SEALED ROOM BUILD ... experience needed please

[blueberryshark]

hello fellow growers id like to build a sealed room into the room i recently use. below is a rough sketch of what I think I wanted.

how big of an ac unit will i require?

id like to use a window air condition, is this sketch a possible position for the ac unit?

how many 15 amp circuits would I bring into this room?

should i air cool my lights ? the drawing is how the are set up right now and i have a separate fan pulling air from the room

CO2 in all regards what should i be getting?

any other questions or suggestions are appreciated. photos can be taken if you think that would help your advice ... thanks

 

[Speed of green]

I think a 7-8k btu unit should be fine for air cooled lights, bare bulb i would go 10k to be safe.

for you amperage you could probably run both the 1000 and 600 on the same 15 amp circuit, that would be 13.4 amps. To be safe most people say not to push the breaker past 80% of its capacity, so 12 amps. so to be super safe i would say run two 15 amp circuits with most of your accessories on the 600w circuit.

i think most people would say bare bulb is going to give you a larger yield vs air cooled. personally i air cool my lights, if the ac fails your plants at least stand a chance of surviving.

co2 and proper training i think 3 lbs should a good goal.

 

[OG Tree Grower]

You have a million options available to you. But if it was me....

In a sealed room your gonna be dealing with dehy/burner/ballast heat so give your self at least 5000 btu cooling for 1000w of light

You need to buy your gear and check how much they draw for power before we can tell you about what kinda breakers and how many you will need, how many amps is the main breaker, what's available to you? You may want to consider 240 for the lights.

Should you air cool your lights? I have done it lots and I wouldn't do it again, unless power or cooling abilities are factors but since your sealed and have your ac your good. Make sure you use a high temp shutdown in a sealed room so you don't nuke your plants during an ac freeze up or failure

Co2, burners are cheapest and best imo if heat is an issue and money grows on your trees bottles will work. 1200 ppm and be prepared to feed them heavily if you never ran co2 before

There are a lot of options available to you, I'm just giving you my take on it all. There is actually a few good threads on here I recently breezed through with tons of different ideas for different situations

 

[blueberryshark]

Thanks for the advice.

do most window air conditioners have a sensing temperature setting?

 

[OG Tree Grower]

google is a great tool when picking out gear

 

[blueberryshark]

OG Tree Grower - Again thanks for the advice.

I agree about getting a readying on each appliance amp pull before making final decisions.

can you explain what you mean high temp shutdown ?

ok I ll do some researching, maybe take some pictures so you guys can get a better idea of what im dealing with

 

[OG Tree Grower]

High temp shit down- when you hit the high temp set point say 95c it will cut the power to the light, when it cools to 85 the light comes back on.

Many ways to do this but for your set up its easiest and cheapest to buy one ready made from grow tek or a similar brand, it's plug and play and about 60-80 bucks for each light

 

[OG Tree Grower]

High temp shut down- when you hit the high temp set point say 95c it will cut the power to the light, when it cools to 85 the light comes back on.

Many ways to do this but for your set up its easiest and cheapest to buy one ready made from grow tek or a similar brand, it's plug and play and about 60-80 bucks for each light

 

[blueberryshark]

Will this work for the ac? 8000 btu

 

[OG Tree Grower]

Probably , unless it's super hot where you live. It's to close, go the next size up. Then you actually have control of your room. I don't know much about those window units but it seems like light or smell could possibly get through it no? Any small grows I have done was always with those portable ac dual hose. You can get a 12000 btu at Walmart for 450 bucks

 

[AvidLerner]

you will need to exhaust the ac out of both space so that you do not draw the hot air from ac exhaust into your sealed room. I would look at a portable ac unit vs. a window unit. the portable has a ducted exhaust while the window unit does not. You can find portable for under $200 at most home depot, lowes, etc right now during the sale season. peace.

 

[Mikell]

Well first's things first.

Rooms with equal dimensions are squares, not rectangles.



No can?

High temp shut offs are great, but try to incorporate back up lights to keep period. Might be able to DIY.

