13000w Grow Room Having Temperature Issues, HELP PLEASE!!!!!!

Is it possible for you to drop the ceiling (by framing and foam board construction) and put a nice rectangular exhaust port over each fixture through the ceiling?The room above the drop ceiling can contain exhaust fans horizontally mounted and vented straight out a window. If you dramatically increase the size of the exhaust duct and eliminate bends and flex duct you will get more airflow. The ducting can easily be made from the exact same foam board in your room. Also, with no physical connection between the exhaust ports above the lights and the exhaust fan in the room above the grow room you will eliminate all the friction losses that prevent your fans from sucking out the max rated cfm.At best, you are only exhausting 1/3 of the rated cfm of your fans by using flex duct. On top of that you also have some bends in your ducting which reduce output considerably more.Venting out of an open window (clandestinely) takes some skill but its done rather easily from second story (or further up ). I cannot ever tell you how to make a full window size exterior exhaust outlet (trade secret , sorry)but with a little imagination you could figure it out.
By constructing oversized runs of rectangular foamboard duct (lining the interior of the duct with steel mesh fabric and fiberglass insulation) and sizing the duct to a full window glass (about 24" x 27" or a little more or less) you will be able to exhaust the max cfm rating of your fan/filter combos and not much airflow will be detected going through the glass less window pane . With a little imagination you could figure out how to make it look like a regular closed window.
I've exhausted 3600 watt rooms (72 sq. ft with 6'7" ceiling) to acceptable levels in the middle of Summer with no help from AC units. Just 2 - 10" fan/filter combos . What matters most is the direction of air flow in and out of the room and large straight ducts.The best airflow you could ever achieve is bottom to top. Up through a foam board perforated raised floor diffuser (for equitable distribution of intake air) and out of many oversized exhaust ports located directly above each heat source. That cannot be argued. That is an infallible scientific fact. You basically want to make your room similar to a large vertical piece of rectangular duct with the air flowing upward. Only this duct happens to contain a grow room.

kindnug said:

There are some extremely stupid people out there...
Next thing he will recommend jizzing on your buds to make them more potent.

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im pretty sure theres a thread for this roflmao

Looking at your pics I see a lot of flex hose. Flex hose itself puts additional back pressure and drops cfm's, bends also create restriction. If you can you should use straight pipe as a manifold above you lighting and use the flex to drop to the lights, even better mount your lights to the ceiling and have plants tables that are adjustable. 1000 waters will heat up that area for sure so try to clean up the exhaust and you will have much better removal of hot air. Good luck man its looking good.

contraptionated said:

Is it possible for you to drop the ceiling (by framing and foam board construction) and put a nice rectangular exhaust port over each fixture through the ceiling?The room above the drop ceiling can contain exhaust fans horizontally mounted and vented straight out a window. If you dramatically increase the size of the exhaust duct and eliminate bends and flex duct you will get more airflow. The ducting can easily be made from the exact same foam board in your room. Also, with no physical connection between the exhaust ports above the lights and the exhaust fan in the room above the grow room you will eliminate all the friction losses that prevent your fans from sucking out the max rated cfm.At best, you are only exhausting 1/3 of the rated cfm of your fans by using flex duct. On top of that you also have some bends in your ducting which reduce output considerably more.Venting out of an open window (clandestinely) takes some skill but its done rather easily from second story (or further up ). I cannot ever tell you how to make a full window size exterior exhaust outlet (trade secret , sorry)but with a little imagination you could figure it out.
By constructing oversized runs of rectangular foamboard duct (lining the interior of the duct with steel mesh fabric and fiberglass insulation) and sizing the duct to a full window glass (about 24" x 27" or a little more or less) you will be able to exhaust the max cfm rating of your fan/filter combos and not much airflow will be detected going through the glass less window pane . With a little imagination you could figure out how to make it look like a regular closed window.
I've exhausted 3600 watt rooms (72 sq. ft with 6'7" ceiling) to acceptable levels in the middle of Summer with no help from AC units. Just 2 - 10" fan/filter combos . What matters most is the direction of air flow in and out of the room and large straight ducts.The best airflow you could ever achieve is bottom to top. Up through a foam board perforated raised floor diffuser (for equitable distribution of intake air) and out of many oversized exhaust ports located directly above each heat source. That cannot be argued. That is an infallible scientific fact. You basically want to make your room similar to a large vertical piece of rectangular duct with the air flowing upward. Only this duct happens to contain a grow room.

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this has to be the single greatest post ive seen on this forum to date! however my construction cost is maxed out, but best believe after the first harvest I will be dropping the ceiling height and coming up with some "clever" ducting! Thanks contraptionated

not sure someone has pointed this out but your portable ac you have will not be effec. with how you have it exhausting. THey are NOT designed to be pushing air flow up and over i think 4 ft or so? feel the exhaust ducting for it, its HOTT. acting more as a heater than a cooling device.

so I made some changes in lighting, exhaust and intake air, table placement. here are some updates. I decided to trade in the umbrella and spinner lights for 9-Radiant 8 Hoods( all 1000 watt ballast)which brings the total lighting load to 16000 WATTS. Hood exhaust will come from inside the room. Also mounted a 2016 cfm fan to ceiling for exhaust. which brings the exhaust total to roughly 3500 cfm. im using 1-1500 cfm fan and an 823 cfm fan for intake. going with 5 gallon grow bags, with a 65% coco 25% perlite and 10% worm castings mixture. Strain will be Platinum girl scout cookies!

