Vertical Grows and Heat

Ok so I tore down my garden a couple days ago and made it a bare room with flat white painted walls. I have 2 air cooled 1000w hortilux runnin right now, but am going to go back to vertical.

This time I'm going to have 2 1000w and 3 600w for the set up. It's a 10x12x10 room. I have 2 16 in wall mounted fans, and one very large ceiling fan. Right now I have an 8in and 6in fan for ventilation, and an 8 in carbon filter. I also have a soleus dual hose portable AC that works very well. If for some reason the portable can't keep up, I have my 4 ton central AC.

I'm wondering what you guys do for heat with bare bulb vertical grows. And what you think about my set up and if ya think I will be able to combat the heat. I plan on eventually getting rid of the 1000w's and going with 6 600w.

As of right now in AZ MMJ I am able to grow 12 plants. I have the ability to become a caregiver though and would be able to have anywhere from 24-72 plants. I'm debating on what set up to go with as well..

Set up #1: Bulbs hung right down the middle of the room, and grow large trees on both sides of the bulbs in trash cans. Stick with my 12 plant limit.

Set up #2: Stadium grow. Get caregiver license and grow larger amount of small plants on tier system. Probably 3 shelf set up with 12 plants on each plank. 12*6=72.

Set up #3: Grow large or small plants in a ring form around the bulbs, and have the bulbs as a smaller ring as well.. So a circle inside a circle..equal coverage of light..

with setup 3 you can have a plant growing in the center of the circle of lights...maximum exposure...

haha yeah that would be bad ass. Actually I think set up 3 would be the best way.. with all those bulbs in the center it would be like a real 3D sun haha.. and I could keep switchin out which plant gets to go in the center.. Hell yeah yo I'm picturing it in my head and likin it.

from the sounds of a 12x10x10 room its a bedroom with a window?.. ive seen people have wall or window mounted a/c units running which you can run on a timer and figure out good intervals or just keep it on cool, not super boost ice mode.

HiPotency said:

from the sounds of a 12x10x10 room its a bedroom with a window?.. ive seen people have wall or window mounted a/c units running which you can run on a timer and figure out good intervals or just keep it on cool, not super boost ice mode.

Click to expand...

What do you do about smell when using AC? Any idea? I'd like to run vertical with AC come Summer time.

Portable units often vent hot air separate from the room, but if not you can always run a carbon filter through the exhaust.

I have my portable set up so that the exhaust hose runs to my bathroom. I run all my venting to my bathroom, and then just keep the bathroom fan running to vent out the heat, works well. The dual hose barely puts out any smell.

a honeywell fan blowing up under the light will control radiant heat from the bulb.
Then control ambient room heat with ventilation...

Another option would be cooltubes, although I wouldnt run them if you could help it.

I may be uniquely qualified to jump in here. I grew with 3600W stadiums for about 5 years with bare lights and have grown trees with the air cooled lights hanging down the middle for the last 3 years. Next week I'm changing a room over to the 4 plants surrounding a bulb set up. Actually two bulbs stacked.
The stadium was a 30% improvement over the flat garden. They were three shelves per side,12' long with 96 plants total in two gallon bags. I used Promix with Dutch Masters Gold and hand watered. Yields were excellent but it was a lot of work, not to mention the paranoia of having well over 100 plants in my house.
The tree set up is two banks of 3 lights with 10 plants around them. Same nutes,medium and hand watered. Interestingly, after dialing it in, the yield is about the same. But it's a lot less work and I sleep much better.
Next week I'm changing a room over to stacked lights because I think I can do better that way. It seems that lighting scheme will light the entire plant instead of the top 2.5 feet or so. The lights throw no light above the socket and very little more than a foot below the tip of the bulb. No light is cast downward, though with the ducting it would be blocked anyway.
I'll be adding two more lights to the new room so controlling heat may be an issue initially. My rooms are sealed and presently use a 17k btu window unit each for cooling. I'm probably going to larger units next summer as these barely keep up in July and August and are running constantly. When I bought them my electricity was limited to 110v and that's the biggest I could get. My new place I can run whatever voltage load I want so a lot of things will change next year.
Aircooling 3600W with an 8in Vortex is no problem. The radiant heat is a real pain in the ass. A fan blowing up from under the lights helps, but brings it's own set of problems like dehydration and windburn particularly with lights surrounded by plants.
The moral of the story is a small portable will not cool a 3600w room even a little. For efficiency's sake you don't want to exhaust conditioned air. So imho a sealed room is the only way to go. About 20k btu will keep it cool even in the middle of summer. Put the small fan on top of the filetr and put it over in the corner and let it scrub/recirculate. This way you can add CO2 and all your dreams will come true.
Happy trails,
Fred

Thanks for the post. But I'm not going to go back to sealed. I was runnin sealed/co2 for a while and now I've gone back to open.. I like it better. Right now I am running 2k watts vertical bare bulb and have an 8 in exhausting out of the room and have a passive intake.. no AC and temps are staying at 71-75 lights on, 66-70 lights off.. I'm in Arizona. If I can completely control 2k watts bare bulb i'll be fine at 3600. I also have another 6 in that I could hook up to help vent, not to mention the 4 ton central AC.

I ordered my seeds, Im gonna run 12 plants around the 3600w in circle formation. Veg them for about 8 weeks then flip, should be fun!

Man, you're talking the same watts, number of plants (trees) and I'm also am in AZ. Guess geniuses must think alike! I'm also
thinking of a vertical grow and heat issues w/6x600 watt HID vertical bulbs.


