Micro grow in cold weather

Hi everyone,

just started researching about growing and need some advice..

I think my grow space will be about 3' x 2.5' and about 1.5' deep, with 2 plants and I will be training them..

I can only do this in a washroom outside the house and temperature in the room could go down to 35 to 40 degrees.

I will have 2 23w 2700k cfls directly above each plant and another 2 or 3 each side of the plants and a couple of 40w 5000k.. the whole box will be mylar lined...

So being a virgin grower.... would these lights generate enough heat to keep the temperature high enough...
and do I need a small fan and a pc type fan extractor?

I know I have used a lot of "abouts" in this but it is still in the planning stage.
ANy advice much appreciated..

35-40c or 35-40f??

35-40 Celsius would be slightly high

35-40 Fahrenheit would be way too low

lights would generate a little heat maybe and maybe an heat mat would help

sorry, yes 35 to 40F..

heat mat, thanks for that....learning as I go...

Just found out about ceramic heater...maybe that could work too??
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Exo-Terra-Ceramic-Heater-40-Watt-/181229457456?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a321e1030

Doesn't seem very plausible. Then again, you'll never know if you don't try. Maybe if you place the ceramic heater right outside your case by the intake? Or if it's really small and could fit in a corner and automatically knew when to shut off, you could possible put it in the box. Otherwise it seems like a major fire hazard. And the CFLs definitely would not generate enough heat to keep the rest of the box warm, and yes you definitely need active outtake fans. (passive intakes shouldnt be a problem.)

go for it, you`ll be surprised how warm the box will get with upwards of 8 cfl`s. if it gets really cold maybe try a space heater in the washroom. good luck and happy growing

The lights will provide plenty of heat, heck you could even pipe the heat back into the cab, that may be the only way to completely warm the cabinet from top to bottom. It also will take awhile for the heat to build up as the lights come on, especially with such cold ambient temps.

However, your biggest worry will be insulating the FRESH incoming air and warming it up. [If you can just re-circuit your hot air, no problem for about 99%.]

Just drawing air initially at lights ON and at night that is 35d above ambient is your biggest challenge.

Then you will need to worry similarly about the same during lights out. You still need to "breathe" of sorts and cold air won't help. So insulating and holding heat, while warming up the little passive air that is needed at night is priority.

The worst that could come from trying is failure. You should go for it.

You could try using a heater to keep the room warm. I'm not sure what your setup looks like or how you'd rig it or your budget, but you can definitely get pretty creative with it (thermometers that send a signal to a monitor in your room, a controller that helps control the heaters to keep the room temp at optimal, or you can go poor man's style and insulate the grow area so it retains a bunch of heat).

You'll never know until you try

thanks for all your advice... my budget is very little..the bare essentials really....maybe I could insulate it with foam and cover that with mylar...and use a smaller box and just try one plant to see how it goes...
and turn the lights off during the day with a heater in the room.. dont fancy leaving one on all night...

It will also probably be too hot in the summer for this...lol... the joys of the mediterranean life... but I'll deal with that later...
Here was me thinking this would be easyish
But I love a challenge...

I am sure to have more questions as I go, thanks again...

Aren't there mats you can get at your local pet store or PetsMart for terrariums that keep them warm during the winter months?? I believe that will work seeing as how terrariums are pretty much a box with a humidifier and lights.

A heating blanket works also... I've tried it on nights where it hit 47F and had my box steady at 72F. Doesn't have to be new or anything, I picked mine up at a local thrift store.

Worse case scenario is you flip your plants schedule and have the lights run on at night and have the lights off during the day that way it's not THAT cold, but I'm sure eventually it'll get really low even during the day... so that's quite a dilemma you have, hope everything works out.

I like the Heating Pad/Heat Mat idea. I also like the ceramic heater idea as well. When you go to the 12on/12off for your flowering stage, the Ceramic heater or Heating Mat idea sounds like the ticket. I think I would get a thermometer and check it out first. One other thing when using a heat mat, just be careful of where you put it....don't want to fry the roots.
Good Luck!

Thanks again for your advice... gonna take me a while to put this together as I can't get much of anything locally...probably have to order a lot of it online unfortunately..

I thought I could put the heating mat under the pots....but as you say dont want to fry the roots...I could stick it on the wall I suppose...

who knows maybe we'll get a mild winter... best to build and check the temperature first I guess...

have to figure out a good alternative to fox farms fertilizers etc... or order them online too...ahhh...living in a backward city...gotta love it...

anyone recommend a decent online grow supply shop in europe?

I had a 4'w x 3'h x 2'd while I was in Wisconsin. Kept it in a detached garage. I kept a couple of gallon water containers near the intake and rigged a ceramic heater to a thermostat inside the box. Kept it within reasonable temps and the water retained the heat for lights off period. Hope this helps. (Temps in winter for Wisconsin are sub-zero but it still worked)

Hi again,

thanks Yasi, intersting idea with the water containers..not sure I have enough space though..still consdering the ceramic heater..

I finally got the box built it is aprox 4'h x 3'w x 1' d, best I could do for now... just finishing off the light fittings and adding some insultation and mylar. I have a 5" extractor fan a small fan for inside.

I need to put a passive intake at the bottom left, this is also going to be about 6 inches from a wall, could someone please advise me as to what is the smallest size intake I could get away with?? also would it be ok to put a black charcoal filter in front of the intake to keep light out??

thanks again