Getting cold air to the garage

[fuggzy]

Hi guys, and thanks for checking out my question.
I live in Florida, and it is obviously really hot right now. The only place I am able to set up my tent is in my garage, which kinda sucks. I do plan on running a 4" duct right through the wall in to the utility room for AC. I can run 1-4" duct rather unnoticeable, (I have a 4" sleeve on the tent facing that wall) but running a second line would stick out like a target (my other 4" sleeve faces a brick wall).

The problem is that my exhaust fan is a 4" 190cfm, so I'd want 8" for a passive intake or equal to it. <<<If I'm wrong please correct me on that, or anything for that matter. Now if I use the vents provided by the tent, can I put a small in line fan on duct through the wall to try and get more cool air than hot air? I know I need to run a negative pressure, but I am not sure if I was to use a small weaker in line fan, would that provide to much positive pressure and defeat the purpose?

I know a small amount of cold air is better than none, but I also l know KISS needs to be considered, especially if its just a bad idea. Also this is a rented house, and besides a small hole I can repair later, I can't really alter the house much.
The tent would be hidden from street view by a workshop, and my wife doesn't smoke (happy wife, happy life idea has worked so far ), so I'm stuck with the placement of the tent. Split AC units are out of my budget. Any suggestions?

Milliard 4x2x5 tent
Ventech 4" 190 cfm fan w/ variable speed
Ventech 4" 210 cfm carbon filter
~232 watts of DIY LED (more to come later, gardening on a budget)
14 drivers power board located outside the tent to better help with heat.

Thanks again guys.
Fuggzy

 

[fuggzy]

Nobody has any ideas? I understand negative pressure and how it works, just not if lightly assisted intake would ruin my interior negative pressure. On hand i had 12vdc pc fans ranging from 70mm-220mm, mainly being 120mm. I have 24vdc 80mm case style fans, 110vac 23w enclosed squirrel cage fans (1.4"x 4.2" port) on up to 4" in line duct fans. I'm lucky enough to have an electrical tech for a father in-law, he keeps EVERYTHING. He doesn't know shit about gardening of any kind. Just how to wire it all up w/o me frying myself.

I could just test it when the time comes, I know. I don't want to figure out the hard way as I have a rather active neighborhood with my house being near the entrance. Any advice would be great, with experienced advice being Golden!

Good luck & Have fun.
Fuggzy

 

[siftedunity]

i don't live in fl, i live in a much cooler country and i would find it hard controlling temps this time of year. even with air cooled lights running at night.
its all easy to work out if you check the fans and how much air they move per hour, and just maintain that negative by making sure you are extracting more than you are intaking. negative pressure essentially means extracting slightly more than you are intaking, so that the only place where smells can get out is through the filter. with positive air pressure, air will be pushed out through any gap in the tent, thus smelling outside the tent. sorry if im reiterating what you already know..

 

[fuggzy]

i don't live in fl, i live in a much cooler country and i would find it hard controlling temps this time of year. even with air cooled lights running at night.
its all easy to work out if you check the fans and how much air they move per hour, and just maintain that negative by making sure you are extracting more than you are intaking. negative pressure essentially means extracting slightly more than you are intaking, so that the only place where smells can get out is through the filter. with positive air pressure, air will be pushed out through any gap in the tent, thus smelling outside the tent. sorry if im reiterating what you already know..

Thanks for the response. It is 2:30am and still 78° & 85% humidity. Thanks for the insight of it needing to be slightly higher to maintain negative pressure. I'm going to guess that after filter, and smaller intake fan, if i can keep about 120cfm of airflow i should be okay. That would give me 3 rotations of air a minute with the tent being 40³ft. Anyone see why this would not work?

 

[who dat is]

Get an LED to help lower the heat from the light versus an HPS?

 

[fuggzy]

Thanks.

Thanks.

Get an LED to help lower the heat from the light versus an HPS?

Thanks for the input, but i don't have HID lighting, I already have LED with a remote power board. I'm mainly concerned about the ambient temps as they will be higher than the lights at this point. The low last night was only like 79, parts of FL spiked to 100. The lights will be ran at night also.

