10,000BTU AC having problems cooling SMALL room (Pics!)

I have one of those 10,000 BTU Sharp portable AC units you see on eBay. Yeah, yeah, I should have gotten one of the dual fan units, but those take up more energy and I found out about the dual hose systems after I bought this. So I'm stuck with it and here's my problem.

I built this fake wall (left wall in room) in my garage, insulated it, and laid a nice floor. I then built a loft above the HomeBox that has the AC and all of my ventilation gear sitting up there. You cannot tell looking in the garage that a little wall is there. The problem I had trying to create Shangrila in a hot garage is obviously temperature (and pests), so I bought the AC, hooked it up and vented the hot air out of the grow room and out of the garage. This area is used for is vegetation under the fluoros and flowering in the HomeBox. It is sealed with a pseudo door made of green board insulation that fits perfectly.

The lowest I have been able to get my temp is 70 degrees. But that is at 3am. Right now @ 6pm, it is 78 degrees, and on the lowest setting. Let me remind you that this area is very small for 10,000BTU's. 4' wide, 10' long and 10.5' high. I attached a portrait panorama view of my grow room (stitched together) and how I am venting the hot air from the AC. Plus this room is insulated, for the most part. Oh, it's only 80 degrees in the garage, so essentially this is cooling 168 watts of Fluoros with a 12" oscillating fan to circulate the air and two 6" fans blowing over each of my canopies, by just a few degrees??

There is cold air coming out of the AC and it's dehumidifying the air. But it's just not getting the room down to where I want it, and for all of this power, it is just maintaining the room from getting too hot. It fills the bucket every other day. Help please. I am finally getting my grow dialed in and now this...

The problem lies in your small room. The a/c unit is venting out air so fast that it cant possibly cool the air coming in. The single hose portable a/c units are poopy.

To fix this take that fucker apart and rig up a hose to its hot condenser. You are kinda stuck unfortunately.

dude if thats your air con on top of that thing in the top of the 1st pic, its boxed in! move it to the middle of the room, u cant have the unit closer than 700mm to a wall on the side that blows and side that sucks. otherwise it cant breath.

your temps are ok where they are at, if it hits 80 degrees in there your fineman, i keep mine at 80 all the time and they do just fine...no worries

s0high said:

The problem lies in your small room. The a/c unit is venting out air so fast that it cant possibly cool the air coming in. The single hose portable a/c units are poopy.

To fix this take that fucker apart and rig up a hose to its hot condenser. You are kinda stuck unfortunately.

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I think you hit it on the spot. So will a dual hose AC fix the problem?

madazz said:

dude if thats your air con on top of that thing in the top of the 1st pic, its boxed in! move it to the middle of the room, u cant have the unit closer than 700mm to a wall on the side that blows and side that sucks. otherwise it cant breath.

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It's 4' from the back of the wall and plenty of space in the front. There's no way to move it anymore than where it is.

Mendel : Yes a dual hose setup would help tremendously. I would say for your room size you could probably just drop the a/c and vent the room. Unless your outside temps are way to high.

s0high said:

Mendel : Yes a dual hose setup would help tremendously. I would say for your room size you could probably just drop the a/c and vent the room. Unless your outside temps are way to high.

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I definitely need an AC during specific times of the year. The sun bakes this side of the house late in the afternoon and the garage will not cool until late at night. I think it's the second worst place after an attic for trying to control temps. If the garage is 85, then how cool can you get a room with HID, fluoros, etc.? I do not think it will cool the room, just keep the air temp homogeneous with the rest of the garage (outside of the grow room), correct?

Throwing this baby on eBay.

Run the AC and the fan in intervals. Watch your temp to get a good idea of what your needs are and set the ac to turn on and the fan to turn off. Then the opposite.

Your AC is located above the area your trying to cool.........
Hot air rises so your AC intake starts out much hotter than it needs to.
If you move that unit down to the floor and run a duct from the exhaust outside you will be fine. I bet the temp. is 10+ degrees hotter up there than it is down where the plants are.

Good luck


Buzzard

Wish I could get down to 80 degrees

Buzzard said:

Your AC is located above the area your trying to cool.........
Hot air rises so your AC intake starts out much hotter than it needs to.
If you move that unit down to the floor and run a duct from the exhaust outside you will be fine. I bet the temp. is 10+ degrees hotter up there than it is down where the plants are.

Good luck


Buzzard

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Thanks for the reply guys. There is no place for the AC to go, except above the home box. I never planned on having AC, except after fighting to get temps below 90. I then put this very nice, POS AC in there. Since I did not have any room, I decided to build the loft and increase my square footage. I use an oscilaitng fan and the temps stay fairly consistent throughout the room. I use an IR thermometer to test the surface temps on the walls and ceiling and as long as the air keeps moving, the temps are consistent.

Reading a lot of the other posts, it seems like the dual hose is the way to go.

Buzzard said:

Your AC is located above the area your trying to cool.........
Hot air rises so your AC intake starts out much hotter than it needs to.
If you move that unit down to the floor and run a duct from the exhaust outside you will be fine. I bet the temp. is 10+ degrees hotter up there than it is down where the plants are.

Good luck


Buzzard

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Tried this and it definitely helped. Still going with the dual hose design.

Hey I got a single hose 10,000 BTU Haier which almost brand new. I have a 5,000 BTU unit in my grow room now and it can go down to 60. Im switching to the Hair when I put in a 1,000w HPS. My room is 9 by 10 and has proper window mounting available for the exhaust hose of the portable AC.

The window unit is kinda clunky and ould be strange to leave in in winter

Buzzard said:

Your AC is located above the area your trying to cool.........
Hot air rises so your AC intake starts out much hotter than it needs to.
If you move that unit down to the floor and run a duct from the exhaust outside you will be fine. I bet the temp. is 10+ degrees hotter up there than it is down where the plants are.

Good luck


Buzzard

Click to expand...

This info is the ticket!
First you must vent that hot exhaust OUTSIDE!
This will keep you from trying to use it to cool the air in the room.
You are keeping all that heat pent up within a confined space and
it will limit your cooling potential greatly.

+ rep Buzzard

Corwin said:

This info is the ticket!
First you must vent that hot exhaust OUTSIDE!
This will keep you from trying to use it to cool the air in the room.
You are keeping all that heat pent up within a confined space and
it will limit your cooling potential greatly.

+ rep Buzzard

Click to expand...

Whats the differance between a single hose and a dual hose protable unit?

I too have this problem with my setup. I would love to rig it up so that I didnt have to exchange air that much but I also rely on that same air leaving the room constantly so that I can maintain my neg pressure.

Quite the dillema