Didn't think about Portable A/C exausting smell, now what?

Well,

I've got my tent all set up. Turned on my light ventilation and noticed a huge neg pressure when I zipped it up. Thought I had a big leak in the light system. But turns out its the portable A/C I put inside the tent.

I need AC in the tent, that's all there is to it.

I have an intake and exhaust system for the tent, that uses a 400cfm fan on the intake with an intake filter, and a 400cfm fan on the exhaust pulling though a carbon filter.

The air intake is near the floor next to the portable AC and the exhaust is in the opposite corner near the top of the tent.

SO.... How bad is the A/C exhaust gonna smell?

First, why do they make the damn ports 5.4"?? And does anyone know of a way to adapt it to 6" stuff easily?

Assuming I can adapt it to 6" stuff....

I can duct my intake directly to the intake port on the portable A/C but then all my fresh air from outside the tent is just gonna go right out the AC exhaust, so that's no good.

I thought about trying to filter the exhaust but as hot and humid as it is that probably wont work.

Best option seems to be to try to put a carbon filter on the intake port on the A/C, but how?

Should I just add a fan and carbon filter as a scrubber inside the tent, near the A/C?

I really don't wanna have to buy another fan and filter.....

AlGore said:

Well,

I've got my tent all set up. Turned on my light ventilation and noticed a huge neg pressure when I zipped it up. Thought I had a big leak in the light system. But turns out its the portable A/C I put inside the tent.

I need AC in the tent, that's all there is to it.

I have an intake and exhaust system for the tent, that uses a 400cfm fan on the intake with an intake filter, and a 400cfm fan on the exhaust pulling though a carbon filter.

The air intake is near the floor next to the portable AC and the exhaust is in the opposite corner near the top of the tent.

SO.... How bad is the A/C exhaust gonna smell?

First, why do they make the damn ports 5.4"?? And does anyone know of a way to adapt it to 6" stuff easily?

Assuming I can adapt it to 6" stuff....

I can duct my intake directly to the intake port on the portable A/C but then all my fresh air from outside the tent is just gonna go right out the AC exhaust, so that's no good.

I thought about trying to filter the exhaust but as hot and humid as it is that probably wont work.

Best option seems to be to try to put a carbon filter on the intake port on the A/C, but how?

Should I just add a fan and carbon filter as a scrubber inside the tent, near the A/C?

I really don't wanna have to buy another fan and filter.....

Click to expand...

How big is your tent? I doubt you need a fan on the intake and exhaust, I would choose one or the other. Since you're cooling the tent you really shouldn't need much air flow through it, that's kind of wasting your ac cooled air. Know what I mean? Think of it like your house. You don't open the windows with the ac on. I would think the ac unit would work better with a slight positive pressure and this would allow you to filter your incoming air. Use the other fan you have on your exhaust and slap a carbon filter on it and place it outside the tent. It will have to deodorize the room your tent is in, then you can exhaust some of that air outside if you wish. That's my idea

DirtyMcCurdy said:

How big is your tent? I doubt you need a fan on the intake and exhaust, I would choose one or the other. Since you're cooling the tent you really shouldn't need much air flow through it, that's kind of wasting your ac cooled air. Know what I mean? Think of it like your house. You don't open the windows with the ac on. I would think the ac unit would work better with a slight positive pressure and this would allow you to filter your incoming air. Use the other fan you have on your exhaust and slap a carbon filter on it and place it outside the tent. It will have to deodorize the room your tent is in, then you can exhaust some of that air outside if you wish. That's my idea

Click to expand...

Hey, the tent is rather small. ~4x8, 250 cubic feet. And almost all of the equipment I'm using was originally going to be used in a larger space but instead it was all given to me so working with what I have mostly.

The tent is in a large detached garage btw, and I'm venting the lights, ac, and exhaust all outside through the garage window(ac/lights) and roof(filtered exhaust).

I've been wrestling with the whole waste of AC thing. I'm not running CO2(how much would it cost me btw??) and the tent is sort of small so I figure I need to bring air in as much as I can. Was considering running the intake/exhaust fans 15 on, 15 off. Especially considering my intake air is rather warm(cool in winter) garage air(filtered too btw). Also the AC has a lot of cooling power in that small space so i figure it'll be able to keep up even when I'm exchanging the tent air.

As for your suggestions, I'm a little unclear....

