Sealed grow room split system help!

Hi all, I’m looking for a bit of help on building a sealed grow room. I am looking at sizing a split system but am unsure of the size necessary. I’m making a 10x20 veg room, flowering room, and harvesting room. Completely sealed.
Using 3 600R hlg in each room, the blue ones in the veg room and the red ones in flower. Each room will have an 8” hurrican in-line fan circulating the air inside the room. Growing hydro so I’ll have a 1/4hp active aqua water chiller and 112w air pumps in each room too. And the 2 wall mount fans and co2 equipment.
So my question is what size split system will I need? I’m looking at a 4 ton alpine 3 split system, using 9w 18w 18w units. 48k btu heating/cooling.
Is that way overkill or will it still be working it’s ass off in a sealed room?
TYIA RIU Fam

I can only tell you my experience... my flower room... 14x25x8.... 10 LED lights.. averaging 650 watts each...7 fans... 2 dehumidifiers..and a CO2 propane generator.... my 3 ton mini split has no problem cooling this room.

My room is a sealed 8x20 with 4 gavita 1700s. 2 tons is plenty for it. Don't forget about dehumidifiers, you will need them.

Perfect! This was just what I was looking for! The personal experience with it! Thank you guys very much. That gives me a good idea to run with

ricman said:

I can only tell you my experience... my flower room... 14x25x8.... 10 LED lights.. averaging 650 watts each...7 fans... 2 dehumidifiers..and a CO2 propane generator.... my 3 ton mini split has no problem cooling this room.View attachment 5018275

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Beautiful room!!!

i could maby help a bit, im a licensed carpenter by trade. i built a room thats insulated from the rest of the building its in, sound proof, sealed with co2 enrichment for amusement at my place. i go through everything from the framing, insulating, building insulated doors with a rubber gasket, doing white epoxy resin floor, installing a mini split theres some photos as i built the room starts around here with the framing. https://www.rollitup.org/t/not-another-grow-journal.898632/page-3#post-15569559

A lot of this is going to depend on the climate your in and the level of insulation your going to have. I can help you spec some equipment but a little more info would really help, for starters is this one 10x20 room your dividing into 3 spaces? or 3 10x20 rooms? if your dividing it up whats the layout like? There is a lot that goes into picking the equipment your going to want to use and its a big investment so you really want to get the right stuff the first time. one issue I see right off the bat is those are big air pumps and you arent going to want to have them sucking in air from a room with enriched co2 and then injecting that co2 into your water. You want o2 to the roots not co2, it will react with the water creating the acid rain effect and dropping ph. If your pump is outside the room its going to create a positive pressure that will push air with unwanted smells etc out of the room through any little cracks it can find/create unless you add a small vent for relief. anyways there are lots of factors to consider but I can help you with them if I have a better Idea what your working with/ trying to accomplish.

But yes at first glance 4 tons is way overkill for 3600ish watts of led's. I would also plan to use more lights in flower than veg, as you just dont need the space or wattage for veg that your going to want in flower. What kind of hydro system are you planning to run?

watsongreenthumb said:

A lot of this is going to depend on the climate your in and the level of insulation your going to have. I can help you spec some equipment but a little more info would really help, for starters is this one 10x20 room your dividing into 3 spaces? or 3 10x20 rooms? if your dividing it up whats the layout like? There is a lot that goes into picking the equipment your going to want to use and its a big investment so you really want to get the right stuff the first time. one issue I see right off the bat is those are big air pumps and you arent going to want to have them sucking in air from a room with enriched co2 and then injecting that co2 into your water. You want o2 to the roots not co2, it will react with the water creating the acid rain effect and dropping ph. If your pump is outside the room its going to create a positive pressure that will push air with unwanted smells etc out of the room through any little cracks it can find/create unless you add a small vent for relief. anyways there are lots of factors to consider but I can help you with them if I have a better Idea what your working with/ trying to accomplish.

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Ok thank you. Ya I do construction on the side nowadays so I have experience there but as for the rooms I’m doing a 10x20 room, a 10x20 room, and a probably 6x10 or so for the harvest room, depends how much space I have. Im converting a 4 stall garage into half a grow house. The garage is about 20x40 with one 2 stall door on one side if that tells you anything about a layout. Butting the 10x20s side by side with the harvest area outside them wherever it’ll fit. But I will be studding inside the garage with 2x6 studs, r-21 insulation in the walls and ceiling with moisture board over the top. I was debating putting some of that r-6 insulation foam board under the drywall but feel that’s a bit overkill. I was looking at the alpine split system. Using 3 hlg 600 lights, hydro farm water chiller and air pump, autopilot for the co2 enrichment, 8” in-line fan just circulating air, a couple wall fans. I had thought about trying to get all the equipment outside the room but wasn’t quite sure how to run the air pump and water chiller outside of it

watsongreenthumb said:

But yes at first glance 4 tons is way overkill for 3600ish watts of led's. I would also plan to use more lights in flower than veg, as you just dont need the space or wattage for veg that your going to want in flower. What kind of hydro system are you planning to run?

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The reason I chose to do the same amount of lights is because I figured I can just make a screen and never move the plants the whole grow, just switch the lights hanging from room to room. We’ll see how the lights go, I can always add more later. As for the grow itself, my legal limit is 5 plants so I was just going to spread the plants out in a 10x15 screen, grown hydro in 17gallon totes all inter connected with 2” pvc. Another 17g reservoir, so I’m assuming around 100gallons. I haven’t filled the system yet to see how much it’ll hold. Runs through the water chiller, and a ph controller that will be plugged into the system.