 

[who dat is]

Thanks for the input, but i don't have HID lighting, I already have LED with a remote power board. I'm mainly concerned about the ambient temps as they will be higher than the lights at this point. The low last night was only like 79, parts of FL spiked to 100. The lights will be ran at night also.

Do you own this place or are you just renting? If this is something you see yourself doing for awhile maybe insulate the garage if that is feasible and get an A/C unit for it? That is quite the leap in the commitment category though.

 

[fuggzy]

Also this is a rented house, and besides a small hole I can repair later, I can't really alter the house much.

Split AC units are out of my budget. Any suggestions?

Thanks again guys.
Fuggzy

Thanks for the speedy response but an AC wouldn't really work for me. The garage is insulated, i did forget to mention that however. I've also been trying to figure how to just run 2-4" lines in to my utility room for AC. The problem is with that I need to reposition the tent, and have to reposition the workshop to keep it hidden. Or have to run a line over the tent exposing a random ducting just sitting in the corner.

At this time I think rearranging the tent/workshop will probably be the smartest idea. I'm still open to suggestions. It will be about 2 weeks before the tent is up and running. Just trying to get my plan as close to rick solid as i can.

If anyone has ran a small intake fan, while running a good begative pressures still, I'd love to hear how it worked out for you.

Thanks again.
Fuggzy

 

[fuggzy]

So the chances of this happening are >0, but I think it's time to butter up the wife. Paint her bathroom, get her some nice new clothes, cook her a romantic dinner. Then follow up with "I just hijacked you'r closet. As far as I can tell, I just paid 2mo rent on it. Would you like lemon in your water hun?"

 

[Pro Headies]

Whats the temp in the garage? Where are you going to exhaust the heat? Your trying to pull AC from house right, how are you planning on getting AC air out of house into the garage? What if you built a small "deck" same size as tent and ran the other 4" tube under the tent to the brick side? Those 4" carbon filters are very restrictive, a 6x24 with a 4" adapter would work alot better.

 

[stoned-trout]

put in an ac... portables work but are last resort...yeehaw

 

[fuggzy]

Whats a garage temp? xD

Whats a garage temp? xD

Whats the temp in the garage? Where are you going to exhaust the heat? Your trying to pull AC from house right, how are you planning on getting AC air out of house into the garage? What if you built a small "deck" same size as tent and ran the other 4" tube under the tent to the brick side? Those 4" carbon filters are very restrictive, a 6x24 with a 4" adapter would work alot better.

So temps of the garage mid day would have been good info.... Thermostat is in there now. Guess I got so wrapped up in the idea of heat I forgot about the fact of it too. Lol...The AC from the house would be ducted directly into the tent, and pulled in with either neg pressure, or a small assisted fan, depending how this brainstorming goes. It would be pulled from the utility room so the ducting would look normal on that side. Exhaust is something I'm working on also. I'm considering just running it back in to the utility room, and tapping it in to the dryer exhaust. I REALLY like the deck idea. I could frame a floor way faster than moving the entire garage around. With the layout of the workshop (roughly 5' tall, same as the tent), the top of the tent would blend in way better than a shiny duct just sitting there. Just slap a pegboard in front of it with some old tools on it and its gone. The deck would also make the exhaust easier to return to the utility room.

Thanks for the idea. So much research, planing, more research, reading, just for more planning. But you know that whole piss poor planning thing... I'm past the point of return though, so 1 way or another this will work.

 

[funnymath]

I'm still confused what problem you're even really having. You want to grow in a garage that has no temperature control? In that case (especially in Florida) you pretty much have to use a/c, especially if your garage faces west or south. First thing I'd do is make sure everything is insulated. I know you said the garage is insulated, but the door is a huge source of heat, so get some insulation there, and then make sure all the seems around the door are closed. I know my garage is lit up in the afternoon because there are so many openings around the door.

