Setting up a sealed room for winter - any advice?

Sam&Max said:

Actually there is something that I am really wondering about....

If you have two rooms and you want a constant air exchange between them, then do you need to fans, each one pulling air into the other room, or is one fan sufficiently?

I am just thinking if I just buy a big Systemair Revolution fan with a controller and adapt that one to my needs to distribute and scrub the air of both rooms. It is an EC engine fan, which seems to be very efficiently to regulate with a controller. Like that I would save on buying two AC fans (two EC fans would be to expensive) and would be able to have a fan which I can regulate from 1% to 100% without wasting engergy. (Although it seems like EC fans seem to loose a bit of efficiency if you regulate them down a lot.)

Click to expand...

Sam&Max said:

Thank you for that very very informative post

Ok. It seems like I live in a colder region like you

I was wondering, why you need more propane in winter? I thought plants consume more CO2 when it is hot??? And you want to lower the temperature in summer more? I thought you get better results with CO2 when it is hotter...
my results with higher temps were not as good as when i lowered back to mid to high 70's.think the co2 is not going faster,it is because the tank and gas are colder.might move the tank back in the grow room to keep the tank and gas warmer.i am only using a twenty pound grill tank for gas supply.

Actually these propane heaters look interesting. They seem to be much cheaper than the CO2 generators sold by autopilot which you can use only for CO2 generation and which have no possibility of water cooling.
the on demand water heater runs very short times. the burner co2 generators run much longer.not hard to use a 15 to 27 gallon tote filled 2/3 with water.i have not had to refill in months with any water.i have the lid on and the hoses go out near the top of the side through holes i drilled with a step bit barely bigger then the hose going to the water heater and the hose coming back from the water heater.the water heater turns on automaticly when the water comes on.i do not know how you would turn on without water.i bought mine for about 100 bucks from amazon.it is an outdoor portable on demand water heater.the utility pump is about 50 bucks and a 27 gallon tote is 11 bucks.the atlas three controller was around 350 bucks.

Do you know if it is possible to run the heaters without water?i do not think so

I was thinking about the fan stuff and did read that thread... https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=100823
It explained me how all that stuff works. It seems like if you use two fans, it mostly just increases the static pressure and if you have stuff which impedes the airflow, you can encounter it by increasing the intake holes... But I guess mixing the air in each room by oscillating fans might be important... How big are the holes in your wall where you change the air between the two rooms? You might get even better results with bigger holes.
my intakes are twice the size of the fan(six inch fan)i used the area between my wall studs which is 16 inches on center and 4 inches deep.i made baffles out of the same wood i used for the walls osb.the baffles go from one stud to the other and are three inches deep leaving a roughly 14 inch by one inch opening.i used 5 of them staggered three on one side of the wall and two on the other alternating from one side to the other every baffle.they do not add too much static pressure but i want equal air exchange so one in each direction.
How much you can yield with your setup, growing method and the amount of plants?
i am not dialed in yet but my last plant was 14 oz with very little larf.it has taken a while to learn how much to trim when growing vertical.i have averaged probably around 9 oz a plant since i have gotten the whole grow going in the last year at this location.my last grow i had which was still going when i started to get this one going was the same style and would do 9 to 14 oz each plant with between 200 and 400 watts per plant.i built this design for a patient of mine who has a bad back.it made it much easier for him to work on his plants and i am now doing the same thing.i used to do 4 plants around 2 600 single end hps bulbs bare bulb stacked in a cabinet i built 4 foot by 4 foot 6 foot high.worked great but was a pain in the ass to get at plants.

Ahh yeah... tell me why did you insulate the two rooms to each other?
I have to decide how I will do it.
But I guess I will not insulate the wall which they share together.
i insulated between the walls because i do not want to lose heat to the attic above my rooms.that would invite mice and squirrels to the area.

Click to expand...

PsychoDad said:

Hi there , first post here ... I'm on my second grow so more on the noob side with the plants but i'm fairly good at other technical stuff.

One thing I see about your plan ... thing is , when temps go below 0 Celsius RH drops to 0 so all the humidity will be generated inside .
Another thing , the maximum amount of water in the air is dictated by the air temperature , same quantity of water in the air will give different RH readings at different temp .. that's why it's called relative .

Just keep that in mind.

Also , I don't think you will be able to cool heat generated from 3X750W gavitas with 900cfm, maybe in the winter , venting and CO2 seems a bit counter productive but I didn't experiment that yet, for me it looks like a waste of co2 if the room cooling is venting to outside.

An AC unit will also dehumidify air, if you don't vent you need to cool the room with AC

Click to expand...

Oochicoochi420 said:

You can use a dual hose air con unit, they don't pull anything from the room. Best sealed if you're using co2, vent the co2 out at night for best results.

Click to expand...

ANC said:

The lights will provide about 9000BTU of heat while they are on, without insulation, this will need to be topped up in the dark period.
CO2 is useful in summer as it lowers the AC cost due to allowing a higher room temp.

Click to expand...

Sam&Max said:

what is better? mini split or dual hose?

Click to expand...

Sam&Max said:

Actually I heard that there are units which are pretty silent :/

Would be behind the building. So it wouldn't be so much a concern. I would have more concern, if somebody sees it and wonders, why that building has a minisplit. Maybe it is possible to build a small containement for the outside unit.

Click to expand...