Think simple - so in the middle of the hot day, plants grown outside can experience 100 degree heat with regularity and they tolerate it.... They cool down significantly at night given the lack of sun and in your case the abundance of AC, which is probably more than enough at night and just enough during the day. If they can take the heat outside, they can take it in your room, but exhausting the heat is key. My perspective on your plan is that with the single non-vented hood you have on each side of the room, you are introducing more ambient heat than you would with only vented hoods. Having all that heat dumped directly into the room by a non-vented hood is the major cause of the heat issue now. Get rid of the non-vented hoods or buy vented hoods for the lamps. Don't dump heat into the room unless you have to. If you have an AC failure during the day the effect will be magnified by the non-vented hoods. Point made there.. Additionally, upgrade the squirrel cage fans you have attached to the vented hoods but only after determining there is still a heat issue, after you have converted over the non-vented hoods... I think its a little sloppy to leave the non-vented hoods in the design personally and obviously its throwing everything off now, and you see why.

man stop being a bitch and get a 5 ton central AC.

1000's are killers when you try to run that many, non-vented hoods must be eliminated unless your in a barn. I run 14-600's and my 4 ton A/C barley keeps up. The purchase of a quality a/c should be in the works. Start saving now because a real a/c isn't cheap...I paid almost 6k for mine. It will pay for itself in one summer for sure

HTP said:

I got a few people asking me to make this post in English. So here it is.
For a room that is 12' x 10' x 8' you need 1 cubic foot of dry ice to make the ppm level of co2 1,000ppm. That 1,000 ppm wont stay long either. Not with fans, and the plants them self eating it.

1 cubic foot of dry ice weighs 74.9 pounds to 99.9 pounds per cubic foot.

So you would need around 100, 200 pounds for a 12 x 10 foot per DAY.

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You're using the density of dry ice rather than the density of CO2 gas (~44g/22.4L at 77F). One cubic foot is 28.3L, so to get 1000ppm of COs you would need (44)(22.4/28.3)g of CO2 which is about 52 or 53. So you'll need about 50g initially to get there and however much your plants consume in a day.

you spent your money on a lot of good stuff then got those cheap old ineficient ballasts lol

FilthyFletch said:

you spent your money on a lot of good stuff then got those cheap old ineficient ballasts lol

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Yeah man, cost for this room is getting out of hand, ( ballasts bought off craigslist, and I fixed 3 of them myself). Built my own controllers too. I'm trying to keep cost down until first harvest. Then upgrades can be made.

sparky277 said:

Yeah man, cost for this room is getting out of hand, ( ballasts bought off craigslist, and I fixed 3 of them myself). Built my own controllers too. I'm trying to keep cost down until first harvest. Then upgrades can be made.

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Well then all the money your spending on equipment is going to waste if your just gonna upgrade I mean I understand upgrading but in such a massive setup, you should only get quality equipment...

You have a raised floor. Mount some fans in them. Push your cooler air from the floor up. Exhaust the hot air out. It looks like you have your exhaust low to the ground. I would raise the exhaust up to the top to remove the warmer air. Having them low it would seem your are exhausting of the coolest air in the room.

Hey man, not an expert but swapping to 8" or 10" inline fans might help with airflow and cooling of all hoods. Also make sure your not backing up your portable A/C's with their exhaust using only the ducting the a/c gave you is preferred. That is unless you have inline fans helping the exhaust pull out of your a/c's. Also, ive never used it but using insulated ducting might help? like i said im no expert. still have much to learn.

Mr. Outdoors said:

You have a raised floor. Mount some fans in them. Push your cooler air from the floor up. Exhaust the hot air out. It looks like you have your exhaust low to the ground. I would raise the exhaust up to the top to remove the warmer air. Having them low it would seem your are exhausting of the coolest air in the room.

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Also very true..

There are some good suggestions, and even though you already have a problem with heat, 13k watts for your area is not enough for a serious grow, you will not be getting anywhere near the quality you could with less room or more watts. A good amount a watts for HID lights is around 50watt per square foot this would mean, 400 x 50 = 20,000watts. Eventually if you get your setup sorted out and when you can effectively control temps, add more lights or use a smaller space, it will make a big difference. peace

so i said fuck it. i tapped into my house 5 ton a/c. Ran new line sets, added an airhandler and 10" ducting(for noise control purposes). With my calculations i will definately b able to control temp! however its not going to comfortable in the living space next summer.

sparky277 said:

so i said fuck it. i tapped into my house 5 ton a/c. Ran new line sets, added an airhandler and 10" ducting(for noise control purposes). With my calculations i will definately b able to control temp! however its not going to comfortable in the living space next summer.

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You can always add window units in the home lo

so i am sure i saw the ballast in the same room in the earlier pics .
12,000 watts
i am currently running my 12 k setup at at 50% i have started with some mags to keep the price down. but 6 pump out a fair amount of heat .Also you seem to have the same high ceilings .
imo you would be crazy to lower all that convection room i run no ac in my room i have 2x 8 inch fans one pulling in one pulling out .
And three banks of 4 big foot 8" hoods . i run at 77 degrees in fact it feel a lot cooler as any heat rise,s up and is exchanged .

here is some pics of the ballast box i have two fans that come on 10 before and 2hrs prior to lighting cycle i also have a timer on the hood fans 10 before and 2hrs after . If you go over everthing and ask is it going to heat up then i dont want it in with my flowers