Cooling large Grow Rooms

[kusherman420]

Does anyone have any ideas on cooling a large grow room. Heat is crazy in so cal and power cost is just as bad.... Does anyone have any experience running massive swamp coolers or chillers to cool a room with like 10-12k lights going??? Curious if theres ways to do it without using ac at all...

 

[Hydropimp]

Where is the op at house or warehouse.

Give some details about your room

 

[mojave green]

My room is small (7x20), 1.2k bloom, 600 veg. I use a gutted a swamp cooler for passive intake and a 14" cancan fan for exhaust. Works great in the Mojave 10 months of the year. I shut down bloom room in July and August. Scaling up Should be no problem.
If I had to run a/c, I don't think I would grow at all. Cost prohibitive as far as I'm concerned. Socal Edison tier 4: .31/kWh. Fuk that!

 

[queequeg152]

.31kwh? holy shit?

thats like... japan prices, or maby hawaii?

do you know what makes it so expensive? fuel oil generation ?

 

[kusherman420]

10' by 50' space with a 10 foot ceiling

 

[kusherman420]

excuse me lets call it 10'by 25' setup with 10 lights aircooled large exhaust

 

[Manstien]

bowl of ice cubes and a 50cfm fan

 

[St. Phatty]

Curious if theres ways to do it without using ac at all...

Yes - ground effects heating-cooling.

More popular in Europe than in the US.

Basic idea ... dig far enough down (3 feet) - but not so far you hit volcanic plasma ... lay pipes + blow air through pipes.

Ambient temp for soil is about 55 degrees F (unless you're in Alaska & dealing with permafrost).

The bigger the grow-room, the more pipe you need.

Humidity condensation in the pipe is a part of the technique. Might need to lay it out so that there's a slight downhill, then put a moisture trap that can be emptied.

 

[Beavinator]

You could try a chiller and then run the cold water through a fan coil. May save you some power.

 

[queequeg152]

Yes - ground effects heating-cooling.

More popular in Europe than in the US.

Basic idea ... dig far enough down (3 feet) - but not so far you hit volcanic plasma ... lay pipes + blow air through pipes.

Ambient temp for soil is about 55 degrees F (unless you're in Alaska & dealing with permafrost).

The bigger the grow-room, the more pipe you need.

Humidity condensation in the pipe is a part of the technique. Might need to lay it out so that there's a slight downhill, then put a moisture trap that can be emptied.

here in the states its far far more common to see water cooled geothermal heat pumps using loops layed horizontal or vertical coils inside these deep wells. its painfully expensive and requires like 20 years to return the investment without grants/tax breaks or other incentives. need a decent amount of land too, and quite a good contractor i might add. just pumping air underground is not going to deal with humidity and latent heat from indoor activites very well at all... you absolutly need a means to deal with indoor moisture imo. alot of people are arguing against installing them these days... preferrng to spend the 10 grand or so on enlarging their planned PV system or just installing a small PV system. if you are excavating a site anyway however... what for site grading, septic ... maby a detention basin or perhaps for a retaining wall... it might make much more sense.

 

[queequeg152]

You could try a chiller and then run the cold water through a fan coil. May save you some power.

chillers are not intrinsically more efficient than conventional forced air handlers. i dont know where this all came from, but 99% of the chillers marketed to growers are usually:

a) converted geothermal heat pumps down rated to tap water temperatures.

or

b) conventional condensing units modified with a cheap and cheerful tube shell heat exchanger or MABY a tubaxial if you are lucky. they CAN BE marginally more efficient in that they use less energy to move the heat away from the evaporator or condenser or both, asuming they use properly sized pumps. these chillers often cost like 2 grand per ton though... more expensive than most minisplit systems. for comparisons sake... you can get a 5 ton goodman 13 seer split system, bare bones without theromstat and lineset etc for like 3-4 grand. a similarly sized 5 ton chiller from 'hydro king 'or what ever the fuck... costs like 10 grand. its a joke. just marketing bullshit.

 

[St. Phatty]

Does anyone have any ideas on cooling a large grow room. Heat is crazy in so cal and power cost is just as bad.... Does anyone have any experience running massive swamp coolers or chillers to cool a room with like 10-12k lights going??? Curious if theres ways to do it without using ac at all...

Another way to get the same effect is to locate the garden in a basement - a big basement. Hopefully a basement with concrete floor, and maybe cinder-block walls.

Anyway, just blowing air throw the concrete floor rooms will help cool it off. And the humidity shows up as condensation on the walls ! ... easy to deal with.

I would love to have a home with a big basement with naturally cool walls.


The math that describes heating and cooling is interesting and sometimes complex. One thing in particular is, the relation between heat input and temperature is often non-linear.

In other words, reduce the heat creation a little, reduce the heat problem a lot.

I think if you ran 7K worth of lights and looked at the cooling requirements, well they will be much more manageable.

There is a point when a space just "goes critical". For example, I can't use a 1K lamp in a spare bedroom in the late spring, but I can get by with a 600 to keep temperatures out of the triple digits. The temp rise from that extra 400 watts is rather impressive and sweat-inducing.


Also, if you're using HPS and MH type lights - just using LED lights will reduce heat. I have the impression they're more efficient ... and expensive.

 

[stoney917]

HONESTLY...... BUY THE FUKIN AC!!!!!!! if ya tryin to skimp out on an ac on a 10-20 lighter from the start just quit now save yaself thousands..... environments key to success....C'mon Mang . If u r gonna do it do it right..... shit 1 5ton could do 10k easy...... if ur cheap multiple minisplits.... ill be the one NO gou cant run double diget lights with a swamp cooler....... easily!!!!!
Im just curious what nutes u plan on usin?????

 

[St. Phatty]

HONESTLY...... BUY THE FUKIN AC!!!!!!! if ya tryin to skimp out on an ac on a 10-20 lighter from the start just quit now save yaself thousands..... environments key to success....C'mon Mang . If u r gonna do it do it right..... shit 1 5ton could do 10k easy

Had to look it up
https://www.google.com/search?q=5+ton+ac+unit
$1200 to $2000+.

 

[JamieShoes]

if you have the funds you might want to look at OptiClimate...

 

[mojave green]

Lol, yah let's complicate this. Swamp cooling is way too simple! Ya'll are just silly.

 

[queequeg152]

if you have the funds you might want to look at OptiClimate...

opticlimate is a bullshit geothermal unit down rated to tap water temperatures.

i dont know for shure.... but im betting they want like 10 grand for 4 or 5 ton unit.

just get a goodman 13 seer split system if cost needs to be rock bottom.

 

[queequeg152]

Lol, yah let's complicate this. Swamp cooling is way too simple! Ya'll are just silly.

it does not work in many climates.

at night humidity will regularly approach 100% here in houston. try evaporative cooling then.


its not as though evaporative cooling is free btw. it requires fairly large fans.
would still cost a fraction of what a split system would though.

 

[mojave green]

Op mentioned socal. Much of socal, with the exception of coastal areas, has arid climate conducive to swamp cooling.