Flower Room Situation.

Hi, first, here's some information about my flower room:

7x8x8 = 448 Cubic Feet
Located in my garage, during the summer I [plan to] use a passive intake via a 6inch duct hole located low in the room, leading directly outside. I'll use one inline fan to exhaust the hot room into my very well vented garage.

In the winter, I plan to reverse the set up and SUCK in warmer garage-air and use the low-passive intake as exhaust, maybe add a inline duct booster fan to increase airflow out. This will solve my problem as I can't intake cold michigan winter air.


So, whew! Everything solved with one inline fan. Saved me about 100-130$.

Issue #1: everyone I talk to says go with an 8 inch inline fan (Rated 590 CFM). The 6 inch is rated 424 CFM, My room is 448 cubic feet. The 6 inch sounds perfect, over 4 times in 5 minutes the air is exchanged. How come everyone I talk to says I MUST go with the 8 inch? Will I be fine with 6 inch all around? exhaust vents, fan, hood, etc. Or should I grab the 8?

Issue #2: I haven't put in my passive intake yet, and I understand intake should be a little smaller than your exhaust that way you intake properly. If I run 6-inch fan with 6-inch ducting to my 6-inch air-cooled reflector (So it sucks in room air + light heat) I could just put in a 4 inch passive intake? Or should my intakes match my fan?

Issue #3: The placement of my summer intake/winter exhaust. If I put it low, it intakes great in the summer and since my exhaust is higher up, the airflow is perfect. But in the winter I plan on using that same opening to exhaust air, and since it is low, I don't want it to not work. I don't want the heat to escape as the heat from my 600w is going to help with my room temps in the winter. I'm definitely insulating this room before I put up the last walls.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, happy growing RIU

Your 6" fan will be fine depending on how much light you will be cooking. I would place an exhaust up high in the room for winter. Exhausting down low will not get the hot humid air out. Also, use an exhaust fan. Pushing air into a room doesn't work well, at all. You can use the same low penetration and route some ducting up high to draw the exhaust air from high in the room. Either move th inline for winter, or purchase another one. Anything beyond 1000watts may require an 8" fan.


https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/407048-20-000-watt-medical-grow.html

Well, I wanted to exhaust down low because it will be cold as hell in there during the winter and I'd prefer to let the heat of my 600w remain inside there. It's an uninsulated garage and michigan winters.. I'm aware exhausting down low is less efficient. But maybe not for my situation in the winter. What do you think?

I plan on running one 600 and another one after a couple months, should I go with the 8inch from the get-go?

I'm in Southern California so I deal with the OPPOSITE of yer situation. I deal with the heat in the summer of over 110 degrees.

Insulation and ventilation. I use 2 inch thick 4x8 sheets. I draw cool filtered air from below and above. The attic is vented with a fan to keep the air moving.

The hoods are vented through 8 inch Elicient's. 3 Raptors on the left and the Raptor in back are vented through and draw air from the inside or outside of the Lab. The three Raptors on the right can pull air from inside or outside also.

The only time I need the A/C is when it tops 100 degrees outside and the incoming air is too warm. At 110 degrees outside with the lights off the lab is at 90 degrees. At that point the vents shut and the A/C kicks in and brings it back to 82-84 degrees in a matter of minutes.

I can draw fresh outside filtered air directly to the hoods or draw the air from the inside of the Lab from one or both sides at a time. Wall fans for air circulation within the room blowing from the back at mid level and fans blowing front to back at the floor level for air movement under the canopies.

I run from midnight to noon and I run the heaters more than I run the A/C.

All set ups are different. I used a couple of smoke bombs (odorless, made for testing HVAC) to figure out the air flow in the Lab's. Takes some time but they help.

Now all that may not make much sense without a picture.

Hope this helps,,,,,

bb57

Is your growroom/garage connected to your house?
Do you have central ac?

With vehicle exhaust fumes I would be weary about using the garage air for intake.

@Boomer, I like the smoke-bomb idea, what do you think of my exhaust/intake situation? I could technically make both holes and put an end-cap on whichever I don't decide to use.. hmm..

Thanks for the pics, I'll upload some of my flower room. It is very very incomplete though.



@Beagle, It is not connected to my house, no central ac, in-fact the garage is not insulated its-self! This is why I wanted the low exhaust, so that heat can build up before leaving. I don't park my car in here at all. vehicle fumes will not be an issue.

So the main issue here is the placement of my summer intake/winter exhaust. If I put it low, it intakes great in the summer and since my exhaust is higher up, the airflow is perfect. But in the winter I plan on using that same opening to exhaust air, and since it is low, I don't want it to not work. I don't want the heat to escape as the heat from my 600w is going to help with my room temps in the winter. I'm definitely insulating this room before I put up the last walls.

Wow that isn't even readable, the format got messed up. The red box in the upper picture is my Summer exhaust and my winter intake (I reverse the fan so it sucks garage air) This is where my vortex inline fan will go. ^^





Both of these red boxes lead directly outside, I'm thinking of cutting both of these holes and using the lower one as passive-summer intake.. and during the furious michigan winters I can either passively exhaust air from the upper vent, or I can set up an inline-duct booster fan to exhaust from the lower vent.

