Temperature control PLEASE HELP.

I recently started a "grow room" in my house. My house does not have central A/C and I am having a terrible time trying to get the temperature right inside the "grow space" I am growing in a stand alone closet that is 6 FT tall 4 FT wide and 20.5 inches deep. I have mounted a 400w MH lighting system in the top of the cabinet and have a fan mounted right near that, that theoretically would cool the light bulb. Also, because my home does not have central A/c t he temp inside my house in generally higher than most. Today the temp rose as high as 105 degrees. I was wondering if anyone has a solution that would solve the problem yet still be cost effective as I have already spent a ton of money on the lighting and the actual cabinet that the "room" is set up in. I purchased four clones from my local dispensary and they do not seem to be doing too well. I was wondering if ANYONE had any ideas as to how i might be able to cool the area enough to make this work. All ideas/criticism are welcome. Thank you in advance.

You really need to vent. Hood exhaust spitting that light's hot air into the attic is a start, but it will not be cheap to get a can fan, ducting, and cutting tools.

I guess you can always get a cheap window unit AC to put in the grow room, but it would probably be running all of the time.

I battled heat as well and the only thing that finally worked was venting my light.

I was considering moving the cabinet into my room where I have a wondow AC unit that keeps my room constantly cool. The window unit in my room is running all day and night anyway. I simply do not want to go through the hassle of reorganizing my whole room only to find out that the window AC unit is not going to be sufficient. Like i said above the temperature today rose above 105 degrees and my current clones are all but lost. Do you think the window AC should be sufficent? Or is venting the light the only realistic option?

i used to use a de-humidifyer to take the moisture out the air and that lowered them temp a little. Having fast airflow throughout the grow room will also help keep your temp down. What is the temperature now, with the light on?

The temp now with the light on fluctuates between 88 degrees fahrenheit and 105 degrees fahrenheit. The 105 is the most extreme it has gotten and this was today as the temperature has begun rising in my area (Southern California.) With the doors open in the late evening I am able to keep the cabinet right around 78 degrees and this is only when it is very cool outside. As I said earlier I have considered moving the "grow space" into my room when I have a window AC unit and can somewhat regulate the temperature. I am very close to being out of money to spend on growing. I have several ionic breeze type things as my roommate works at Sharper Image. I have tried putting these directly in the grow space and it had very little effect on the temp. I am running out of ideas. In my first post above I noted the dimensions of the portable cabinet I am working with.

hmm...105 is damn hot. most plants cant survive over 95 degrees farenheit. Are you trying to keep your grow room hidden from family/friends?

Does anyone know of a more cost effective way of venting my light? I am really trying to avoid having to buy the "exhaust" system that all my local grow shops sell as 400$ more is almost out of the question at this point.

Ya I own a house on the same street as most of my relatives and in plain view inside the house is absolutely out of the question. I currently have the cabinet in the back room of the house which I guess you would call a "sun room" type thing. Its not completely open to the outside however there are tons of windows and two doors that lead to the backyard. Growing somewhere inside the house out of the way seems to be my only option as there is family over just about every couple days.

The room where it currently is gets VERY hot during the day. In fact most of the house gets very hot during the day the only acception would be the bedrooms where we all have window AC units which really do a great job of keeping the bedrooms cool during the hot summer.

JMS said:

I recently started a "grow room" in my house. My house does not have central A/C and I am having a terrible time trying to get the temperature right inside the "grow space" I am growing in a stand alone closet that is 6 FT tall 4 FT wide and 20.5 inches deep. I have mounted a 400w MH lighting system in the top of the cabinet and have a fan mounted right near that, that theoretically would cool the light bulb. Also, because my home does not have central A/c t he temp inside my house in generally higher than most. Today the temp rose as high as 105 degrees. I was wondering if anyone has a solution that would solve the problem yet still be cost effective as I have already spent a ton of money on the lighting and the actual cabinet that the "room" is set up in. I purchased four clones from my local dispensary and they do not seem to be doing too well. I was wondering if ANYONE had any ideas as to how i might be able to cool the area enough to make this work. All ideas/criticism are welcome. Thank you in advance.

