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Need help with AC placement

Zarezhu

Member
Hey guys,
working on my grow shed. It's was a 12 x 12 building we are converting into a flower room. Yesterday we added 6' to it- I'm making a 6 x 12 entry room. This is how you will access the sealed/insulated flower room. The entry room will also house everything not NEEDED in the flower room, such as ballasts/water res/etc. The entry room will not be insulated, as it's just meant for simple things.



My original plan was to put my AC condenser (24k breeze) inside the Entry Room, along with my ballasts, and to have a 6" inline fan constantly exhausting the room. This should keep the room from getting too hot, I would imagine? Or does the condenser put out so much heat, that a 6" inline fan couldn't keep up? The summer temps here are mostly 80s/90s and definitely hitting 100+also. The winters very rarely hit 28/32, typically 40-50.

Another thing I could do, is put the condenser on a pad outside of both rooms. This would expose it to the elements moreso, as well as MANY LARGE dogs. I don't want my dogs peein on my condenser, and they will! daily!

I have virtually zero carpentry experience, so making a dog deterent seems tough for me, and possibly expensive. If it's simple, it would definitely be worth it to keep the unit outside. Do any of you have any suggestions?


I would love to be able to use some of the entry room as a veg room, so if I could keep the condenser outdoors, temps would be better for the veg ladies and they'd have more space.



Spot 1 or 2?
 

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You are going to have a lot of heat in the entry room with just the ballasts. The condensing coils needs cool air. If you put the unit in a hot area it will not be able to dump the heat efficiently. If the humidity is also high the unit can ice up and stop moving all heat.
 

Zarezhu

Member
If a 6" fan wouldn't work, would an 8 or 10? I have a 12" inline, which is over 1000cfm, which should dump the air over 2x per minute, would this make it plausible?

Or do I need to stick the condenser outside? How could I go about dog proofing an outside condenser unit?

I imagine a 6" inline fan for exhaust would keep 4 1000w digital ballasts cool, and the room from heating up too much.

I plan to upgrade after I can afford a panel upgrade. The flower room will hopefully be 8kw barebulb with 2 of the 24k breeze units.
 

moses wellfleet

Well-known member
Moderator
Veteran
The condenser is designed for exterior use I doubt dog pee is gonna hurt it none.

With that amount of A/C you could run a sealed room which is superior to air exchange in my experience!
 

Zarezhu

Member
The flower room is sealed and insulated, and will have co2 supplementation. The entry room will not be sealed, nor insulated, just an active exhaust fan and passive intakes, to cool the ballasts.

The only reason I'm worried about the dogs, is because there are more than 5 huge hybrids. They're much more wolf than they are dog. They get into anything and everything, and they pee even more than that. I'm sure they could piss on the electronics and fry the unit quickly. The box that covers the electric components wouldn't keep 100% of the powerful stream of potent urine out. Murphys law haha, or paranoia. Idk.
 
The units are designed for heavy rain with blowing wind. It can handle getting pee'd on.


You entry room will get super-hot just from the sun. The room will not be cool with ballasts in it even with a ton of air flow unless you are running at night. During the summer you will still have a few hours each day to deal with the sun making everything too hot.
 

Zarezhu

Member
Friedrich guy just told me not to worry about the pee, but the lineset. It already comes wrapped and insulated, but the dogs can chew through the insulation and snap or kink the lines fairly easily. I just need to find a way to put some kind of heavy duty plastic cover over the lineset, and screw it to the walls.

Appreciate your insight guys! +rep all around


@grateful, I originally intended to run lights at night, but since I have a lot of extra cooling btu, I was thinking about running the lights in the day. It would make maintenance/watering/dialing in much easier for me. First harvest should be had early April, and the daytime temps are in the 60s-70s so I assume it shouldn't get very hot in the entry room if it's constantly exhausting.
 

DoomsDay

Member
Consider your carbon footprint as well... you're essentially using power that you don't need to by placing something indoors then adding more fans in an attempt to cool. Less moving parts is always better as well as efficiency over simplicity/ease of installation.
 
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