I did have 6 Big Daddy 3'x3' reflectors (about 4” apart, 2 rows of 3 lights) w/8" insulated ducting in mind, going to an 8”x8”x12” wye
connector and vented by a 12" 1,880 cfm in-line fan. An addtional 8" fan (750 cfm) used for a Phresh Filter.


My dedicated grow room is 9'x15' and grow area about 6' 4"x9' 8" (60 watts/sf). I want to use some DIY adjustable Orca Grow Film
panels to help reflect light back into grow area and keep lights about 24" from plant tops for maximum coverage. Was planning this
and looking into "1 gram/watt of light" yields that I came across vertical growing.


I've grown 2x before, both outdoor and indoor. Both had excellent results and I prefer indoor for now. Later on when dialed in I may
go for a 72 plant caregiver grow in an open pit insulated greenhouse (near Flagstaff) supplemented by 36x600 watt lights (21.6k lights).
Eventually some powered by 120 watt pv/solar panels and a Honda gas genset. For this I can REALLY SEE VERTICAL SHINE over
reflectors (even the Big Daddys). I'll save almost 9 grand too or about 4,000 watts worth of solar panels...


I'm venting fresh air for the lights on a south facing wall with 2-10" wall vents w/dampers just under the eaves that go to the 2-8"
ducts. This vented air then goes into my attic through the 12" fan. It gets hot here too though (106 avg summer highs). I plan to just
use my fans and the house AC (no supplemental AC), so I'm wondering myself if/when I go vertical are my fans and setup enough to
keep things relatively cool in summer?

had to add this pic to send a link ma mail wnt let me send pics :S

Hey tokeintuckz, TinyPic is a cool site for copy/pasting/sending pics & videos on the net & pc.

I wonder how 6-8" vertical cool tubes would work w/6x600 watters vs Big Daddy 3'x3' horizontal reflectors.
Total grow area about 6'x9'x8' ceiling.

Stonefree69 said:

Hey tokeintuckz, TinyPic is a cool site for copy/pasting/sending pics & videos on the net & pc.
I wonder how 6-8" vertical cool tubes would work w/6x600 watters vs Big Daddy 3'x3' horizontal reflectors.
Total grow area about 6'x9'x8' ceiling.

Click to expand...

cheers dude apprexiate it

i like stadium for my small room, 58 square feet and



i got a 18in fan on the ground throwing air up at my bulbs . . .to help curb heat, 4k in this room with a 4in intake and a 12.5btu A/C and dehumidifier

room runs at 80 degrees

Superb Samwell Seed Well!

I may try 6x600 watts in a hexagon or pentagon with one light in the center higher or 2 sets of 3 @ different heights. So I'd have 12 plants and 6
lights. Maybe more like shrubs instead of trees.

I'm afraid I'll have to resort to cool tubes, the cheapest I could find besides DIY online is about $75, but still cheaper than reflectors. I bet I can even
keep it cooler over those big 3'x3' reflectors as the air will move more efficiently (vented straight into my attic). I figure in my climate I'll need a good
250 cfm/light in summer.

Or I could try trees, a 4 plant 5 light, 7 plant 8 light system (lights are X's):

XOX
OXO
XOX

XOXOX
OXOXO
XOXOX

In those setups, better to keep lights @ all 4 corners as each plant gets at least 3 bulbs on it. Don't really want to go over 4,000 watts.

man its gonna get hot in there but it shouldn't be a problem u got the right idea with those inline fans, that 12" inline should take care of 3000w alone. If i were u invest in a 14,000 btu portable ac unit there a few hundred bucks on craigslist all day. I'am running 2x600w in my veg room and with out my portable in my room that's 12x10 it would be in the mid 90's with it on I'm at 77-75 all day and i know this AZ heat man its barely getting started out here lol. What part of AZ are you in bud? if you'd like i can help.

Thanks very much merkstillgrows. It might cost a bit to get a window ac, but it could well save me a lot of troubles w/heat.
I live in the river valley and it can hit 120+ in shade, usually at least 115 every summer from June-August. The window ac
could also offset what the main ac has has to do in keeping the house cool.

Also have a 1/2 hp Mastercool evap cooler that literally blasts out ice cubes from April-June w/12" upducts in each room. Lucky
to have a shaded south wall, as temps easily go past 140 in the summer sun.

dam sounds like you already have a badass setup man good for u bud, I know how retarded the heat is out here, im in phx by the way if u need help i got ya and im sure everyone on RIU wouldnt mind helping you either good luck buddy.

Thanks again merkstillgrows. I did some math and found 3,411 BTUs = 1,000 watts of heat. If the HID lights were producing
at a 15% efficiency, 3,600 watts would be pumping almost 10,500 BTUs of heat (take 3,411 BTU x 3.6 kw, then subtract 15% of total
BTUs). Found HID efficiency from What is Luminous efficacy meaning ?

So you're right I should go for at least 14-15 maybe even 18,000 BTUs. May save up for a decent ductless/mini-split ac. You just need
about a 3" hole to outside. A good deal you can get one for a grand or so if you look. For down the road, IMO a good investment.

I heard those portable ac units are the least efficient, but all you need w/those is a duct outlet and less of a hole than a
window or wall unit. NewAir is supposed to make decent units.


Edit: I don't think I need 15-18,000 BTUs in my case. Most of that heat is blowing right through those 8" cool tubes!