboygrower

natureboygrower

Well-Known Member
OldMedUser said:
I generally find my humidifiers at thrift stores. Stay away from ones that use heating elements to produce steam. The one I have now has a tube that sits in the water attached to a spinning wheel with fan blades along it's edge. Water is drawn up the tube and comes out as a fine mist.

It's a bitch keeping the Rh up here too in northern Alberta. My exhaust fan rarely comes on so it's staying a bit higher in the grow room in the basement but I only have 1 - 600w HPS going right now. Toss in a 400 or switch to a 1000w and the fan comes on a lot more often and sucks all the moisture out of the room. Even with a good humidifier it won't keep the RH up with regular fresh air being drawn in.

If you are growing in a tent or room within a room you should use a humidifier in the main room so every time the exhaust fan runs it's pulling in moist air from the larger space. If the unit is in the grow space your RH is going up and down like a yo-yo all day.

Keep your nute feedings lower with a low RH as the plants pull up a lot more water when it's dry and also more nutes which leads to Toxic Salts Buildup that will show up mid flower with dry, crispy leaves and drove me nuts for years trying to figure out what was going on. 1/4 strength nutes is lots in those conditions.

:peace:
Click to expand...
Why dont you like the ones that produce steam? They seem to work way more effectively
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
natureboygrower said:
Why dont you like the ones that produce steam? They seem to work way more effectively
Click to expand...
And they also add a bunch to my electric bill which is already near $500/mth. At 25¢/kwh it adds up fast. Extra heat too if that's an issue.

I forgot to mention those ultrasonic fogger units. Cheap to operate and put out lots of very fine mist/fog that dissipates quickly into the air. That's what I'm looking into getting.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Gemtree said:
I just use a pond fogger in a 5 gal bucket behind a fan that blows it all over the room.
Click to expand...
Are you using tap water or RO with that? I have to use RO water with a humidifier or it clogs up too fast with our 400+ppm water from my dugout.
 
Gemtree

Gemtree

Well-Known Member
OldMedUser said:
Are you using tap water or RO with that? I have to use RO water with a humidifier or it clogs up too fast with our 400+ppm water from my dugout.
Click to expand...
Yea I use ro for both my ultrasonics the ceramic disks are sensitive. I was just using a Mainstays Walmart ultrasonic thats analog but moved that to my drying room. I hate having to fill a gallon of water every day so hopefully this bucket one works good for a while.

I'm eventually going to put a muffin fan on a lid to blow the mist out a tube but the fan sucks it up and blows it around so it's good for now.
 
xtraLRG420

xtraLRG420

Well-Known Member
Sorry to hear about your struggle. I couldn't find one that's completely analogue either so I went with one that has a humidistat option and just constantly run it at 50% RH right now in early flowering. I haven't done the math on operating costs but in my climate it's off most of the time just kicking on to correct rh for about 15 seconds at a time. Running my light is only costing me $10/mo at 223 watts so if the humidifier runs at about 40 watts that would be $1.50/mo running 100% of the time but I'm giving a generous estimate of 50 cents a month USD. What is that like $500 Canadian?
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
xtraLRG420 said:
What is that like $500 Canadian?
Click to expand...
Pretty close. :D

.223kw x 18hr/day x 30day/mth x .25$/kwh = $30.11/mth for me. $54/mth now to run my 600W HPS 12hr/day.

Wish I could power my lights with natural gas as that's dirt cheap here but my genset uses gasoline. ;)

:peace:
 
xtraLRG420

xtraLRG420

Well-Known Member
Oh, I didn't run this light during veg. The light I ran during veg, which I call seedling until the 5th node, was a 15w LED. One month of that light was only 89 cents/mo with kwh being 11 cents for me. The 223w light is only costing me $8.83/mo. American subsidies... It's why we don't notice the wars we cause.
 
Couch_Lock

Couch_Lock

Well-Known Member
My newest humidifier is an ultrasonic cool mist, its not super cheap but not bad. You can see the steam, all analog....no digital controls .....rotate steam 360 degrees.......added about 15% more humidity over my old one. Same conditions here as the thread starter........Im in cold country, 4 x 4 in basement 10 feet from house heater....


Night light is easily turned off, btw.
 
B

BudgetMessiah

Well-Known Member
Jacq036 said:
Hey folks,
I'm a grower that's growing in Canada right now, and I must say I'm having a hard time with these cold days and nights. My setups in the basement of course,right next to the furnace. The only place I have.

