Dual hose portable A/C units, exhaust hose leak odor? draw room air?

[causal grower]

http://www.thelitehome.com/air-cond...town-portable-air-conditioners-wa-9040dh.html

is a 9,000btu portable A/C with one hose to intake cool air (for cooling the compressor and other hot bits) and another exhaust hose to spit that shit out the room.

I know a normal single hose/exhaust portable a/c (pAC) draws from the room it's in, and uses that to cool the hot bits of the machinery, then spits it out the hose.

obviously, running this in a stinky room will spit odor out. and waste cool air.

i have a 6'x6' room, no windows, with a grow tent in it. i want to put a dual hose pAC in, intake from the adjoining room, exhaust to out of the grow room. this should be bringing air from the intake, cooling the hotties with the same air and some water from the dehumidifier, and spitting the hot steam waste out the exhaust pipe.

IN THEORY, the air should only (have to) pass over the hot bits, take on the heat energy, and get spit out the other hose, no leaking of in room funk, as that would cancel the whole reason for going dual hose. it's not for growing herb, it's to not be perpetually sucking out air conditioned air and blowing it out the room, wasting it, making it less efficient, lower EER and all that.


RIGHT?

i've seen a post or two otherwise here, but that simply makes no sense to have a dual hose pAC that intakes a/c air from the room, and exhausts it. wtf. maybe a f'd up unit, bad seals? i don't know, but you would think they'd take pains to design it to not lose its main dual hose feature.


so someone let me know that has a dual hose portable AC please, does it exhaust air from the room the unit is in, or just the intake hose air?

FYI my scrubber is in the tent currenty (so the room is odor neutral), but no working ac for the grow. and there's no window unit installation possible, as i have shared central a/c in the house and that would just be too weird to justify...

thanks everyone. i'll be changing this into a 6'x6' sealed room maybe, so i'm going dual hose pAC now, if it's benefits carry through.
peace...

 

[Guest]

I'm sure you're referring to me bro,I wish some others that use them would chime in I can only give you my experience.I used a Fujitronic F-9000 dual hose 9000BTU portable with co2 enrichment from a propane generator.I had the intake hose through the wall to another room,and the exhaust through the ceiling into the attic.Whenever I ran my portable AC,my co2 levels would almost instantly start going from 1500PPM down to around 500PPM,the unit itself was definately intaking ambient air.You'd think the intake hose would feel like a vacuum cleaner in reverse,it didnt.You could feel a little airflow,not much.I had it assembled correctly.I would ask the manufacturer about this being that this subject has gone on for months without resolution.I'd hate to think I had a malfunctioning unit from the start and am giving incorrect information.I can only give my experience.Ask the manufacturer,and in place of odor use co2.Ask them if their unit will exhaust any co2 if the unit is in the same room as the co2 source.Its liable to raise less eyebrows than using odor for an example lol

 

[causal grower]

i did see a post recently here that re'd a fujitronic, probably yours. this is something i've heard overall though, and i just don't want my futureproofing to backfire.

i could go with a split if need be, but i'd rather pay less for a working dual hose.

i'll be sure to be able to return a portable though if i get one, i can always measure it like you did and see whats goin on.

thanks for posting that here for me. i'm going to look up the EER of the fuji and see if maybe it's grossly higher. i think the spt dual hose has like a 10-11.

 

[TGT]

I would also love to know if those portable air conditioners are any good for a grow room or not? And, what is the difference between a single hose unit and a dual hose unit?

Couldn't you just use a large window unit and vent the exaust out the window some how? I'm sure it could be done - anyone try this and know what the results would be like?

Thanks in advance!

TGT

 

[causal grower]

dual hose / single hose portable air conditioner differences

dual hose / single hose portable air conditioner differences

whatsup TGT! portable AC (pAC) can be good, depending.

window units have the fan and compressor sitting outside, and being cooled by air outside the house, no air exchange takes place unless you specifically have an indoor/outdoor fresh air vent. these essentially cool air in the room, and transfer that heat to the half of the unit sitting outside the window, and cools itself out there like a radiator.

room side extracts heat from air and transfers it to a cooling device that's on the outside half of the unit, where it is cooled without adding waste heat to the AC'd room.

single hose portable has a single hose that is vented out a window usually. when the AC is on and cooling, a small amount of air from the cooled room (the one the unit is in) is fanned over the hot bits of the unit to cool the machinery, and blown out the hose and out the window.

this will obviously blow out a/c'd air (more inefficient the more you use it) from the room, with any CO2 and/or stink that may be there, out the exhaust hose.

dual hose portable has hose 1.intake leading from outside (window), or another room, blowing that air over the hot machinery to cool it, and blowing it out hose 2.exhaust (same or other window, room, hallway).

if it works the way it should, no air from the AC'd room is sucked out to cool the unit, so no smell CO2 or whatever blown out.

think of it like an air cooled hood(s), with intakes/exhausts out the window(s), not sucking from the room, sealed room style. this would be better if you had AC and CO2 going, compared to sucking air from the grow->hood->fan->exhaust where you would lose your enrichments. the light hood is ya know, the figurative portable air conditioner

i remember you from elsewhere. unless i'm mistaken. same place i lurked around R2K's threads and watching SQ go nuts.

peas

added:
the best for portable with enrichment however is a split unit AC where it's two pieces, one that is the AC part, connected via some hoses to the fan/compressor unit, that sits outside, mounted on exterior wall, or in a hallway (for a portable) or other room. these are the only guaranteed sealed environment unit that's portable (imo) as they are just a window unit, with a hose where the actual window would be, letting you 'remote ballast' an AC. roughly...