Then bringing in the cold air you basically have two options, share the a/c from the house or have separate ac. Sharing the a/c from the house isn't worth it to me. Maybe if you have an oversized a/c it might work, but you're still taking inside house air and dumping it in the garage with no chance for it to recirculate. Not to mention you're blowing air outside of your home to the outside, so you'll create negative pressure in the house which will pull hot air outside into the home, thus making the a/c work harder.

A separate a/c isn't a huge deal to me. I don't like portables because of how the hot side and cold sides aren't separated enough. So if you put the portable inside the tent, then it needs to exhaust the air, and it'll be stinky air. All the extra heat will reduce the life of your carbon filter so putting it on the portable's exhaust won't work all that well. You could look for a dual hose unit, those usually cost a little more and they're supposed to suck air from outside and then spit it back out warmer, but I've heard that most still don't have everything sealed very well so smell still gets out.

I like window a/c units though. It's probably easiest to mount the window a/c to the outside of your tent as if the tent wall is a window. Also make sure the tent is insulated. Even a small unit should work in a small 2x4 tent. The only problem is depending where you mount it it might look suspicious to someone walking by it.

 

[fuggzy]

Cold air to the tent, in the garage

Cold air to the tent, in the garage

I'm still confused what problem you're even really having. You want to grow in a garage that has no temperature control? In that case (especially in Florida) you pretty much have to use a/c, especially if your garage faces west or south. First thing I'd do is make sure everything is insulated. I know you said the garage is insulated, but the door is a huge source of heat, so get some insulation there, and then make sure all the seems around the door are closed. I know my garage is lit up in the afternoon because there are so many openings around the door.

Then bringing in the cold air you basically have two options, share the a/c from the house or have separate ac. Sharing the a/c from the house isn't worth it to me. Maybe if you have an oversized a/c it might work, but you're still taking inside house air and dumping it in the garage with no chance for it to recirculate. Not to mention you're blowing air outside of your home to the outside, so you'll create negative pressure in the house which will pull hot air outside into the home, thus making the a/c work harder.

A separate a/c isn't a huge deal to me. I don't like portables because of how the hot side and cold sides aren't separated enough. So if you put the portable inside the tent, then it needs to exhaust the air, and it'll be stinky air. All the extra heat will reduce the life of your carbon filter so putting it on the portable's exhaust won't work all that well. You could look for a dual hose unit, those usually cost a little more and they're supposed to suck air from outside and then spit it back out warmer, but I've heard that most still don't have everything sealed very well so smell still gets out.

I like window a/c units though. It's probably easiest to mount the window a/c to the outside of your tent as if the tent wall is a window. Also make sure the tent is insulated. Even a small unit should work in a small 2x4 tent. The only problem is depending where you mount it it might look suspicious to someone walking by it.

The problem is getting the cold air from the house to the tent, and enough of it. The tent is in the garage. Sorry if the title is misleading.

On the left side of the tent is my utility room, which is climate controlled. That side of the tent is where 1 of 2- 4" sleeves are located.This is where I would be getting my cold air from. Just run a 4" duct through the wall. The back of the tent is on is the exterior wall being brick, this happens to be where my 2nd- 4" sleeve is.

Moving the tent out of the garage is not an option. Moving it within the garage is, but would require me to rearrange the entire workshop we have which would hide its current placement. Also the utility room is the only room i can duct in to, the other wall leads to my dinner table. So its pretty stuck to a 8ft length of wall. To clarify, when I say hidden, I mean not visible from the street with the door open. It is visible from inside the garage, but behind the workshop in regards to passing people.

I'm not sure to what level the garage is insulated, but the door is not at all. It is currently 88° outside, and 78° in the garage. Today is probably a bad day to compare though. thats the coolest it been in 15 days, with only 4 day being below 91° ranging up to 98°.

In regards to the AC for the house it is a rather over sized heat pump. I don't know the size off hand but it keeps the house cold with no problem. The house is 1.6k sqft with about 70% of it vaulted and is insulated like a fortress, way better than the garage. My house is also extremely shaded, only getting about 5 hours of direct sunlight from 11am till 4pm. Its kinda in a dip of a conservation area, with trees on 3 sides. So i don't think the stress of feeding the tent (40³ft) should be hard on it. Although I did not consider it making a neg pressure on the house... Something else I need to think of, thank you.