Click to expand...

Fan's aren't going to cool anything just blowing around the grow space. Only people feel cool from the effects of a fan. You need to vent from the grow space. A decent sized bathroom fan will move enough air to keep temps down.

Such as the ones you would find in the ceiling of a bathroom? I was thinking something like this. I was thinking I might be able to move the cabinet into my room where the ambient temperature is lower because of the window AC unit. What do you think?

I think that the smartest thing to do is to drape something across the main cover of the cabinet or closet space. Use something dark to absorb light. This can be done with the aid of thumbtacks, brads, duct tape, and/or electrical tape. You can secure the bottoms with cheap velcro patches bought at your local store. Then mount a fan in the middle of an exhause tube (the shiny kind in your attic) in this fashion:
|b|_______________ ______ ______
|l |______hose_____(<---fan)_____(light)
|a|
|n|
|k|
|e|
|t|
Also, you can put a less strong intake fan at the bottom of the room. You can control the intake air so that it is hosed to the top of the room, keeping it cooler. Remember though, using non-insulated airconditioned hosing makes louder fans. Suspend any fans from rubber bands or similar vibration-absorbing materials. I have also heard of some people using the hotter hours of the day as the dark period. I hear that there is no growth beyond 18 hours of light and i found it stressed my plants more than less being on 24 hours. Ps. the hottest parts of the day arent the sunniest, its after the atmophere heats up that the sweltering heat exhists.

make it easy on yourself and your plants. move the closet next to the window a/c unit. cut out a couple of holes at the bottom facing the a/c unit. cover the holes with something dark and air permeable like one layer of t-shirt. cut out a hole at the top big enough for the biggest fan you can afford and exhaust them bitches something fierce. <~~~~~good shit.

JMS - Move the cabinet into a cooler room. Then cut a hole in the top of the cab and install a bathroom fan (will want to spend more to get a quiet model) and attach to dryer hose vent. Run this outside if possible otherwise into a home-made carbon scrubber. Then cut a hole in the bottom of the cab and install a smaller (could be a pc fan) to push cool air into the grow.

This may not be practical at all, depending on the layout of your house, but it's a thought. If your room is cool, could you run ductwork from your room through your attic and into your grow closet for air intake? If it's close enough, a $20 fan to push the air and $30-40 worth of ductwork may seem to be a reasonable investment if moving the grow-op is out of the question.

Maybe switch to lesser lighting system?
:::h god, please don't let them flame me::::

Moving the grow outside is out of the question and you all had alot of great ideas. Thanks for all the info and I will post pictures when I come up with some sort of answer. I really want to get this thing going so anyone with any other ideas are more than welcome as I brainstorm the final contraption that will be my cooling system.

If its your house you can vent right up through the closet ceiling into the attic unless you have a 2 story and the closet is on the first floor. Go to hom depo get an inline duct fan 6 or 8 inch either 26 bucks or 34 bucks. Some vent ducting looks like a covered slinky about 10 bucks cut a hold the correct size in the drywall in the closet ceiling steak knife can be used at worst. Then just run the vent from the fan sucking the air up thenthen other end into attic.This should lower by at least 15 degrees

craigslist: san francisco bay area classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events find yourself a portable AC , or a cheap o window AC and cover around it with cardboard and black trash bags...then put a few posters around it. simply set up a timer or set ur AC temp and bam, temps should drop 10 degrees

JMS, you'll need more than one exhaust fan, you need to be exhausting around 300cfm to cool that space, any less and the temp will rise.
Peace

I am literallly in exactly the same boat as you are. I am working on solving my problem today or tomorrow, but I can keep my room down to 85 right now by leaving my door to the grow room open and blowing a fan into it. Light isn't as effective, but i don't want my room to be as hot as you are letting it get. I am in socal also and it's pretty rough right now. I froze 1 gallon water bottle last night and placed it in the grow room next to the intake fan to try to cool it down. Don't know that it's helping much, but I figure it has to be helping a little.

My space is about the same as yours and I'm only using a 250w HPS until I get this ventilation problem solved.