Hey bud, I have a thread about water cooling grow rooms.The link is in my signature. Here is another thread for a guy using them. I helped him setup his system (
https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/513182-newb-grow-journal.html).
If you size your chiller correctly and use all of the benefits (cooling nutrient reservoir, water cooled dehumidifier, water cooled Co2 generator, water cooled spot a/c, etc...) of having a chiller than I really think they are great. They are 40% more efficient than an a/c. Problem is they can be very cost prohibitive in many situations. Especially smaller grows. It's important to remember that an Ice Box on each light is not going to cool your room. What they will do is bring the hot air exhaust from your hoods back to ambient room temps. So, if you have your lights off in your room during the time you normally have them on and your temp is 80 then the Ice Box will keep your room at 80 if you have them attached to every light. Now this is in theory because often times because of the dew point on your chiller lines you can't keep the water in the chiller reservoir as cold as you would like.
In your example of 3 1000w hoods you would need at least a 1hp chiller, reservoir, pump, manifold lines, feed lines, Ice Boxes and probably a fan temp controller. My guess is you would probably need another Ice Box on top of the 3 for your lights. I don't know where you live or what the temps are but the other equipment in your room (pumps, ballasts, dehumidifiers, etc...) all make heat as well.
If you can afford the setup costs I would recommend it for anyone who lives in an area where it is warm or has cooling problems in their grow space. Problem is you usually can purchase a minisplit or window a/c for a quarter of the setup costs of a water cooled system.
