Insulation in the grow area

I'm about to go hydro for the first time. And I've been remodeling the room. I've added insulation board over the reservoir and I added a layer to my light non flammable of coarse my hood is vented so idea was to trap the heat in the hood and pump it out. Anybody got any thoughts on other areas to insulate besides the walls.

Walls, floors, ceiling, build an insulated box for your fan, build an insulated box for your reservoir?

Use batting insulation as well as the foam boards. Something like Roxul which is acoustic and fire rated.

Maybe send some photos of your room and setup. The more descriptions you have the better someone can help you. I went through the hassle of insulating my hoods and it made about a 1% difference. If you have decent fans on the reflectors you should be able to touch the glass and the top of the hoods, both would be barely warm to the touch. I ran a 8" fan per 3 hoods. I have since removed the ventilation and glass from the reflectors, bumped up the cooling and have had 20-25% gains in yield over venting my lights with a slight increase in power consumption do to running more air but no longer running multiple 100w fans.

fabizpwn said:

Maybe send some photos of your room and setup. The more descriptions you have the better someone can help you. I went through the hassle of insulating my hoods and it made about a 1% difference. If you have decent fans on the reflectors you should be able to touch the glass and the top of the hoods, both would be barely warm to the touch. I ran a 8" fan per 3 hoods. I have since removed the ventilation and glass from the reflectors, bumped up the cooling and have had 20-25% gains in yield over venting my lights with a slight increase in power consumption do to running more air but no longer running multiple 100w fans.

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Thanks for info.makes sense to remove the glass, I never thought of it. I never thought of insulating the fan either. Sorry for not having pictures I'm just paranoid about pictures on my phone with gps and all. Oh and the top of the light is cool to the touch when I use 600w and not much warmer with 1000w.
I'm about to go hydro for the first time and I'm trying to figure out how to keep the reservoir temps down. So can you tell me is it easier to control a tent or a 8x8x7 unconditioned room. With fresh air in and out 200 cfm in 156 cfm out. I have a 450 cfm fan but that thing sounds like a freaking jet. Also do you think removing the glass will quiet down the fan a little.

I wouldn't vent then without the glass, if you're paranoid about pictures I would hate to be you when your house smells like a pot factory from a couple blocks away lol

Bareback said:

Thanks for info.makes sense to remove the glass, I never thought of it. I never thought of insulating the fan either. Sorry for not having pictures I'm just paranoid about pictures on my phone with gps and all. Oh and the top of the light is cool to the touch when I use 600w and not much warmer with 1000w.
I'm about to go hydro for the first time and I'm trying to figure out how to keep the reservoir temps down. So can you tell me is it easier to control a tent or a 8x8x7 unconditioned room. With fresh air in and out 200 cfm in 156 cfm out. I have a 450 cfm fan but that thing sounds like a freaking jet. Also do you think removing the glass will quiet down the fan a little.

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Get a chiller for the res. Don't mess around with frozen bottles of water and all of the other time tasking tricks or become familiar with h2o2 quick. They also make mufflers for inline fans, I have no clue if they work never tried them but I've seen them in hydro shops and in magazines. As far as controlling the room temp, I've always used air conditioners i recently started using water cooling. I've never ran an HID room without some form of mechanical cooling. Even in my veg room with t5s I run AC, outside air where I live can be hot and humid at times thus unreliable. I do run co2 though in flower so there is no need for air exchange, i probably could benefit from air exchange in veg but I'm not concerned about it.

So if I run a portable ac. Can I skip air exchange hmmmm.

What's the power of your room?

In order to not have a need for air exchange you are going to neee to add co2 and have a large enough ac capable of cooling your heat production. I've noticed with portable airs they are a little overrated as far
The btu is concerned. A 10,000btu portable seems to work about as well as a 6,000btu through window unit.

fabizpwn said:

What's the power of your room?

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600/1000 hps I have and use both is that what your asking, I'm not sure how to answer sorry.
I live rural so my carbon filter should cover it. The room is pretty tight exhaust is remotely located. Stealthy is a big concern for me. Room has served for three years and if I get it right I'll have more concerns than before. I haven't had too many concerns with treps in the past but if I get it right with the genetics I have now it might be a concern for sure

What I mean by power is what's the total wattage of bulbs being lit in your area, dehumidifier being used, co2 burner being used, ballast located inside of the room. You have to add these up in order to know how much cooling you need. The rule i use of 6,000 btu per non vented 1000w bulb, 3,000 per vented 1000w bulb, that's just to cool lighting, I would add another 3,000btu cooling for a dehumidifier and another 1,000 btu per ballast if they are magnetic and located inside of the room, I add 1,000btu per burner in my co2 generator(8 burner co2 generator i would consider 8,000 btu to cool while it runs). I'll add those all up then times it by 1.1 to size be amount of air conditioning I need to cool it all. I give it 10% because filters get dirty and sometimes your ac might not be running 100% efficient. For example one of my flower rooms is 6 - 1000w non vented lights, with an 8 burner generator and 2 70 pint dehumidifiers and 6 magnetic ballast located inside of the room. That rooms requires right around 60,000btu of cooling which is 5 tons. @ 60,000btu I can get it down to 76degrees if needed but run at 80-81.