Heat Stress in a Closet

I have a plant flowering in my closet under a 250w HPS. It recently started showing signs of heat stress. I moved my light up a few inches, but it continued to have problems, so today I moved my fan so that it is blowing in between the light and the top of the plant.

I'm hoping that will help, but I think the biggest problem is that I have to leave the door closed when the lights are off, and am asleep when they come on so I can't open the door right then.

I imagine the new fan position will make a big difference, as the entire closet isn't too hot when I first open the door, but I don't want to risk stressing out my plants for another day.

Am I going to have to build in an light-proof exhaust system?
How have other people with HPS closet grows dealt with ventilation?

ive done this before. you could use a curtain and leave a space about a foot at the bottom and leave your door open and stick a fan on the bottom. blowing in. the curtain should block most of the light some kind of exhaust is important too you can get a clip fan and then stick it on the door frame blowing out somewhere near the top and you can wrap the curtain around the fan so that no light gets in. its hard to stress plants with heat as long as their is plenty of airflow. blowing at the top of the plants or at the bottom of the light is best. heat and stagnant air will kill a plant in hours.

if light getting through the curtain is a problem then reduce the space on the bottom and you can velcro the sides and top. stack the plant on some boxes and you can increase the space on the bottom by lifting the curtain more enough so that no light hit the plant.

light is just one factor you need to also adjust your temps, humidity and ventilation

leave the closet open and keep the room closed off.

It's a really really bad thing to ever have that door closed without an intake... your plants are literally suffocating.

My setup is a reflective tarp stapled to the inside of the door frame, then it's sealed up with a tape-on zipper (look around for a stick-on tarp zipper) with a light-blocking flap made out of duct tape.

I have a light-proof 6 inch duct + exhaust running through a hole cut in the tarp on the upper left of the door frame, then taped seamless. I have about 6 inches open on the bottom for intake and I never fully close the door

Yeah I agree with anonymuss. If you don't have enough money for a ventilation system your best bet would be to have the fan on pointing at the light and plant and the door open whenever the light is on.

I'm kind of going through a similar thing, and have done a few times.

I'm using a 400 watt light and I have poor ventilation, I included a fan a while back, aimed at the light, and it works well, but now I have a problem with humidity despite leaving my window open, and I have water droplets on the ceiling =o(

Another thing i have to do is leave my enclosure open to a degree, I suggest you do similar, and if needs be find some fabric that's "breathable" if you're on a budget.

Thanks for all the input guys. I did just get some black & white panda film, so I can probably make a good curtain with that. I was just checking out the space and thanks to the design of the closet, it should be pretty easy to hang it. Theres a shelf on top than I can just hang the curtain from, and I could leave room on the sides for air to flow up and out the closet door above my grow area. I should have done this earlier now that I look at it and see that it won't be all that difficult to put up. It will shrink the space a bit though, some of the leaves may end up touching the walls.

theSinned said:

Thanks for all the input guys. I did just get some black & white panda film, so I can probably make a good curtain with that. I was just checking out the space and thanks to the design of the closet, it should be pretty easy to hang it. Theres a shelf on top than I can just hang the curtain from, and I could leave room on the sides for air to flow up and out the closet door above my grow area. I should have done this earlier now that I look at it and see that it won't be all that difficult to put up. It will shrink the space a bit though, some of the leaves may end up touching the walls.

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just make sure that no light gets in during the night cycle and don't worry about the leaves hitting the walls they will hit the wall then starting growing up its actually a decent support

FarmerNinja said:

just make sure that no light gets in during the night cycle and don't worry about the leaves hitting the walls they will hit the wall then starting growing up its actually a decent support

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good to know actually
I was just wondering the same thing