Optimizing my grow room for a cold winter, advice needed! Pics

This is in a garage that is moderately insulated and well ventilated. All I'm using are timers for my fans, no thermostat-based controllers. getting one of these soon (http://www.discount-hydro.com/c-a-p-day-night-temperature-controller-tmp-dne/) to make my exhausting more efficient for winter time.




I'm intaking from outside the room and exhausting through my lights. I feel like I could change my set up so that I'm exhausting the heat from my lights INTO the room, and then set up an individual fan to exhaust excess from the room that would only turn on if the temperature exceeded 80. I'm not familiar with the various different fans and how they can be implemented. I see max-fans at hydro stores but don't see how ducting could fit onto them. Maybe I can get advice from someone with a little more insight on this subject, maybe someone that's good with products.... I'm intaking cool air. I'm adding a 1000w space heater for the winter during lights off (this is a 12/12 room after all). Any ideas to help me think outside the box?

I'm going to provide links of the fans I use if anyone is interested..

My exhaust fan located right before the air leaves my room: http://htgsupply.com/Product-GrowBright- 8in-High-Velocity-Inline-Fan.asp
My intake fan: http://growgreenmi.com/in-line-booster-fan-10
Similar fan inbetween lights: http://growgreenmi.com/in-line-booster-fan-8

Btw my lights have 6" flanges, I'm using the 8" fan inbetween because I've attached reducers to each side. I couldn't possibly buy the 6 because of the poor cfm!


Happy growing

Arabic said:

I'm not familiar with the various different fans and how they can be implemented. I see max-fans at hydro stores but don't see how ducting could fit onto them. Maybe I can get advice from someone with a little more insight on this subject, maybe someone that's good with products.... I'm intaking cool air. I'm adding a 1000w space heater for the winter during lights off (this is a 12/12 room after all). Any ideas to help me think outside the box?


My exhaust fan located right before the air leaves my room: http://htgsupply.com/Product-GrowBright- 8in-High-Velocity-Inline-Fan.asp
My intake fan: http://growgreenmi.com/in-line-booster-fan-10
Similar fan inbetween lights: http://growgreenmi.com/in-line-booster-fan-8

Btw my lights have 6" flanges, I'm using the 8" fan inbetween because I've attached reducers to each side. I couldn't possibly buy the 6 because of the poor cfm!


Happy growing

Click to expand...

There's another parameter that is used to evaluate fans, and that's the static pressure (i.e. suction) that they develop. Those 24" box fans that we use in the summertime move a lot of CFm's, but they don't develop much static pressure due to blade design and motor capacity. A quality fan manufacturer will provide PERFORMANCE data, or how the fan performs with varying amount of resistance. Suction, or static pressure, helps to overcome that resistance and maintain flow.

http://www.canfilters.com/max_fan_6.html

Adding duct runs, especially w/ elbows/bends in the duct run, will cause more resistance to airflow. This resistance is overcome by the fan's ability to develop suction, or static pressure.

The Max Fan can fans were the only brand of fan that I could locate static pressure information on. This indicates the manufacturer of these fans had evaluated their fan's performance with varying amount of resistance. The number don't mean much unless you're doing an engineering design on your system and are calculating static pressures. Not necessary. Remember, Jorge Cervantes recommends that the room air be totally exhausted every 5 minutes, at a minimum, and minimizing duct run length and elbows/bends.

Look for a fan that will exhaust all room air in at least five minutes, and has static pressure rating information supplied by the fan manufacturer.

Take this fan:

http://growgreenmi.com/in-line-booster-fan-10

No static pressure performance information supplied. Based on the design of this fan, I wouldn't hook much ductwork to it. It won't be able to move the amount of air as advertised.

A fan may be rated for tons of CFMs, but may not develop a whole lot of suction, which will really lower the fan's overall capacity when you begin adding duct runs and bends/elbows.

This is what I've came up with, just one idea. Air would pass through my lights and will circulate in the room until its ~80 degrees before the exhaust fan kicks in. I'd need a new fan to cool the lights and I could just continue to use the high velocity fan I have to exhaust the room .. It's 590 cfm and the room is 768 cubic feet. Is this a better way to conserve heat? I will also add a 1k watt space heater which will help my intake fan turn off sooner, because it will bring in air that is only slightly heated.

Sorry, didn't understand the initial question.

Conserving heat, got it.

Everything looks to be OK with what you have designed. Slightly more intake air than exhaust, no big deal, exhaust fan will perform to peak rating in that case. Just keep ductwork on intake and exhaust to a minimum.

How "fresh" in terms of CO2 content will the supply air be? You'll probably get some leakage of air into the room through leaks in building materials that can give CO2 a boost. )I'm just recalling Jorge Cervantes "harping" on fresh air being about as important as light in the garden.)

Jorge knows his shit. Fresh air is burrito supreme.

-Couldn't you make two 1000watt cabinets or better yet a wall sealing the room in half, run them alternating so that you didn't have to run that 1000 watt heater?
This would provide the resting plant with the warm air it needs to survive the night, while slightly cooling the running side.
-Why waste all that electricity for no bud, when you could spend a little more and just build a separate cabinet/modifying?
-What are your nighttime temps expected to be?
Also that ultra reflective bubble wrap water heater insulation would be a great way to add reflectivity, low cost, and way better insulation. If you are going to add CO2 supplementation, this is the exact situation that a burner would be the better option.
Just trying to get some ideas to you, take them for what you will.
Sincerely,
ILovePlants
P.S. I used to grow in Minnesota, winter was my favorite time because it lets your imagination run wild. Heat is in abundance whenever electronics are in use. Make the best with what you have, and use every part of the buffalo.

dray86man said:

Sorry, didn't understand the initial question.

