Portable a/c question

I live in socal and the only place I can grow indoors is my garage. I have a dr90 grow tent(3x3) and I know this summer weather is going to have my tent scorthing hot when the lights come on.

I already own a portable ac unit, but it only has an exhaust hose. Is there any way to use this type of ac unit to cool a grow tent? I really don't want to have to buy a dual hose unit.

You shouldn't have any issues using your portable ac. It will just draw the air from inside your tent or garage depending on where you place it. Just have the exhaust outside the tent or garage. The portable ac with one hose instead of two just have to use more energy to cool a room. Two vents cost more but or more energy efficient.

Thanks man. There is no way my ac unit will cool down the garage. I was hoping I could tape some 4-6" ducting to the front of my ac unit and vent the cool air into my tent. Was hoping someone here might have some experience with this.

If it's a single hose unit, it's gonna draw stinky air from your grow and exhaust it outside.

It will blow stinky air out even if I have it sitting outside of the tent?

If I tape some ducting to the ac and vent the cool air into the tent, I would attach ducting from the exhaust on the ac and vent that outside through a drier vent.

Metasynth said:

If it's a single hose unit, it's gonna draw stinky air from your grow and exhaust it outside.

Click to expand...

The dual hose will do the same...just because it draws and exhausts threw hoses makes no difference. They will both mix room air while cooling and send smell up and out. My first ac was similar and what I did was made an incision in the tent just big enough to stick the face in the tent. It will not draw any air from the tent but instead the garage but it will push all the cold air into the tent. Worked well for my first little set up nicely. Good Luck

I got me a 8,000 btu ac unit from lowes and set it outside my tent (4x and duct taped a little 6inch ducting that i had to the front of the unit and it's now blowing into one of the 6inch intake flange in the bottom of the tent...Keeps my tent to 75 77 degrees and i have 2000w!!

Awesome! I'm going to do just that!

Hey OP,

I wouldn't recommend using a portable AC. I deal with the same climate issues you have and since the home I'm living in isn't properly insulated it can be just like living in a garage so I did a bit of research into different air conditioners. If you do the same research on this site you'll find that many people on here say that portable AC units are just not cut out for growing. I would highly recommend going with a window unit, they're usually cheaper than portable units and are much more effective for growing. Summer is coming up so put that bad boy on craigslist to recover some of the losses from buying the new window unit.

Here are some things to consider about the size air conditioner you'll need. A 1000 watt bulb will generate roughly 3750 BTUs of heat, so to counter that you'll need an AC that is not only powerful enough to efficiently cool your room but it will also need to counter ~4k BTUs of heat. As a result of these factors most people on here will recommend you get an air conditioner that has 5k BTUs for every 1000 watt bulb you're using. I'm growing with 2 1000 watt bulbs in a 420sqft room and the 12k BTU unit I have is amazing on so many different levels.

Another thing worth noting is that a larger AC can actually save you money compared to a smaller one in the long run. I was trying to use a 5k BTU window unit to maintain the temps of my 420sqft room and needless to say that wasn't working at all. I would be lucky to see a 5 degree drop in temps and I was paying out the ass for it because my air conditioner was working harder than its supposed to 24/7. My 12k BTU is almost overkill for that room now, the air conditioner maintains my temps at 74-77 always and the thing is always on low. My electric bill actually went down nearly $100 a month so my AC will pay for itself in another 2 months with just the savings.

Good luck my man!