 

[TGT]

Cool, thanks for the info, that was just what I was lookng for!

TGT

 

[ommid]

so are Portable A/C units and Co2 a bad duo? Shit man i just recently bought a 14k btu single hose

 

[causal grower]

you'll lose some CO2 when you run the AC, yep. run a sealed hood, and try to run your AC in bursts and you won't lose as much as running enrichment, plus the AC at the same time. with CO2 you can run hotter, so less need to bring the temps down. it's a queer balancing act though, admittedly.

all things being equal, i'd run a single hose with a CO2 tank and a sealed hood rather than no CO2. you'll still feel the love, just check your levels. sure it's a bit more wasteful, but not enough to ruin the great value of a home garden w/w out co2.

adding- *I* would still use a single hose with CO2 because my room is tiny and even a 9K BTU unit would only have to be on for 10-20 min an hour to cool it. so not much loss there. if i had like 4x600w, etc with a pAC in a 12'x15' room that would have to essentially run full or most of the time, then i'd go with a window shaker or split unit. the more you run it, the more you lose. you could put a 15K in a 4'x6' closet and enrich all you want, the thing wont have to run much/hr to cool a tiny, non-scorching space. set on manual ON, hooked up to a plug in thermostat. but i didn't have a constant read monitor, but it was no loss. i think it was a 13K though.

 

[causal grower]

ive used a soleus 9000btu dual hose ac the thing sucked it pulled out all of my co2 at a very fast rate it was first thing i got rid of in the room switched to a window banger

looks like i'll be building a floorstanding box for a windowshaker, with dual 4" intake/exhausts up through the attic. don't know if a split it worth the investment. i'll keep my progress goin here, next week or two i'll have to have something up and running.

 

[Resin]

I have used the dual hose A/C units and to me its worth it to have the room cooled and loose a little CO2 vs. dealing with heat. Heat will always fuck a crop up. The A/C only pumps the air out of the room when the compresor kicks in and is cooling the room so there are times when you will be emiting CO2 and its not going to be exhausted. The AC will definately pump out stinky air. I have mine being exhausted into a carbon scrubber with a centerfan sucking the AC unit air and pushing it through the scrubber works really well. I have noticed no draw back in the yield dept using an AC vs. when I didn't. I won't grow with out one then again I am runnign 3000 watts and am adding another two this summer so the AC is going to be kickin regardless.
If I could I would use a window unit but my room is not condusive to that.

 

[causal grower]

center fan, do you mean an inline centrifugal type (vortex, can fan) intaking the AC exhaust and blowing out into a filter? thanks for dropping your setups and experiences everyone.

resin, if adding an AC didn't affect your yields, did it just chunk up your bud nicely from lower temps then? or just let you expand watts, etc i guess.

thanks

 

[Resin]

I have always used CO2 with and without an AC exhausting the air. I have noticed no change still using the CO2 and the AC. You mentioned a concern of the AC exhausting the CO2. The plants are chunkier and its easy to grow when the summer rolls around cuts the risks of losing your crop to mold, heat stress etc.
Resin

 

[Jesusbuiltmygro]

Portable AC units are highly inefficient so get vast overkill on whatever cooling you think you need and be sure to calculate that amp draw also.

I'd try with every ounce of my being to avoid having to use a portable AC unit, but in some occasionally (especially older houses) they can be needed I guess.

If I had shared AC. I would run through a carbon filter and vent the entire room into the cold air return. That alone will make a HUGE difference in heat build up and in most cases you can vent most grows with fans alone IF you can get the heat away from the grow room. Most ventilation scheme just dump the heat into the next room or such where it still can effectively build up. This also keeps fresh air flowing through the grow room. You can also add booster vents to the HVAC exhausts to reduce any negative pressure and balance cooling. If you have a basement or can access the crawl space you can flip the levers on the ducts a little to balance the system to deliver a bit more cool air to your room.

I'd never drop that kind of money on something that can barely cool a normal room no less a grow room.

The exhaust on those things should auto shutoff when the compressor is not running. You can just exhaust and intake air from the same spot because it's a closed system, just like an air cooled light. You don't need to pull the air from one room and exhaust it somewhere else. Won't that just effectively exhaust out more climate controlled air anyway ?