I love those xps foam boards, I use those instead of drywall, lighter and much faster to work with, use some great stuff foam to seal the cracks and you have a well insulated and very well sealed grow. If the drywall is already on the wall no need to tear it down but if you were going to hang new stuff the 4x8 sheets of foam board are the way to go. if its just a divider/partition wall your building regular 2x4's are fine for studs, no need to spend the extra money for 2x6's unless you really want that extra depth for insulation, like if your in alaska or maine and the garage is not insulated elsewhere. I personally would go with 2x4 or maybe even a 2x3 if the ceiling is less than 9 ft. save that space and money for some 1" foam sheets. I am sure you will figure this out eventually but if your really going to stick to just 5 plants total all this space is way overkill. also It is much easier to move plants than lights, you dont want to be leaning out on a ladder over your plants trying to unhook and move around your lights. regardless of the plant count a good rule of thumb for a mid sized space like this is to have 25 percent of your space or so in veg and the rest in flower, and something similar for lighting. vegetating plants just cant handle 18+ hours under really high light intensity so your better off with smaller lights because if you ran the 600's you would want to dim them down halfway or so even in late veg. It sounds like your wanting to grow some really big plants, trees basically? How high are your ceilings? how much experience do you have in the garden? If you want I could come up with a layout plan that would better maximize the space you have available and make it as manageable a garden as possible for one person to deal with.

The garage already has some insulation and osb. It used to be a workshop for whoever had the house before. I’m not entirely sure the ceiling height, I’m waiting for our eviction on the current tenant before I can move in. But ya I grow trees haha. Been growing for about 12 years now so I’ve got experience with it. Go big or go home haha. My original plan was going to be one plant every 3 weeks with a 9 week veg and flower time to make it easy time wise for trimming. I run a couple businesses too so I don’t have time to sit and trim for weeks on end, few hours a day is manageable. But I know you have to drop down the co2 for the last couple weeks so that puts using co2 out of the question for flowering room if I do it that way. So back to just running 2 rooms full at a time and flip flop.

yeah I would probably do a room A room B type layout in your situation, plus you could have a small area for cloning/early veg and then move those plants to one of the rooms and veg them for a few more weeks then flip them to flower. Its not the most efficient use of the space possible but it will save you having to move big plants, and it will be easier to train them and get the plant structure you want because you will have plenty of room. also no need to switch the lights, those hlg600 r specs will be fine all the way through, just dim them for veg and turn them up after you flip. That would be a really easy to manage setup for somebody with a lot going on.

Ya that’s the goal haha. Need to make it as simple as possible to manage. I literally work at my business 12-15 hours a day so I don’t have a ton of free time for managing a ton of plants as well. I just harvested 4 earlier this week that I have to find time to trim now lol but ya that’s what I was thinking too. Making a little starter area as well. So it’ll be about 4 rooms in total I end up with by time it’s done, can just move in series

ricman said:

I can only tell you my experience... my flower room... 14x25x8.... 10 LED lights.. averaging 650 watts each...7 fans... 2 dehumidifiers..and a CO2 propane generator.... my 3 ton mini split has no problem cooling this room.View attachment 5018275

Click to expand...

If that is in a basement the heat load is less than a room above ground
Frankly I'm surprised that 3 ton can handle it

Herb & Suds said:

If that is in a basement the heat load is less than a room above ground
Frankly I'm surprised that 3 ton can handle it

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Thats why I was asking! I know I’ve read someone’s grow journal before about sealing a room and they said they bought the biggest ac from menards or Home Depot and it still wasn’t big enough so they had to go with a 4 ton or something and still had several dehumidifiers running to maintain everything. So being in a garage I wasn’t sure how it would do. But the exterior walls are already insulated and I’m adding another 6” of insulation just to be sure. I’d rather spend more on insulation up front and save in the long run on the bills

Herb & Suds said:

If that is in a basement the heat load is less than a room above ground
Frankly I'm surprised that 3 ton can handle it

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its not a basement...but we really went over board with the insulation when building...i also run my rooms pretty warm...around 85F.....i dont drop temps until the last 2 weeks....typically the dehumidifiers dont kick on until lights out and that helps some with the heat load....but for my situation and my part of the world...3 tons work just fine.

cheers,

ricman said:

its not a basement...but we really went over board with the insulation when building...i also run my rooms pretty warm...around 85F.....i dont drop temps until the last 2 weeks....typically the dehumidifiers dont kick on until lights out and that helps some with the heat load....but for my situation and my part of the world...3 tons work just fine.

cheers,

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My old HID azz just puckered at the thought of 85f
I gotta get on this LED train at some point

Whatever lights you get should have a btu rating per light, same with the co2 generator and dehumidifier- add those up plus whatever amount of cooling it would take to cool the space without all that stuff in it and you will get your heat load. There are some online calculators that help with sizing mini splits based on the part of the country your in, room volume, insulation etc. I would use one of those to get your base cooling btu's for the space then add the btu's of your equipment to arrive at a final size.

watsongreenthumb said:

Whatever lights you get should have a btu rating per light, same with the co2 generator and dehumidifier- add those up plus whatever amount of cooling it would take to cool the space without all that stuff in it and you will get your heat load. There are some online calculators that help with sizing mini splits based on the part of the country your in, room volume, insulation etc. I would use one of those to get your base cooling btu's for the space then add the btu's of your equipment to arrive at a final size.

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Perfect! Thank you. I did that on the lights but didn’t think I could do that on the other equipment as well. That would work