This is my problem.. if I exhaust passively in the winter using the higher up one I'm afraid I'll lose too much heat.. I'm only running one 600w in here until I can buy another.. I think I'll have much more success exhausting low using a duct-booster.



Lol I know I'm super repetitive and descriptive, I want to describe this the best I can.

any passive inlet or exhaust has to be approximately 3x the size of the active one.

Let me reverse my thinking for a bit. I know the answer is staring me right in my ugly mug.

Just need to word it right for ya.

I'll be back,,,,,,,,


bb57

legallyflying said:

any passive inlet or exhaust has to be approximately 3x the size of the active one.

Click to expand...

Fffff I can see how the 8 inch fan would be a problem then.. would adding 6 inch inline-duct booster to the passive fix this problem?



@Boomer Thanks bro, I updated my previous post and used a little more detail

If anyone wants to help me I'm having some issues/questions about my new clones. This is my first grow, I really don't want these two to die.

https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/427391-first-grow-vortex-jtr-clones.html

Keep in mind that there are a lot of things that reduces the CFM of your fan. Carbon filters, ducting (bends and straight lines), venting through lights, etc. will reduce the CFM bit by bit so opting for the larger option seems to make more sense to me.

Yeah, I'll def be running the 8 in vortex... gotta opt for the reflector with 8 inch flanges, extra 50$. Oh well.

If I were you I would purchase two high quality inline booster fans instead of a vortex fan or what not. high QUALITY inline booster, not those hoe depot POS fans. Your not going to need an 8" high CFM can. There is a limit to how effective fans are at exchanging air and your grow room is pretty small anyways.

in all honesty though, it sounds like you just need a window AC unit mounted in the wall. The lights will heat things up and your never going to be able to cool things down when it gets hot outside. AC hoods or not your not going get the temps down low without an AC.

BTW, you DO NOT need an 8" fan for cooling one or two hoods.

You would be able to pull enough air through passive intake with one 6" 430-450 cfm inline powerfan after you duct through your two sealed reflectors. just buy a 6" Y adapter and leave your intake ports on your reflectors open closest to your intake hole. and exhaust out with the same fan. 7x7 isnt that big.

Honestly, I think you should wipe the slate clean and start over after deciding what your setup is going to be. Step one: insulate that bitch or heating during the winter is going to kill your pocket book.
Step two: Buy a cheap window AC cause your not going to be able to keep it cool in the summer.

Climate control is one of the most important aspects of a proper grow and the one that most people understand the least about or try to half-ass there way through. Visited a grow the other day.."dude, do my leaves feel leathery or crispy for you" "umm, WTF did you think was going to happen, its 94 degrees and 30 humidity in here!" "what are your nightime temps?" "around 60". (BTW, that is a temperate climate garage grow, I grew up in Ohio, nothing about that climate is temperate.

Not trying to throw a red herring out there, I just think that your going to spend all this time fiddle fucking around with fans and down the road figure out it isn't going to work. Something is going to pop up that you didn't think about. something like...odor control?

Thanks for replying

Could you show me these high quality inline duct fans? I'd like to see these as these would be great for my situation.

Also about the AC, I can add a bunch of passive exhaust grills along the top of my walls, two of the walls (the dry wall sides) the other two walls are my garage so I need to be selective of the holes I cut there. If I can get good inline duct fans then I will probably have a new game plan, one that involves sealing one side of my reflector and ducting its heat directly outside of the room. I'm only running one 600w for the time being. With all this in mind, do you think I'd still need an AC?



this was a rough draft of the room before I built it.. ignore the measurements of the plants inside the room. I know I can't fit 12 plants in a 4x3 space.

http://www.hydrofarm.com/pb_detail.php?itemid=8108

you can get them cheaper than that. they actually have decent blades and push a decent amount of air and they are pretty quiet.

legallyflying said:

http://www.hydrofarm.com/pb_detail.php?itemid=8108

you can get them cheaper than that. they actually have decent blades and push a decent amount of air and they are pretty quiet.

Click to expand...

I was told they never get that much CFM when they are not in ducting.... I've seen those before. Do you think two of those will be enough? And maybe a 6" one cooling my hood by sucking the air out of room, (duct it from my hood directly outside of the room and into my garage)

In the winter I could reverse it by exhausting the heat from the reflector into the room with, as for my reflector this is the one I'll have: http://htgsupply.com/Product-Big-Kahuna-Reflector.asp#

Also, right now it's only one 600w... not two.

Yeah it true its called static pressure. the rotors in an inline powerfan force air through ducting not just blow it. A Valuline 6" pushes 452 cfm's. They do have a place though they belong in between runs of reflectors to help your inline fans and work great for intake with a bug screen or pantyhose on them

hmm how much CFM do I lose due to static pressure? i dont mind using two of the 10 inch duct booster fans... rated 661 cfm, i'll be good if it does 70% that much. also wouldn't attaching 1 foot of 10 inch ducting on both ends make it much more effective?

I guess what I'm looking for is a grow where these fans are used as either primary intake or exhaust, that doesn't involve a tent.