ventilation for light reflectors

[smokefx]

will i have problems with humidity/dust/high temps if i pull air outside a home thru my light reflectors and exhaust it into my attic?

ps. im not in a tent my garden space is a bedroom of a home

my vent setup goes like this: passive 10" intake from the main house to the bedroom, inside the bedroom i have a carbon filter exhausting directly out to the attic. i usually duct the reflectors by pulling air from the main house thru the lights and exhausting into the attic, but was deciding the switch by pulling air from outside of the house thru the lights into the attic.

thanks

 

[OldSSSCGuy]

No, not for me at least. My hoods have two 6" duct holes; in warm weather I pull outdoor air into the intake hole then exhaust it out back outside from the vent out hole. So outdoor air cools the lights and does not enter the room. In cold weather I connect carbon filters to the intake and then exhaust the air into the house. Free heat, kinda... heh...

If you suck outdoor air through the reflector and exhaust it inside the room, humidity and/or dust will not be the issue. The light will bake the water out of the air and dust can be handled with a small chunk of furnace filter. Its the heat that will get you during warm weather.

 

[smokefx]

edited my post, i am exhausting the air into my attic. if the outside temp is really high does it still do a good job cooling your reflector with proper cfm requirement on the fan?

 

[Jnugg]

To cool the light suck ambient air from the room the tent or growbox sits in,duct the exhaust out a window exhaust box or into the attic.This way nothing but room temp cool air passes over the bulb keeping the bulb cool while helping to stabalize actual tent/box temps,plus there is no worries about humidity/moisture.

IMO your ventilation should be passive intake > carbon scrubber > exhaust fan > ducted out to window exhaust box or into the attic,but don't recirculate it into the same room the grow sits in,this will raise the ambient temps thus raise the temps in the grow.

 

[smokefx]

im using the whole room, thats the reason i used to have a passive intake thru the lights from ANOTHER room, but the negative pressure was so great it was sucking sut from the fireplace into the house, so i was wondering if pulling air from outside of the house would give me problems with temps/humidity

 

[OldSSSCGuy]

I know it might not match others, but to me its more about a sincere volume of air moving through the reflector. First, I run all crops at night and never during the day. That helps the intake air to be the coolest it can be. This past summer my temps outside were consistently high 90's and the outside->reflector->blower->outside logic did not raise my room temps that much, using two 1000 watt HPS in one room and one 1000 halide in another. Had to use AC regardless. and the lights will be hot as hell no matter what you do.

And to me if you are pulling ambient air from inside the room you ->have<- to permit a matching volume of input air to get it balanced. That air has to come from somewhere. A new house that's all nicely insulated will simply not permit enough outdoor air to be pulled in the house unless you add a fresh air intake somewhere.

Just an opinion...

edited my post, i am exhausting the air into my attic. if the outside temp is really high does it still do a good job cooling your reflector with proper cfm requirement on the fan?

 

[rives]

Oldssscguy hit it squarely - you cannot successfully move air outside without moving the same amount of air from outside > in. That is why you were sucking ashes out of your fireplace - the path of least resistance for the air to balance was via your chimney. I doubt that humidity or high temperatures from outside are going to be an issue. Even hot outside air is going to be substantially cooler than the air surrounding the lamp. Obviously the cooler the air is, the better that it will function, so nighttime operation has the edge. Higher airflows can compensate to a degree.

As far as dust goes, I would filter the intake to insure that you eliminated as much as you can. The biggest problem with it will be the buildup on the glass and the reflective surface of the reflector.

 

[smokefx]

K thanks a lot guys for the quick replies