You are saying.... Exhaust the AC to the outside of the tent into the garage. Then take the carbon filter and fan from the tent exhaust and use it to scrub the garage air, possibly exhausting outside somewhere.

The problem I have with that is, my carbon filter is only 400 cfm, same with the fan. And the garage is 20'x22'. I'm ok with it stinking in the garage but IT CAN NOT stink outside the garrage. So I'm not sure how well that would work. BUT.... Do you think it would work to instead to hang the filter next to the roof exhaust and pull air through it and out?

Also in these scenarios, I would no longer be able to open the windows to bring cool air into the garage correct? Well I could, but that would then let a lot of smell out in late flower.

This is why I run a sealed room lol.

Vent everything into the attic then exhaust the attic through a scrubber? You would want the fan exhausting from the attic to pull slightly more air, creating neg. pressure in the attic. The other fan cooling the lights and pulling from ac exhaust, somehow?, dumps into the attic, that air is then pulled through the filter, then finally outside. Wouldn't take much, just enough to pull the heat out. The negative pressure would pull in fresh air

If your running air in/out then use the AC to cool your garage, not your tent. Now you'll have nice cold intake air, and don't have to worry about the unit exhausting your smell from the tent.

im kind of lost here.. why must the ac be inside the tent? the problem is the intake air is hot...

cool the garage, pull through scrubber, through lights out of tent and into roof/wall/floor..

intake the cold garage air.. you should be fine.. you DO NOT want your garage smelling.. weather you think you dont care or not.. you really should.. especially if it isnt legal..

I understand that would be ideal. I'm just not confident the AC can cool it in there enough. It's hard enough trying to cool a garage and in this one the walls are finished and insulated but there is no ceiling or insulation lining the roof.

I've considered trying to section off an area for the AC and tent intake. I've also thought about putting the AC in a smaller tent, and venting it into the intake of the big one.

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this, but if you have a strong enough exhaust fan and the right scrubber, you should be able to simply tie the AC exhaust hose up by the scrubber so the exhaust is immediately pulled out and scrubbed.

UncleReemis said:

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this, but if you have a strong enough exhaust fan and the right scrubber, you should be able to simply tie the AC exhaust hose up by the scrubber so the exhaust is immediately pulled out and scrubbed.

Click to expand...

This I think is my best bet, I'm gonna try to pull the AC intake from outside the tent as well.

I'm also gonna try and see if I can cool the garage itself enough, although this has it's draw backs, I would rather cool the air before it gets in the tent.

also window ac units are more efficent then portable units.. i would say 15-20k btu to cool the whole garage with a window unit depending where you live.. i say 20-25k if its a portable.. if possible id go a window unit

^^^Agree with the window unit and cooling the whole garage. Thought of that earlier but didn't figure you wanted to buy another ac unit, you had mentioned not wanting to buy another fan. But yes, you would need something bigger than a portable to cool a 20x22 garage in the heat of summer unless the garage is shaded, then it might work.

Hey guys, thanks for all the input.... I figured out a solution last night....

I put the portable unit outside the tent and moved my intake so it's directly in front of the cold air vent. Nice cool air is coming in the tent now. This will cost me and extra $50 or so a month in power this way but whatever.

Full test run in progress today, I'll let you guys know....

PS> Pic will be on my IG soon, link in sig.

put the ac on a timer to turn like 30 mins before lights on.. and turns off at lights out.. that way it saves some electric.. 18/6 for veg too helps

Hey guys....

So... My first set up was a bust, too much hot air was coming in with the cold air.

So I tried to make a little mini room around the intake and the AC with a tarp, that really wasn't working out and didn't even get off the ground really.

THEN... I saw a wardrobe box in the corner of the garage and the light bulb went off. I put the AC and intake inside the box, cut some holes for the tubes and some more holes for air flow and et voila! Nice cold air any time of day coming into the tent.

All of this works great however I was simply trying to put too many lights in this tent. Had to cut it back to only 2 of the 600s on at a time. Also running them at night, well 6pm - 12noon atm. Have stayed between 68 and 78 for 2 days so far with 60-70% humidity. But it's been cool and rainy out the last few days so a little worried about these hot ass next 2 months. I think the crop will survive, if the heat kills the quality I'll have a whole bunch of Ice wax materiel, that's mostly what I'm growing for anyway, so I can start using 2-3 infused drinks instead of 10 joints a day.

Funny thing, my next crop is gonna have the opposite issue near harvest, winter is coming, hehe.