Completely sealed grow room ventilation help.

Hello,
I have a room 14x24 feet housing 8 1000 watt lights. The previous plan up till now has been to exchange air with my two 10" 790 CFM fans but due to my new style house the basement only has 4" furnace pipes exiting the basement through the side of the house and will not be sufficient enough to pump 790CFM through. I am trying to change plans to a completely sealed grow room and have a few questions. I was wondering if I would need 8 water cooled heat exchangers (one for each light) and a water reservoir and chiller to keep re circulating the same air for the light shades or if 8 is to many? I already have c02 and an automated system for the air so i was wondering what other equipment I would need to keep the temperature and humidity at sgood level. I hear that the Ac unit to use is a double hosed unit so my question is would I need to also vent the hot air coming out of the Ac unit or is there a unit that cools air without exchanging any? Also I hear of people using sulfur burners and a HEPA filter for mold and mildew? Pretty much what ever suggestions anyone has would be very much appreciated.

If your gonna go sealed room then I would look at a mini split ductless AC system..... You could possibly do 8 lights with a 36k btu mini split and use adjust a wings or something similar....I am running 6k, chiller, dehumidifier, 4 fans, co2 etc and the fujitsu mini split has to be turned up or it gets too cold in there..... Something to think about...

Thanks donut that seems like the best Ac unit to use for sure but I have a few questions. Ice box heat exchange clad if you use one heat exchanger for every 1000 watts with 1/4 hp chiller per light and you make the water temperature 10 degrees cooler than the room air that you completely eliminate the hot air from the lights so my question is did the heat exchangers completely eliminate your heat from the light shades and if so Doesent the water chiller have the same amount of equivalent heat that you must still vent somewhere? If the air that comes from the chillers is not as hot as just taking the air straight from the light shades than I can vent it into my house and only use a 10,000 btu air conditioner and a dehumidifier for the room. I would rather not have to vent any air anywhere and keep it completely contained inside the house Exept for venting the chiller exaust ad the Ac exaust if it's not hot enough to bring my 1700 square foot house to a ridiculously hot temperature temperature.

Let me know what you think, thank you!!!

Hey Eleconnet,

I dont use water cooled lights or exchangers, I thought about it but did not like the idea of water all around the electrical.... Anything you have that cools will create heat, so keep it simple... I have a chiller to keep the rez chilled mine has to be in the room so it adds to the temps but my temps are way low.. I run fans through the lights from to outside to the outside of the room, since the room is sealed this air is never mixed with the rooms air...but will probably will eliminate the cooltubes next run and just have exposed bulbs letting the AC do the trick... So the Slpit AC unit could be mounted outside, run the plumbing to the room. Mount the unit inside the room and the only heat you will have is from the lights and your dehumidifier... 36k should do the trick.. Are you growing in soil or hydro what type of hydro? Let me know.. Donut

mount the ballasts outside-

the room
bare bulbs and aircon.

I am using a top drip rock wool hydroponics system using a sea of green technique with 96 sites and 8000 watts. The room only has a 4inch pipe intake for furness and a 4inch output for the furnace. The two windows are completely sealed so no light can escape and the only other place for air to leave the room is through the furnace system into the house. Because i can't remove a big amount of humidity while pumping the air into the house i have to make a completely sealed room. I have GrowTronix taking control of co2 saturation and all the timing of the components. The solution i have found so far is to use 8 ice box heat exchangers on my 8 shades and 2 450cfm fans to circulate the air throughout the light shades in a closed loop. There is room to route two 1 inch tubes from the heat exchangers into garage where my 2hp water chiller and reservoir will be and the water chiller will pump out enough heat to heat my garage in the winter as a bonus. If the heat exchangers can remove the heat as claimed then all i need is my carbon filter to scrub and circulate the air in the room to remove odour, a de-humidifier for the moisture and a 10,000 btu portable a/c for the little bit of extra cold air i would have to blow hopefully a couple minutes an hour. I can vent the hot air from the a/c into my house because it won't be humid and it won't be on very often hopefully. i have priced out everything for the heat exchange system and the two 1hp chillers and it comes to a grand total of 2900$$. would the ductless a/c be less? regardless of using the heat exchangers or the ductless a/c my garage would still get heated from either of them so thats pretty sweet. Do you see any advantages to having the light shades on a closed air loop with heat exchanges or more benefits from the control you get from your ductless a/c unit? i have never heard of those ductless units until now but if they could handle 8000 watts than that would be good too.

actually i have been looking at prices for these and the air conditioning is a little bit cheaper and i would save money on air cooled shades and not have to worry about all the tubing for the heat exchangers. Those mini split ac units are so perfect for re locating heat without huge duct holes and hassle. Thank you for the suggestion. Do you think that this unit will be sufficient enough for 8000 watts? http://www.e-comfortusa.com/products/mitsubishi-msyd30namuyd30na-mr-slim-wall-mounted-single-zone-ac-mini-split30700btu/1672

i had the some problem that eleconnect had and i did the same thing donut did and fresh air in through the lights and back outside again. work great and dropped the temp about 5 to 10 degrees and the room is still sealed.