In the winter when the heat is running venting into the cold air return works even better. All that heat is distributed throughout the house via the internal duct work of the house. It's like the duct work is just there waiting for you to tap into it. I use a 449 CFM vortex inline with a 1k air cooled and have no need for window or portable AC unit, just good ventilation design will do it all for you and save LOTS of money in electricity, which is likely more suspicious than your desire to have your room colder or whatever. Are you sure you room can handle all this stuff. Usually a light and a decent AC unit is about all one circuit can handle. Since you need a portable unit it will use a good bit more amps and run more often.

I haven't seen too many growers really making a major difference in their grow with CO2 and in fact many of the highest yield numbers are using more simplistic than complex methods. I think rarely does the average grower actually have much of a Co2 bottleneck as far as growth rate is concerned. It may be nice to run hotter temps, but I'd rather have high ventilation because I think the plants prefer it. So unless you are buying a climate controller CO2 is just a big pain in the ass. I know lots of people buy it as an add on, but I also see those same people pulling .5 grams per watt and talking about how nobody can really do 1 gram per watt. Sealed rooms are overrated and expensive. If you are venting out the portable AC are you also venting out the air cooled light heat? I mean if you are going to vent heat straight outside you may as well take advantage of it by venting out as much heat as you can and making the AC unit do less work. You'll move a lot more heat for way less money by venting a closed loop from your air cooled light instead of letting the AC handle it all. Though it's simpler of course to let it all fall on the AC and fans cost money also, but I'm thinking about the long term monthly costs and basically every watt being one less watt of light which by far is the greatest contributing factor to yield. So long as you have the room mostly right it's more or less all about light, that's why measurements like grams per watt are popular and somewhat accurate.

Plus the world is coming upon an energy crisis so I'd like to think superior efficiency is pretty important. Did you notice that monster uses 8.5 amps. That's more than half of your circuits 15 amp capacity unless your lucky enough to have 2 circuits. A 600 watt HPS uses about 6 amps and a 1k HPS uses about 11 amps (digital use slightly less). So, you'll probably need two circuits to pull that off.

If you have HVAC, what happens when the HVAC unit kicks on. Do you not have a cold air return in your room which sucks air out? Might let some odor escape. I like the cold air return exhausting thing especially because whenever the HVAC unit kicks on you get an extra ventilation boost. I guess the only downside is sharing all the air pollution of the house, mold and mildew spores and such, though I don't think that's a real problem to keep yourself up at night.

You could at least vent the air cooled light outside but good ventilation still means dumping the air somewhere that's NOT the grow room for many reasons, not just heat, but overall air quality, humidity. Sealed room sounds cool and all but unless you have multiple circuits usually you run into power limitations trying to get the temps down because AC is just a very inefficient process in general. If your shit is setup with a sub-panel and all that then sealed rooms are great, but for joe average grower they are just a way to spend a BUNCH of extra money and have higher monthly power bills. Since you have HVAC already I think you could manage better than buying a potable AC unit which will likely trip your breaker. If your house had no AC and no window in the room I think a portable would make sense since it will cool and lower humidity, but with HVAC your entire house will more or less be a steady humidity so using the house as part of your closed system works out better.

In essence you just expand your sealed room to being a sealed house and the house becomes a giant heat exchanger to some degree. It also helps keep odor from building up since you have a high CFM and negative pressure in the room. The only problems are when the seasons change and the HVAC system is not being used such as early spring or late fall when you turn the AC off. You will see a temp and humidity spike without a dedicated AC unit, if you just turn the shit on a week early usually your good to go. Window ac units are nice if you can run em, but in many cases the reliance on AC is rooted in poor ventilation design. Co2 or not you should have awesome ventilation you just use a climate control in that case. There is never a case when it's worth trading ventilation for co2 because ventilation is far more of a key necessity to the plant than higher than natural Co2 levels. Just image the plants out in a field and that amount of fresh air they get.
Most people just underrate ventilation and that's why they get mold and mildew (and not cleaning the grow room). That's also the number one reason for high temps indoors, because almost every growers initial setup will be slack on ventilation. It's just easy to overlook. Of course if you must have precise control of the room, since you live in it for instance, i guess a portable is the only realistic option to get a steady always comfortable temp in the room. Still unless you can tap a second circuit seems like you will be maxed out for power without the help of an electrician. Yet another reason why I skip on the AC. Of course, I think I have an advantage of better understanding the HVAC system and using the DUCT levers to balance the air flow. Without that the room runs 5-10 degrees hotter than the rest of the house. You can also simply block vents using magnetic strips. You could complain your room is too hot or something stupid unbalanced ac system, guess I'll just tweak it a little. A fish tank is a good hobby to adopt also since it explain a lot of strange needs such as constant temps in your room and taking water to your room and even a water filter. Definitely a good cover for anyone living/growing on the DL.

 

[Guest]

Amen.In my 8 by 8 room with 3K,a 9K dual hose portable would deplete my co2 level from 1500 PPM to 500PPM in a matter of miutes,and thats a dual hose with the intake in another room!