Thanks for the input on the added AC, but its not really an option. The budget is coming to an end soon.

I'll look up ideas on insulating the tent, I'm sure google has something to offer.
My options are limited, but I've seen people succeed with less options than I have.

For now I'm going to sketch up some ideas with a deck with the ducts running through it as Pro Headies recomended. See if I can get 2 cooled ducts to feed it, and still be hidden from passing people. I like running it under rather than over cause I would have to put something on top of the tent to hide the ducting on it.

Good luck & have fun
Fuggzy

 

[Pro Headies]

So you cut a hole from garage to utility room, what temperature is the utility room? Does your AC unit run 24/7 to keep up with Florida heat? Also do you think you will have to run a dehumidifer also with 85% RH, they put off heat also. Under the utility room is there a basement or crawlspace or you on a solid concrete slab? Also in the utility room how close to vent you made is the AC register vent?

 

[fuggzy]

So you cut a hole from garage to utility room, what temperature is the utility room? Does your AC unit run 24/7 to keep up with Florida heat? Also do you think you will have to run a dehumidifer also with 85% RH, they put off heat also. Under the utility room is there a basement or crawlspace or you on a solid concrete slab? Also in the utility room how close to vent you made is the AC register vent?

The utility room is at least 76-77° and the vent would be about 9 foot straight shot from the duct. The utility room also leads to my office, so I could leave that door open to help exchange air of the utility room as long as the scrubber can keep up. Besides my direct family nobody goes through there, its a bit out of the way to get to the driveway.

Yes the AC runs 24/7, at least the thermostat is on. The house is directly on a concrete slab. Being at sea level and on sand more or less, basements are few and far between.

If I cycle air Utility room>>>tent>>>utility room it should take care of putting any neg pressure on the house. I could lead the exhaust towards the door leading to my office, dumping the heat near there.

I Normally have a desk fan and floor fan running there, I could just move the floor fan closer to the door and cycle the air away from the area.

So for a recap...
Frame the "deck" and get 2 passive climate controlled air inputs, 1 leading under the tent.

Lead active exhaust from tent, back through the wall to the utility room. Dump heat near the door leading to my office. This would make total alters to the house 3- 4" ducts I'd still be able to hide.

Open door, and reposition floor fan as needed to help cycle hot air back toward the interior of the house. BTW the AC intake is about 13 feet walking distance, from the utility room door. Not sure how much that last part would help.

I know there are some other detail I'll have to attend to with this idea, like more air flow sound. However, IMO thats easier to handle that temps.

Thoughts?
Fuggzy

Oh, and the dehumidifier, I don't have 1 yet, but its in the plans. RH here is just bonkers high all the time.

 

[fuggzy]

Current temp in the garage 81°, and it is 89° outside at 3:40pm. Still a bit cooler day. Last week was an average of 93° and topped at 99°

 

[Pro Headies]

Sounds good just need to set it up and do some testing.

One other thought if you cant keep temps in check is you run a direct line off the utility AC vent into a 8inch insulated hose split into 4inch hoses running through wall. you could just run your exhaust directly into utility room with no worries of heat and could keep utility room door closed. The utility room would get warm but wouldnt matter because your pulling cold air directly from AC.

 

[fuggzy]

Thanks everyone

Thanks everyone

Sounds good just need to set it up and do some testing.

One other thought if you cant keep temps in check is you run a direct line off the utility AC vent into a 8inch insulated hose split into 4inch hoses running through wall. you could just run your exhaust directly into utility room with no worries of heat and could keep utility room door closed. The utility room would get warm but wouldnt matter because your pulling cold air directly from AC.

I need to wait about a week to get some extra supplies, but the testing will begin soon. Thanks for helping me figure this out. I don't see why this shouldn't work.

I'm still open to ideas, or constructive criticism to the current idea.

Thanks to everyone who pitched in info, its all appreciated.

Fuggzy