Conserving heat, got it.

Everything looks to be OK with what you have designed. Slightly more intake air than exhaust, no big deal, exhaust fan will perform to peak rating in that case. Just keep ductwork on intake and exhaust to a minimum.

How "fresh" in terms of CO2 content will the supply air be? You'll probably get some leakage of air into the room through leaks in building materials that can give CO2 a boost. )I'm just recalling Jorge Cervantes "harping" on fresh air being about as important as light in the garden.)

Click to expand...

I don't know how fresh the CO2 Content will be, I have an excellent CO2 meter I bought from co2meter.com for 150$ that helps me get things fine-tuned. I drew some illustrations to show a little more detail, uploading now.

IlovePlants said:

Jorge knows his shit. Fresh air is burrito supreme.

-Couldn't you make two 1000watt cabinets or better yet a wall sealing the room in half, run them alternating so that you didn't have to run that 1000 watt heater?
This would provide the resting plant with the warm air it needs to survive the night, while slightly cooling the running side.
-Why waste all that electricity for no bud, when you could spend a little more and just build a separate cabinet/modifying?
-What are your nighttime temps expected to be?
Also that ultra reflective bubble wrap water heater insulation would be a great way to add reflectivity, low cost, and way better insulation. If you are going to add CO2 supplementation, this is the exact situation that a burner would be the better option.
Just trying to get some ideas to you, take them for what you will.
Sincerely,
ILovePlants
P.S. I used to grow in Minnesota, winter was my favorite time because it lets your imagination run wild. Heat is in abundance whenever electronics are in use. Make the best with what you have, and use every part of the buffalo.

Click to expand...

I have a veg room next door that is 8x8x8, this room is 12x8x8. The 1000's have plenty of room, I may even add a 400w CMH inbetween in the future. I saw your post this morning and drew up a few illustrations earlier in class so you have a better idea of what I am thinking, I really need the consensus of knowledgeable people because I'm just using logic, experience isn't on my side here. The rooms are drywalled on both sides and r8 insulated inbetween the 2x4's. Also I will add the 1.5" thick reflective insulation boards from home depot this winter, providing even more insulation. But the outside air that's initially getting taken in by my veg room is maybe.. 20 degrees? Southern michigan, poor to moderately insulalted garage, what do ya expect? :\

I wrote "all fresh air comes in thru here" regarding my veg room intake but I had forgotten the Y adapter connected to nothing thats connecting the two rooms. that will bring in some fresh air too.


Is it possible to make it so my bud room exhaust fan turns on when temps are above 80 degrees AND for 10 mins/hour? the CAP controller only does temperature. I'm currently hunting for a product that can do this. I'd like to make sure there's always fresh air for my ladies in the bud room during night time and cold days where temp will never reach 80, especially from only a 400w cmh. I hear they burn cooler than MH as well. I'll let you guys know if I find a good one.

Well it looks solid. You wont really know how well every thing is doing until you try it out. I wouldn't bring in air that cool (20'f or 20'C I'm assuming F?) unless the intake immediately went through my cooltubes/vented hoods. If I were in your situation I would start scouring the garage looking for drafts. With a few thousand watts going, I don't know how you couldn't maintain a decent temperature in the garage. Install any necessary weather stripping you need. Besides saving you hardship in the growing department it will increase your home's energy efficiency as well! I don't know when you plan to start this up but once you get the veg room set up you should be able to make better estimates. When in doubt test it out!

The only problem I see is all the points of failure. There are a lot of working parts in your diagram, what happens when someone decides to take a shit on you?

Food for thought, vent everything through your home. Exhausts attached to your home air ducts, and intake being sucked out of a room off the garage. That way you should just never really need any of this, you could intake from the house for the extra CO2 during the day, and at night you could intake from the house to regulate the flowering room temps. If all the exhaust was going into the house anyway, you would save all the possible money you could because your home heater wouldn't have to run as much.

I grew up in a family that had a lot of contractors, so home modification was always a non-issue because I know the trade inside and out. Two years ago I was seriously considering doing a garage grow, and we had an inside corner in that garage that was flush against the fireplace. Free heat from two walls, one of them always being warmer because my home's source of heat was on the other side of the wall. Take as many walls as you can get, even if you bought cabinets, having them flush against the walls conserves heat.

Remember that simplicity is simply so. Occam's Razor is something like; one should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power.You already have warm air in your house, why not use it whenever you need, and dump all the hot air into the heating system to ease the burden of your heater? Maybe you can't because you rent, but if you can do this, you should. I repeated that idea for a damn good reason. FLIR camera's generally only get busted out by the police in winter, they generally look for an attic, but if your garage was radiating more heat than the rest of your house at any point in the day, well lets just say that there are police officers out there that got all A's in school.

Hope this helps,
ILovePlants
P.S. Your diagram looks solid though! Don't take anything I said as anything other than brainstorming. You seem like you know what you are doing, and, based off your blueprints, I would assume that you favor preparation. Come up with lots of options, and you will always have something to turn to.

the heat will diffuse in the garage, it's a 20x20 garage. I don't rent, but the garage is detached. Also police wouldn't be a problem as I wouldn't be violating any laws.


And this is hardly a works in progress, everything is already built and fully functional. t's just my current set up looks like the very first pic i uploaded. everything goes out and it's inefficient

Well your design looks great! I bet you will have it working well. Can't wait to see it, hope you keep us updated!
Sincerely,
ILovePlants