OK, question about my grow room/tent setup with portable AC unit.

mikaroni

mikaroni

Active Member
So I plan to seal the window in the room to allow for total darkness. What I want to do then is have my tent exhaust just escape into the room itself. I also want to have a CO2 tank running. I would also want a portable AC unit. So here is my question. Is it okay to run a portable AC unit without it (or my tent) exhausting outside? Or will it not cool properly because it wouldn't be exhausted anywhere. Oh, I also plan to just leave my central AC/heat vent open to allow just a bit of fresh air in that way. This method seems to be really good in my opinion, as I feel I could keep better control on my stats, as well as not wasting CO2. Would this work? I don't know a thing about portable AC units. Here is the unit I am looking to get: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XK4N2MW/?coliid=I1Q5NMRQYALY2J&colid=3JUS734K23D6X&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
 
hotrodharley

hotrodharley

Well-Known Member
Refrigerated air has to be exhausted until room temperature reaches a set point to be effective. Can you exhaust it into another room? Sooner or later you have to have air exchange.
 
C

CheapHomeGrown

Member
I have tried something similar in the passed and I could not get an effective way to use a portable AC
They use a lot of electricity and give off lots of heat, you need to have a grow tent just for the AC and exhaust the hot air directly out of the tent/house (doing this from your flower room will exhaust heat and strong odor) and then have a 4" fan rvk fan moving the cool air into the flower room (set at 18c)

Build a window box, so the window is open 2-3" but can't be opened anymore and vent all the hot filtered air outside.
Use a blind so it look normal from out side and black out the inside box so no light gets out and fix the ducting to the box.
 
mikaroni

mikaroni

Active Member
OK. So should I still keep the tent exhaust vent inside the room, and vent the portable AC out the window? I mainly don't want air from outside my house coming in. It gets hot af here and I cant seem to control the temp atm.
 
Autofire

Autofire

Well-Known Member
all portable AC units have 2 inlets. 1 draws air in to blow over the hot side of the AC and then the exhaust blows that hot air out. The other inlet is for the air that blows over the cold side of the AC and then the cold air blows into the room.

You can modify your AC and rig a pipe on the hot inlet and draw the air from out side. This will mean that you can run your AC and keep the room sealed to effectively run your CO2. If the room is sealed and you have AC and CO2 running there's no reason to vent the tent outside the room. The most effective way to run CO2 is to seal the room. If you vent the tent outside there's no point in having CO2.

A dual pipe AC would be the best choice. It already has the inlet pipe built on and you don't need to modify it
 
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C

CheapHomeGrown

Member
Do you need to add co2 into your grow room or can you get great results with a good environment? ( keeping temps, humidity and airflow in range)
Is it cost effective adding co2 or could the money be spent on a better light, fans etc
 
mikaroni

mikaroni

Active Member
Umm, I have good fans and lighting and stuff. For now I ordered an exhale CO2 block to hold me over until I get a tank. I want to block off my window, and work with indoor temps. Outside air is no good. It'll only get hotter as the months progress. (summer gets into the 110's and 120's.)
So for the portable AC, I need to have 2 holes in my window, one for exhaust and one to intake into AC unit? Or do I just have exhaust only?
 
C

CheapHomeGrown

Member
Not sure how this is going to work out, the AC could overheat, drawing in temps as high as 120 and how effective will the AC be at knocking the temps down to 75-80?

What's your room temp?
You could vent the air from the room(not the flower room) but this will be a larger space to cool down.
 
Autofire

Autofire

Well-Known Member
Sorry to tell you but the exhale bags do fuck all.

You are on your first grow right? You are wasting your money worrying about CO2. Grow a plant from seed to harvest without any problems first. Get your system dialled and then maybe do CO2. A perfect temp and humidity will grow a bigger harvest than CO2 will. How are you planning to maintain your temperature at about 24-26 Celcius?
 
mikaroni

mikaroni

Active Member
I've been try to keep it between 72 - 78 F. I've seen it go down to 68, and as high as 82 F. It's just been fluctuating outside, and inside central air/heat gets switched between the two a bit. The reason I mentioned the CO2 is because I was wanting to not have any exhaust going outside to conserve the CO2 in the room. I guess I'll at least vent the portable AC to outdoors, and draw in from the rooms air and see how that goes. There will be central AC running in the summer, so maybe it could cool without getting air from outdoors to suck in.
 
Autofire

Autofire

Well-Known Member
BTW Here's one of those bags next to a CO2 metre. First pic shows the rooms ambient CO2. Second pic is the metre up against the bag.

If you are determined to give the CO2 a go do not rely on the bags. And with the AC you need to have the inlet and outlet running out of the the room. Get a CO2 ppm metre before you try sealing the room, be careful which one you buy some of them can be 15% + or - out of range.

Your central AC is blowing air in from out of the room unless the inlet vent is in the same room and you are just running that zone.
IMG20210313003644.jpgIMG20210313003522.jpg
 
Autofire

Autofire

Well-Known Member
The weight of the instrument on top of the bag pushed it down and that pushed some CO2 out.

When those bags hang up they do not expand with positive pressure. Without any pressure what is cause the CO2 to expel?

I'm not the only one that knows they are shit. Plenty of growers on here have used them and found they do fuck all.
 
bk78

bk78

Well-Known Member
Autofire said:
The weight of the instrument on top of the bag pushed it down and that pushed some CO2 out.

When those bags hang up they do not expand with positive pressure. Without any pressure what is cause the CO2 to expel?

I'm not the only one that knows they are shit. Plenty of growers on here have used them and found they do fuck all.
Click to expand...
Mine is expanded? Return your co2 meter back to Walmart homie
 
bk78

bk78

Well-Known Member
Autofire said:
The weight of the instrument on top of the bag pushed it down and that pushed some CO2 out.

When those bags hang up they do not expand with positive pressure. Without any pressure what is cause the CO2 to expel?

I'm not the only one that knows they are shit. Plenty of growers on here have used them and found they do fuck all.
Click to expand...
No growers I’ve seen that say they are shit have actually owned a co2 meter though?
 
bk78

bk78

Well-Known Member
Everything you type autopot is garbage. Just please stop typing all together. That comment about wiring and electric fences yesterday was gold by the way
 
Autofire

Autofire

Well-Known Member
Could be random from bag to bag. maybe some work maybe some don't. The ones I've got are shit. Trust me
 
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