 

[OG Tree Grower]

Avid learner. I don't understand what your saying? They all exhaust the hot air outside or they wouldn't work? Portable ac has to be dual hose not single hose. They put stink outside and draw warm air back into your room.

Hight temp shutdowns are set a few degrees apart so only half of your lights go out , besides if you do hit the high temp it's obviously time to change something, there just a safety for the plants.

 

[Shmavis]

Avid learner. I don't understand what your saying?

I think what he’s saying is that there will be an excess amount of heat is the area where blueberryshark’s ballasts are located. The same area where the air conditioner will be exhausting, as well as taking in ambient air. Not to mention it would be questionable as to how well the hoods would be air-cooled if doing so with already hot air.

AvidLerner please correct me if I have misunderstood what you said.

blueberryshark: If you haven’t run across this yet, check out hoiserdaddy’s thread:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=95491

Not sure if it’ll be realistic for you to intake and exhaust separately on the unit, but if doable it’s probably the best route. Unless your sealed room is very well insulted.

And this I’m not sure of: but it may be possible to avoid this by taking in fresh air into the room area where the ballast and ac (back of) are... but at the very least you should look at separately exhausting the ac's heat, even if you just draw ambient room air instead of separate intake.

Good luck!

 

[blueberryshark]

OG Tree Grower - no the window pulls the hot air cools it and blows it back into the room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OU7WHgJ_cY

 

[OG Tree Grower]

Ok I understand it all now. I can't open the pict but shmavis painted a picture for me.

Blueberryshark, I'm sorry I can't see the pict but in a sealed room the ac exhaust heat should always be vented outside via hoses from portable ac, the compressor on a mini split , or the back half of a window unit hanging outside. , now you could vent this into your house and dissipate the heat there but it cannot go into your lung room. Or is it just a control room?
If it's a control room and no air exchange happens between your sealed room and that room it could be possible but like they said you would have one fucking hot control room and the radiant heat would no doubt affect things. Are you just gonna run a filter in that room with no ducting?

 

[blueberryshark]

Shmavis - Hey thanks for the article i read it, and i think i understand. I believe what i have to do is pull the exhaust air from the AC unit. and i think that should be alright.

will I have to exhaust this hot air out of the house? or is it possible to vent it to the top floor above. ?

I believe the room outside the grow space will have suffecient cool air for the ambient intake.

the cool hood fan pulls new air into that room (we ll call it the control room).

OG tree - yes i plan to run a scrubber in the grow space

 

[Shmavis]

...the cool hood fan pulls new air into that room (we ll call it the control room).

bbs, are your arrows indicating air flow direction incorrect then? Your diagram now indicates that you’ll be pulling air from the control room...

Also, I don’t see any indication of CO2. If you’re completely sealed you’ll need to supplement.

Where you vent the ac’s exhaust to will be best determined by you. You could do this to another area of the house, or outside. If outside just consider whether it’ll look odd in any way to anyone who may see it. (is hot air blowing out in the dead of winter gonna be an issue?).

It would probably be best to put both the ac unit and the exhaust fan on a temp control. This way both engage at your set temp. Some units won’t reengage after a power outage, these same units won’t be controllable with a separate temp controller. To check, plug the ac in and turn it on. Then unplug it and plug it back in. If it fires back up, then you’re good to use a temp controller.

Edit:

Ah, guess I forgot the part about you looking for CO2 recommendations...

 

[blueberryshark]

well i dont wanna push air into that control room do I?
then the control room would fill with warm air

are you saying i should just have one big exhaust taking the heat from the lights and AC and removing it to the floor above or outside?

 

[Shmavis]

What is the cubic feet of the control room?

What is the CFM rating on the inline for the hoods?

Is the control room airtight?

The warm air should not be an issue; it will be significantly cooler in there if you exhaust the ac... but the ac will need fresh air to operate properly... and they're designed to intake hot ambient air... and I do not think 1600w will raise the temp of the fresh air you're passing through them to the point of being a problem... the possible problem I see would be building positive pressure in the control room, which is why I asked the questions above.