What I need is a humidifier, and from what I've been reading it needs to be and analog one. I've been looking around and they don't seem to make too many of these. Has anyone found any on Amazon or has one that knows it an analog. that could point me in the right direction. I got a controller and I wanted to set it up with the controller, so it has to be analog, these digital ones just keep staying off.
Click to expand...
I have little advice for you as far as humidifiers, but what I would suggest is that you might be able to make the technical requirement easier by hanging some plastic sheeting around your grow tent to create a vapor barrier. Especially in cases like yours, where the equipment in your basement is causing an environmental problem, it can make the solution much simpler (and maybe even cheaper) if you just partition it.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
I'm wondering how well a swamp cooler would work to add moisture to the air. I don't need cooling tho I'm seriously considering getting one.

With the addition of CO2 it wouldn't matter if my exhaust fan never came on if the RH and temp is dialed in to keep the VPD in the zone. I've been wanting to run a sealed room for some time anyways.
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
OldMedUser said:
And they also add a bunch to my electric bill which is already near $500/mth. At 25¢/kwh it adds up fast. Extra heat too if that's an issue.

I forgot to mention those ultrasonic fogger units. Cheap to operate and put out lots of very fine mist/fog that dissipates quickly into the air. That's what I'm looking into getting.
Click to expand...
Holy crap! That's some spendy power. This is from my power company:

On Basic Service, your electricity price equals your actual usage each month billed at the Basic Service rate:
  • Up to 1000 kWh: 6.850 ¢ per kWh
  • >1000 kWh: 7.572 ¢ per kWh
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
BudgetMessiah said:
I have little advice for you as far as humidifiers, but what I would suggest is that you might be able to make the technical requirement easier by hanging some plastic sheeting around your grow tent to create a vapor barrier. Especially in cases like yours, where the equipment in your basement is causing an environmental problem, it can make the solution much simpler (and maybe even cheaper) if you just partition it.
Click to expand...
Not really sure how that would work around a grow tent. Still have to remove heat and let fresh, cooler air in.

In my case I have a room in the basement that was built by the original owner as a cold-storage room. It's 6.5x8x6.5'h and the plants are always in the corner working out into the area depending how many plants are growing. My oscillating fan is off about 3' away usually so plastic would get in the way.

Most growers have too much heat and humitity they have to deal with but mine is totally opposite to that. If I used LED lights my heater would be on a lot during their day and there's no power savings there. My nice hot HIDs keep the heater off and grow plants much better than a heater does. ;)

:peace:
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
xtsho said:
Holy crap! That's some spendy power. This is from my power company:

On Basic Service, your electricity price equals your actual usage each month billed at the Basic Service rate:
  • Up to 1000 kWh: 6.850 ¢ per kWh
  • >1000 kWh: 7.572 ¢ per kWh
Click to expand...
Our power rate is locked in at around 8¢/kwh but then there are all sorts of other charges tacked on that are often more than the actual cost of the power we use. Add tehm both together and divide by KWHs used and come up with the real cost per KWH. US companies buying our power cheap then charging us an arm and a leg for what's left. Ever since the gov't here de-regulated electricity it's gone thru the roof. Tehy want to build new power lines they add the cost to our bills and the gov't lets them do that. Somebody's pockets are getting well lined while ours get fleeced.

No smart meters here at least. Good old analog spinning wheel one out on my pole.

:peace:
 
fragileassassin

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
I use this, it is essentially a swamp cooler. Very simple wick and fan. I put a float valve in it and split the line from my water filter so it stays full and I never have to worry about filling it.
It has its own humidity control on it, I just leave it at 55% and it kicks on when it needs to.
My water is 50F out of the tap right now and it gets filled with that so it blows fairly cool, but it wasnt enough to make any impact on my ambient air temp.
I also have a basement grow with a furnace in it in an already dry climate. I keep the whole basement at 55% and thats been plenty for the tents.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
BudgetMessiah said:
Is your basement finished?
Click to expand...
My basement is actually a concrete bunker under the house 10x30' and 7'h. The water pump etc is down there and the room takes up one corner. 6" thick insulated walls on two sides and plywood over concrete on the other two. All the air entering the room goes thru filtered vents rather than coming in from outside. Much more stable temps that way when the ouside temp varies from +38C in the summer to -38 in the winter. We hit -38.1C just 3 nights ago. A new record here since -37 in 2009.

It's always a bit damp down there so I don't want to be adding moisture to the air in the basement at large.

Sometimes it's a little wetter than moist. :)

FloodedWRxTWJun27131.jpg
 
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