Heat questions (and a little security), first grow, how concerned should I be?

[Ghudda]

Hopefully sooner than later I'll be putting together my first grow. Is there a general guide or some advice, given my environment, that I should use to sort of... foretell what kind of heat situation I'll find myself in?

12x8x7'7" basement room, cement floors. 67-68 degree temperature currently in that room, maybe that's the norm. Portland, OR weather.

Heat and ventilation are probably my achilles heel at the moment. It really feels like I'd be off to the races if I knew exactly how/what to do about it. Secondarily, I'm trying to avoid bringing attention to what I'm doing. I have an 8000btu window-mount AC unit, but it'd look a little funny in a basement window. Extraction fans, I would think, would be even more odd looking, and I definitely want to avoid noise. (I'm in 'heavy' suburbs, I live on a secondary type of street that is moderately well walked, people are there!)

I do know where to find the info for what size of fans I'd be needing. It's just where to put them inconspicuously y'know? Maybe I'd need to talk with someone about my particular construction. Maybe I need to just be pointed in a direction of basement grow-room plans? Anybody an expert or know one?

I want to focus on growing the plants well and work through bugs/disease if encountered. Almost as ideal would be testing a vertical method (probably drip-feed to coco, basically wanting to copy Bobblehead or Farmhousecat). The number of plants and lights I'm not concerned with at first. I suppose I both am and am not in a hurry to get this all going to see what the future holds. That's why I don't want to bother with hand water one or two plants, but at the same time, I don't want to make a grave mistake thinking that I can outright copy a veterans setup and expect to make no grave error. Not that I could afford to try it just yet either No baby steps! Good sized... steps... in the right direction.

I'm figuring this room's size will handle one 8x8 or so flowering area, with a veg/cloning area outside, with one or two 600w HPS vertically hung between 3-4 racks of plants. The veg area I'm thinking a CFL setup of some sort for cost/heat reasons.

So at a minimum I was hoping somebody could tell me something along the lines of... "1200watts HPS and some CFLs for vegging can easily be handled in a basement with a couple fans, no worries" or "hook up that window A/C" etc.

I'm sure everybody can understand my construction/security concerns. This basement room faces the street. There's a window facing the street, and another facing a neighbor's house. I thought about building a deck for a hot tub and setting up a fan through that basement window to pull in cool air from under the deck. As to where to vent the heat from a basement, still stuck

 

[Sam the Caveman]

That size a/c should cool 1200w nicely, if you can figure a way to vent the heat out.

Don't really know what to tell you about that other than if you have the money to spend, you can get a water cooled a/c. Instead of venting out the heat, the heat is transferred to water and then drained. With this type of a/c there would be no venting to the outside.

If you wanted, you could probably turn your window unit into a water cooled unit. You would risk breaking it though. People have made water chillers with window units before this way, so it can be done. Just take the housing off of the window unit and get the rear coils to where you can move them by bending the two tubes attached to it. If you kink these tubes though, its fucked, so don't get kinky on the tubes. You want those coils to sit in a trough of water. This trough of water should have an auto top off valve and a water pump on a thermostat that cuts on at 80f or so and pumps the hot water down the drain.

If you want to do it that way, or you could just buy one.

 

[Ghudda]

Weird not able to edit my post. I blame Tor, I think my recent all-out security attempts are biting me in the foot Thanks for the reply Sam.

Maybe I should just consider trying to seal the room? I recently saw some folks selling mini splits on Craigslist for dirt cheap (probably broken eh). Or maybe I shouldn't even think about doing that until I find out how green my thumb might be?

I wanted to edit my original post to say that I'm surfing around looking for basement grow room construction ideas, particularly regarding ventilation so people didn't think I was being lazy I researched air conditioning so much the other night... ugh. I feel like a more well rounded person now though y'know? Learning all about lighting, growing, ventilation, air conditioning, humidity, cripes... really need a handle on multiple angles.

 

[nugghead]

You will want ventilation: for heat and humidity control; to keep fresh air circulating among your plants; and for odor control. All of these things are important and the well thought out ventilation system wll be able to handle all of them. Sealing a room can't accomplish any of these.

It is not unusual to see a vent or an A/C from a basement at street level. What is very unusual is if what is venting smells strongly of illegal substances - that will attract attention you don't want. An A/C running loudly all the time when the temperature doesn't warrant it may attract some attention, but probably not enough to make anyone do anything about it.

The right way, I think, is to make a vent with opaque louvers, either out of one of your windows or through one of the walls. These louvers can be had at Home Depot, made out of aluminum, and are often used to screen off dryer or central A/C vents. For extra credit they can be painted to match the exterior of the house, and then they will really escape notice. You also may want them light-tight. A baffle system, where the external aspect of the vent is just a panel with a slot cut in it, and then the internal side of the vent receives a duct's output, offset from the external slot, creates a way to block light and muffle noise. If painted to match the house this will go uncommented on; if constructed in a window you'll have to somehow make allowances for security so that you don't just have a vent that can be pushed out of a window frame, allowing entry.

You have about 770 cubic feet, give or take. The way I would do it is this air path: room --> 12" Phresh filter -> 6" flexible duct -> cooltube 1, 600 W -> 6" duct -> cooltube 2, 600 W -> 6" duct -> Vortex 6" 550 cfm fan -> vent. The fan can be controlled by a Titan Mercury 4 fan controller or equivalent; lights on an Inter-Matic of some flavor. If you minimize bends in the ductwork, this will be nearly silent at street level; odorless; safe; and quite effective. It will create a negative pressure in your basement so air will be drawn in, probably from the rest of your house. I have this identical setup in my own flower/drying room and quite happy with it. The exhausted air is silent even if your ear is in the stream - avoid making it turn sharp corners - and it has no smell at all.

You may or may not need a separate dehumidifier, and you may or may not choose to look into automatic fire extinguishing systems. If I lived over this setup, I would - 1200 watts is enough to set fires if there is a malfunction. Whatever you plan, make sure your plan includes keeping all electrical components including cords off the floor, which will be wet from time to time.

You don't mention if the room has a drain. Little bit more of a pain if it doesn't; if it does, it might make sense to look into a water based cooling system as mentioned.

 

[iBlaze]

10x10 room, frame it with 2x4's then get panda wrap/staple gun and completely seal off the room you just built. Controlling heat/humidity will be easier. As you said it would be hard to stealthy vent so look into where you can make an elevated exhaust. 1200 watts is substantial to start off with, so try and keep all electronics above waist line. Keep everything organized and don't be afraid to spend that extra 20$ for safety. Good luck my friend, with that much light your yields should be impressive.

 

[Warped1]

Here a link that might be helpful. Tons of info on just about anything you can think of. Welcome to ICMag.


https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=40637

 

[qupee]

2kw in a ~10'x10' basement room, and in the room next to it another 1.2kw - opposite schedules though so it's more like 1kw and 400-800w at any given time (24/7). Am able to keep temps in check just by shuffling some air around between the rooms and the main basement space and exhausting the light runs into the central air duct return.