I Need Expert Help PLEASE!!

hey all well my problem is heat. I bought a cool tube for my 400 watt lamp i have a closet roughly 12' x 2' x 7' it has 4 sliding doors. I am cooling the tube with 171 cfm inline jet fan with a few feet of ducting on both sides. I have an oscilating fan blwoing on the plants anohter fan blowing at the cool tube from below. my temps will get to 90 by the end of the cycle prolly. I just set it up and its 87 right now is this going to be to hot for my girls and how could i get it cooler. My room temp is about 80 with lights off but entire bedroom gets warmer with lights on. Im getting discouraged idk y i cant get a handle on temp anyone else grow in 80 degree ambient temp with HID. Even with the cool tube 4 feet away its hot is the tube not getting cool enough i can touch it its hot but doesnt burn. Am i doing something wrong?

please help me im getting desperate and i have a girl with only 2 or 3 weeks before harvest

thansk
-kb

run an air conditioner in your room to bring things down. Your room is just too hot to begin with. Your starting at 80 and then the light is still going to bring it up even with a fan and cooltube setup. Head to Walmart and get a cheap unit or post on craigslist or borrow one. Goodluck

You can use all the fans you want but if your starting up in a hot room, a hotter room is all your gonna get.
Def need to use a AC.

you could get a small AC unit that can be plugged in, and put it in with the plants. It will drop the temp. 30 or 40 bucks will do it. My old room was around 65 to 68 at "night, and 76 to 78 during the "day"

where you find a small ac unit for $30-40¿¿

Im buying a portable and it's about $300

Your fan is not big enough to take full advantage of the cooltube. I would start there. Also, kinks in the ducting take away from the airflow as well. If possible, straight in and straight out.


-AR

or a bigger fan even.

I dont have any more money to put into this grow really and if i did its not 300 dollars for an ac that i have to run 12 hours a day
my central ac is set to 75 its about 78 in my room 79 in closet cant get much lower very old unit uses shitons of electricity
I'm buying some panda film, a staple gun and velcro to make a tent in my closet in order to exchange the air in a smaller relatively sealed area
I'm hoping added reflectiveness will keep my walls from absorbing heat and also creating one exhaust point and one intake point making it efficient air exchange while also light proofing my grow area
right now there is no real air exchange going on because closet is so big.

Thanks everyone for your advice
-kb

then fans, 1 in and 1 out, works for my flower closet that gets super hot.
1 on bottom pull cold air in and 1 on top sucking hot air out into the room

thanks man do you think its safe to cut a 4" hole in my ceiling i live on the bottom floor of an apartment. Is it ok to vent right into my ceiling
I was thinking about drilling a few small hole to see if its a spot without studs or anyhting then drill big hole in the middle and try and use a razor to cut the 4 " hole i have a carbon filter so smell shouldnt be a problem

I was never able to get my temp down to a tollerable level until I got a 5000 btu A/C for $99 at HDepot. I even ran a 350 vortex before for air exchange thru my air cool hood - still not enough. Now the room stays about 75deg lights on/ 63deg off and the more controlled environment has made for better more predictable growth. The fan on the A/C keeps the air circulated (plus a 10 inch desk fan) I replaced my vortex with a 170 that pulled air from outside the room into the reflector then out of the room. The A/C air stays in the room. WHen I open it up for gardening I get a new exchange of air in the room so it never gets stale. The difference in growth and bud quality was radically different at mid 70's. Before the A/C my highs were 95 deg.
The unit is extreamly energy efficiant and will take a load off your central air. My apt is usually around 80 -82 deg. I can imagine having to sit around in temps lower. When I bought it I was pissed to spend the $99 I did'nt really have - now I think it was the best calls of my grows.

Nice
I wish I could get a cheap one, Im gonna have to shell out $400 for a portable.
I dont want a window unit that will have everyone wondering y I need AC during the winter.

ok im considering buying a 100 dollar ac unit my bedroom is about 20' x 20 ' and has hallway/bathroom about 3.5' by 20' will 5,000 btu be able to lower my temps enough without being run on full all the time
my centrAL ac in my apartment is set to 75 but my room is far away form it so it is like 80 in here

Run a duct to your window with that flex stuff for dryer attachments during the winter and have one vortex fan sucking in cool air and the other blowing the hotter air into the room. That way you could cool your grow area and at the same time heat your bedroom some.

KBkiller42 said:

ok im considering buying a 100 dollar ac unit my bedroom is about 20' x 20 ' and has hallway/bathroom about 3.5' by 20' will 5,000 btu be able to lower my temps enough without being run on full all the time
my centrAL ac in my apartment is set to 75 but my room is far away form it so it is like 80 in here

Click to expand...

you need more BTU than that, but you could just directly duct the cool air into the grow which should be more than enough.

Heres what you need to look at to figure how much BTU of AC power you need........................http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/heating_cooling/window_ac.html

Also don't forget to take into account that you don't really need to cool it that much, you already have central air so this is just supplemental, a 5000 btu one may just do the trick.

NoDrama said:

you need more BTU than that, but you could just directly duct the cool air into the grow which should be more than enough.

Heres what you need to look at to figure how much BTU of AC power you need........................http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/heating_cooling/window_ac.html

Also don't forget to take into account that you don't really need to cool it that much, you already have central air so this is just supplemental, a 5000 btu one may just do the trick.

Click to expand...

BUT for some of us we have to divert the whole central AC to the grow room to keep temps low, as it turns off when it gets cool in the rest of the house (and the grow room is already much warmer) what happens when it kicks off?

I use my central AC unit and I have to divert it all to my grow room it freezes the rest of the house, and here is winter.

Portable/window units are the way to go when you cant cool it any other way.
Later this winter I will b using a dry duct to drag in cool air, BUT what about right now?

My central air doesnt turn off very much at all during my lights on cycle to keep my grow room at 75-77

Honestly, don't you think that spending money on an A/C unit instead of your cooltube negates the point of having one? I have a 68" dual cooltube with 2x 1000w HPS bulbs in it and no A/C, yet I manage to keep my room at ~75°F. Your is a 400w. I would focus on getting what you already have to work instead of just adding.


-AR

my ambient room temp is 80 im not gettin 75 n my grow room with just fans dude

Im no expert i but i think the cooler the air passing the bulb the cooler the air coming out on the other side will be
so if i'm cooling my light with 80 degree air say its coming out 85 thats heating my room even more making for less efficient cooling
the cooler the ambient air temp the cooler the light the cooler inside the tent itself

If you have any magical solutions to my problem let me know adrenaline

got the ac temps are topping out at 82 in the tent and the cool tube is within 20 inches of top of plants im going to try and get it a little closer but for now its straight