Someone Please Answer My Question Regarding Heating

My grow is in a building that is neither heated nor cooled. It is insulated, but thats it. So far my air cooled lights and fans have been able to keep it cool enough. But come winter I think it will get too cold. I think I have a solution to this without buying heaters, but wanted to see what a more experienced grower thought of this.

Come winter time, I am going to take the exhaust duct from my air cooled lights and stop venting it outside. Instead I will vent it back into the grow room. I do use co2 so I don't really need fresh air. So there will be no fresh air intake. The fan for the air cooled lights sits above my grow room. The warm air from the lights will go in a giant loop outside the grow room and right back in. Do you think 4 600Watt HPS lights and 1 1000Watt MH light will be enough to heat a grow room that is 20'x10'x10'? Will this work?

That's a good puzzle my friend. Lol
To even try at guessing you'll need to give lots more info. Like what climate your in? What are your winters like, and transition months like? Describe the size and features of the building. Can it retain heat? Condensation in the winter?

Endless variables.

Who knows? But I would just do it, IF it isn't enough you can just buy a space heater im assuming, if it is enough then your good. I feel like there isnt much risk involved in this, but I haven't ever messed around with a setup similar to yours.

Yeah that's what I am going to do. Worse case scenario it will supplement my heating.

Medimaker I live in Michigan, we get cold winters. My grow in on the second floor of an insulated building. The grow room is made out of panda plastic, in the insulated building. There is no heat like I said, but I think the insulation will hold the heat in well enough, it is doing a fine job at keeping the hot out.

i would not waste electricity on a heater. buy more lights. small ones that you can spread out evenly. i use t5s on my walls to raise temps in winter. i leave them off in summer so i dont over load my ac.

1mikej said:

i would not waste electricity on a heater. buy more lights. small ones that you can spread out evenly. i use t5s on my walls to raise temps in winter. i leave them off in summer so i dont over load my ac.

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Not trying to be a dick here, but this is terrible advice... First off T5's give off minimal heat. I use a T5 light for clones and seedlings, and it gives off such little heat it's almost none. My grow room is not monstrous but it's a pretty decent size (20'x10'x10'). I could line every wall, floor to ceiling (by the way the walls are plastic, so you can't really put anything on them anyway.), and they wouldn't produce nearly enough heat to warm such a large room during the cold Michigan winters. Hopefully HID lighting will produce enough heat.

Before you go to the expense of rerouting the light cooling circuit, try a fan speed controller. If you're not taking the heat out in the first place, the room should stay warm. With the dial type,($22 speedster,etc.), you can fine tune it to an exact temp.
You'll still need heaters at night right?
Been to Michigan in the winter once. Holy Shit it's cold! The tears were freezing on my eyelashes! WTF, how do you stand that shit for 4 months? Memories like that make it easier to get through the mild winters here in Budrock.
Fred

trial and error my friend.. you are just going to have to addjust as you grow...

mygirls said:

trial and error my friend.. you are just going to have to addjust as you grow...

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you can plan. but with anything in life. nothing goes according to plan. start small and add on to it as needed. key thing is, START. then worry aboiut what you need. its like "i wanna pack for everyting on the trip.... youll never anticipate what lies ahead, until you start. i tried to start some shit, took way too much time on the forums, and not enough trial and error.

learning is an experience and experience is learning. SO. get to learning mother fucker.

SysKonfig said:

Not trying to be a dick here, but this is terrible advice... First off T5's give off minimal heat. I use a T5 light for clones and seedlings, and it gives off such little heat it's almost none. My grow room is not monstrous but it's a pretty decent size (20'x10'x10'). I could line every wall, floor to ceiling (by the way the walls are plastic, so you can't really put anything on them anyway.), and they wouldn't produce nearly enough heat to warm such a large room during the cold Michigan winters. Hopefully HID lighting will produce enough heat.

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definaley have to agree with you. i lived in chicago and the winters can be pretty brutal, getting down in the negatives. i would try your idea and see what your temps are like. if that doesnt work add a space heater or two and see where your temps sit. how well does the room stay cool right now. i.e if its 85 outside its 80 inside or whatever.

worst case senerio build a "hot room", have a room you bring all you your air into the grow room from. have a couple space heaters in it and maintain a high temp. that way even when the lights are out you still have a source of heat to help maintain proper temps inside your grow room. im assuming your using an abondoned building, so be careful of using space heaters because you cant fight fire your not around and nothing is worse than a lost crop. not sure how good of an idea this is just a thought from someone who has lived with those temps.

I remember growing in Big Bear Lake, CA during the winter. Had a 6' x 20' attachment built onto the garage and was running three 1000w HPS. During the coldest of the cold I would have to throw on a 1500w heater to maintain 68 degrees. The attachment had insulation as well.

Being that you are in Michigan, I would say you should have a small portable heater on standby because I think you are going to need it.

Hey bro, I live in Michigan also, I wanted to use a garage but i don't think its very well insulated but I found this garage heater that might just work for me on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Dimplex-DGWH4031-4000-Watt-Garage-Workshop/dp/B00064NURU/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1287347287&sr=8-5
I haven't grown anything at this point but I am trying to learn as many variables as I can before I dive head first into a grow op. If you find anything out that could help me out I would greatly appreciate it.