Hey Eleconect,

Rule of thumb is 3500 Btu's per Kilowatt so 8k would be 28000 Btu's that one you put the link to is 30k roughly... So you would be cutting it close....You have to consider room size, the heat from the Dehumidifier, like Murphy said the ballasts would be outside.. Now are you running Co2 tank or gas? The Co2 can create heat with the burner burning... I found if you have a few fans it really distributes the heat well... Mitsubishi and Fujitsu are probably the best... You want to also consider Seer rating.. That is a efficiency rating.. if it is 18 and up it is very efficient... Alot you see around are 13 seer and they eat up power and are not as quiet as the higher seer inverter Models...

Oh I see, okay well I went with a 30,000 btu LG 18 seer and now I'm debating on getting 4 inch air cooled shades and vetong lights with outside air and smaller 4 inch can fans to also help but I would rather not if the Ac unit I bought is good enough for bare bulbs

Hey Eleconnect,

You could always give it a try bare bulb and if there issues you could change pretty quick.... I would also probably do a 6" cool tube rather than a 4" and then use a reducer in the front and back end to connect the 4" ducting.. Just a thought..

Yea that's a good idea I have a 6 inch fan kicking around I just didn't want to be pumping enough hot air out off that 4inch tube to melt all the snow off the side of the neighbors house (a little fishy). Up to this point the room has absolutely no way of being detected other than the power bill so if You think that the 18 seer 30,000 btu could handle 8000 bare I'm just gonna order non cooled shades. The room is 24 feet by 14 feet as well.

One more question for you. Did you have someone install your Ac unit? I have checked how much all the parts would be for installation and nitrogen leak testing as well as a vaccimm pump for evacuation of the lines but the part that I don't rink I will able to do is recover the proper amount of refrigerant for lines under 25feet. Any suggestions? I don't think I can have a technician come to the site.

Eleconnect said:

Hello,
I have a room 14x24 feet housing 8 1000 watt lights. The previous plan up till now has been to exchange air with my two 10" 790 CFM fans but due to my new style house the basement only has 4" furnace pipes exiting the basement through the side of the house and will not be sufficient enough to pump 790CFM through. I am trying to change plans to a completely sealed grow room and have a few questions. I was wondering if I would need 8 water cooled heat exchangers (one for each light) and a water reservoir and chiller to keep re circulating the same air for the light shades or if 8 is to many? I already have c02 and an automated system for the air so i was wondering what other equipment I would need to keep the temperature and humidity at sgood level. I hear that the Ac unit to use is a double hosed unit so my question is would I need to also vent the hot air coming out of the Ac unit or is there a unit that cools air without exchanging any? Also I hear of people using sulfur burners and a HEPA filter for mold and mildew? Pretty much what ever suggestions anyone has would be very much appreciated.

Click to expand...

Mini Split air conditioners bro. No air exchange, perfect for indoor grow rooms trying to obtain Sealed Environments.

Mine came pre charged with coolant, no HVAC person required. The company Grunaire sells pre charged lines.

Yea I have already purchased one but it says in the install that if your lines are less or over 25 feet you either must remove the r410a or add it. Now adding it is simple with the r410a cylinder but removIng it requires the use of a very expensive machine. Did your hvac unit not have the same sort of installation instructions?

No, the line was precharged. Pretty much plug and play, I have a 25' line for mine.

Okay mine of Pre charged as well. So pretty much use the factory 25 foot line without size modification by making a big loop at the external unit? I'm slightly confused on this because I thought that you needs to supply and route your own copper piping
For the fluid. Do these type of units come with 25 feet of piping? And did you evacuate the lines your self and leak test them?

Hey Eleconnect,

The units come charged, but not all companys include the line set. If not then you can purchase whatever length you need... The instruction manual should tell you how many feet the charge was good for.. Mine was 40 feet and under.... Yes technically you should vacuum the line and yes if it was charged for 40 feet and under and you were to have a 25 foot lines set you might need to let a little refrigerant out.... Now if you see how they install these in other countries you may feel a little better.. Here they want you to use a recovery system etc..... Well if you look at youtube and see them install one in England, they install the indoor unit, install the outdoor unit.. then install the lines... they then open the valves and then push in the "pin valve" on the suction side (which is the bigger tube) a couple of times and flush the air and mosture out with the refrigerant. Now 410 refrigerant is pretty environmentally freindly compared to r12 and such so I would not lose sleep kickin out a couple of spurts. I did this method and it has worked very well. You can purchase on ebay small tanks of 410 with a gauge on top for about 50 bucks, which you can have as a back up... One thing to remember.. The day after you install this unit go back and see if you can tighten the fittings a little more.. Hope this helps

Avvvvvooooooooiiiiidddd using icebox exchangers they will heavillllyyy impact you Rh and ruin a crop... damn near lost a 300 plant room I was using 17 1000K lights with one ice box for each and 1 hp chiller for every 2 lights.. save yourself the bull... just get a heavy amount of ac tonage and use open adjusta wings.....well worth itsave timeand crop cuz ice boxes take a fulltime shift, plus you have to fabricate a whole other water manifold for it and extra res and blah blah blah.. im comercial bro.. take my word just gonna cut into proffffitszzzz

Thank you all for all the advice. I was a little confused on the install of the Ac because I was watching videos of people making the lines with ridgid copper and copper flare/cutting tools and what not, I did not know that you can buy 25 foot Pre fabbed linesets and the way the videos made the install sound if you didn't vaccum your lines then your system will not work. But since thats all figured out and on route to me I was wondering why you have suggested adjusts wings marvinev??