Help me control my temp

[punx777]

So i got some sweet reflective insulating material in my closet, i made a little room out of it and its sealed with velcro (surprisingly light-proof)

I have a 70Watt HPS and yesterday i bought a 4" inline fan and some ducting.... i figured this fan would be enough to cool the place down (blowing air out) (intake @ light leaks) but anyway... its not i think i saw the temp get above 100 once with this setup......

i obviously need more fans.... but it cant be too loud as its in my bedroom and i need to sleep!

I'm running some half-hour tests with the light off and the light on to see the exact temps..

should i add an intake fan? should i get a bigger fan?

 

[Philosophelon]

First off, install a passive intake. You don't need an intake blower for a space that size, but you do need a passive intake (cracks aren't enough).

You can build one with ducting, or you can buy darkroom louvres, or something like that. But I'm not very experienced with smaller grows.

I'd do an advanced search (titles only, not the whole post) for "passive intake."

But not with the period in the quotes. I just did that for grammar purposes.

 

[punx777]

Heres my fan,its a suncourt 4" inline... i dont understand this "max
boosted cfm of 80" on the website....... Anyway this fan probably works enough
if theres nothing in the ducting but i usually throw some carbon paper in it, which slows it down big time

anyway, i'm thinkin about usin this as an intake... and buying a better, stronger fan for an output
can anyone reccomend a cheap fan to replace this?
[FONT=times new roman,times,serif]
[/FONT]

• [FONT=times new roman,times,serif]For 4 In. flexible and rigid ducts.[/FONT]
• [FONT=times new roman,times,serif]4 In. fan has free air CFM of 40 and max boosted CFM of 80[/FONT]

 

[punx777]

BTW could you explain the passive inlet to me?


Edit: sorry i was lazy.... i just need to put some holes in the bottom

BTW +Rep

 

[greenisgold]

The intake shoould be around 2 to 3 times bigger then the exhaust, but there is a calculator on this baord for it. If you don't suck out the right amount of air it gets to hot and can cause your house to stink.

 

[Calimed]

What is the ambient temp of your room outside of the closet?

 

[Philosophelon]

It sounds to me like you are using an inline duct booster fan. These are not designed to operate under high static pressure, they are simply to boost airflow in long duct runs that already have a more powerful fan.

You will need either a squirrel-cage blower (e.g. Dayton, etc.) or a centrifugal blower (e.g. Vortex, Can Fan, etc.). A squirrel-squirrel cage blower will be considerably cheaper than a centrifugal blower, especially as you don't need a very big one. If you like you can use the booster fan as your intake fan, to reduce the load on your larger exhaust fan.

 

[punx777]

I tried to find a squirrl cage fan at menards but couldnt find crap..........

anyway i upgraded to a 6" fan and moved my 4" to an intake........... now i'm at a reasonable 83 degrees................ iS this a good temp??

 

[Philosophelon]

Well, it's not gonna kill your plants, but it is warmer than ideal. Without CO2, you want to keep your temps at or below 75ish (imo), any higher and you are going to impact yield and flavor, but I can't say for sure regarding potency.

Temperature isn't the only reason to vent, though. More important is your rh. At 83 degrees, your plants are going to transpire a lot of water, and if your room gets too humid, you will get budrot and lose much if not all of your crop.

 

[punx777]

well cool.............. i'm growing some autoaks in a 5 gal rubbermaid DWC..... i hope it takes the humidity up a notch....... its at a lame 30% right now... is that bad?

 

[Philosophelon]

It's low for veg, I usually shoot for 60ish in veg and 40ish in flower, but again, your plants can handle it. My concern was that your rh was going to be over 50 percent during flowering, which is seriously asking for budrot. Even 50 in flower is high, I never let it get over 45, 40 is ideal, but if it's lower, it's no big deal. Plus, some people (myself included) think that lower rh during late flowering increases resin volume.

Also, how do you plan to deal with odor during flowering?

 

[Philosophelon]

I tried to find a squirrl cage fan at menards but couldnt find crap..........

Yeah, they probably don't carry them. But now that you mention it, you may find a centrifugal blower at menards. People sometimes use them as attic fans, to suck hot air out of their attics in the summer to reduce A/C bills.

I'd stop by and ask for a centrifugal blower-type attic fan, or just ask to see the attic fans -- just to price them out because you're considering installing one in your attic this summer, of course .

 

[punx777]

just to price them out because you're considering installing one in your attic this summer, of course

haha hell yea

anyway, i have a roll of carbon filter paper that worked pretty good last time (altough i never got to flower) I just kinda shove it in the ducting....... carbon filters are way too expensive i've already dropped quite a bit in this setup :S Anyway do you think that centrifugal fan is going to be pretty loud? the 6" fan is almost too loud for me but ill manage....

 

[punx777]

What is the ambient temp of your room outside of the closet?

at 1:13 am its 68 ish.... probably bumps up a degree or two in the day but not much

 

[punx777]

the temp has leveled off around 81 degees, and ill probably just roll with it......... maybe adding 5 gallons of water will cool it down another few degrees

 

[Philosophelon]

That should be fine. If you have any means of lowering the intake air temp, that will help too.

Also, be extremely careful if you are not using a carbon filter, and check your exhaust frequently to make sure it doesn't stink. The smell of growing marijuana is sufficient grounds to obtain a search warrant, after all.

 

[punx777]

yea.... ill prob just have one lowryder flowering at a time.. its in my room venting in my room so ill be able to tell right away, if all else fails im sure i could use insence and sprays.. have you tried a time-release ona sprayer before?

btw... got the temp down to 79.1

thanks a million philosophelon i'd rep ya up twice if i could

 

[Philosophelon]

I've not tried Ona, but I can check with some people whom I trust to give me a straight answer and get back to ya.

I always use a Vaportek Optimum 4000 (with the forest-scent cartridges ) in a room I have growrooms in (I do a room-in-a-room style setup). This is just to handle any smell that may leak out of when I open the door, any tiny cracks, my A/C hvac circuit, etc., but it works very well. I had a serious smell leak once (cheap ducttape that fell off!!) and the unit worked really well, I could still smell pot, but it wasn't a very strong odor, and didn't smell outside the building.

Anyway, the optimum 4000 is designed for commercial/warehouse use, they also make a smaller unit that works basically the same way (it's called the Vaportronic) that is designed for smaller spaces like public restrooms.

Here's Vaportek's product line:

http://www.vaportek.com/productline.html

 

[punx777]

Thats nice havn't seen that baby before...... I just splurged and dropped like 3-400 bucks on a 400w hps, 6" carbon filter, centrifugal fan and a timer and such.... I just hope that bitch aint too loud :S I'm plannin on puttin up a small fan outside my closet to ward off sneaky ears