Split Exhaust Idea for Tent

SoN3at said:

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Here's what I would do on the days where it's challenging to fight heat. Remove the intake from the window and draw in air into tent from the room only. Reposition the ac unit outside the tent, in the room near the intake fan.

This will cut off the hot air you're drawing in from outside. Allow your ac unit to work outside your tent to remove that potential heat it generates from operating while forcing cool air from the ac to your intake. Ensure your intake and exhaust are spaced enough so your exhaust isn't just drawing all the cool air out.

I think you're right.

It looks like the dehumidifier and AC are in the tent. I'd say, get the dehumidifier and AC out of the tent.

My Name is Mike said:

Here's what I would do on the days where it's challenging to fight heat. Remove the intake from the window and draw in air into tent from the room only. Reposition the ac unit outside the tent, in the room near the intake fan.

This will cut off the hot air you're drawing in from outside. Allow your ac unit to work outside your tent to remove that potential heat it generates from operating while forcing cool air from the ac to your intake. Ensure your intake and exhaust are spaced enough so your exhaust isn't just drawing all the cool air out.

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THIS.

My Name is Mike said:

Here's what I would do on the days where it's challenging to fight heat. Remove the intake from the window and draw in air into tent from the room only. Reposition the ac unit outside the tent, in the room near the intake fan.

This will cut off the hot air you're drawing in from outside. Allow your ac unit to work outside your tent to remove that potential heat it generates from operating while forcing cool air from the ac to your intake. Ensure your intake and exhaust are spaced enough so your exhaust isn't just drawing all the cool air out.

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I think I stated already in this thread that I started out doing this before I ever put the AC in the tent... the temps were hotter than they are now doing it this way. Which is why I decided to put the AC in the tent.

Intake is on the floor in the corner, and the exhaust is on the ceiling in the center.

SoN3at said:

I think I stated already in this thread that I started out doing this before I ever put the AC in the tent... the temps were hotter than they are now doing it this way. Which is why I decided to put the AC in the tent.

Intake is on the floor in the corner, and the exhaust is on the ceiling in the center.

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You did, your main problem is you don't have sufficient equipment for the size of your space. Not just that, you don't have it dialed in. If that portable ac unit can't cool your room, it won't cool your tent.

If your exhaust fan is 360ish cfm, with X amount of ducting + filter, AT max capacity is going to struggle for your 8x8. Are you running it max capacity? You made a comment about keeping your RH higher to cool temps which tells me you're exhaust is dialed down. I can be wrong though. Either you're on a 2nd floor or your room has no insulation otherwise that ac unit should be effective to some degree.

Either get clever with what I recommended on positioning your ac near your intake or upgrade. Your tent isn't insulated to if you can't dial in your room, you will continue to have this issue.

rmax said:

I think you're right.

It looks like the dehumidifier and AC are in the tent. I'd say, get the dehumidifier and AC out of the tent.

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I have a HUMIDIFIER in the tent. I have very low humidity, the A/C unit makes it worse so I compensate with a humidifier with humidistat that keeps it around 45-55%

My Name is Mike said:

You did, your main problem is you don't have sufficient equipment for the size of your space. Not just that, you don't have it dialed in. If that portable ac unit can't cool your room, it won't cool your tent.

If your exhaust fan is 360ish cfm, with X amount of ducting + filter, AT max capacity is going to struggle for your 8x8. Are you running it max capacity? You made a comment about keeping your RH higher to cool temps which tells me you're exhaust is dialed down. I can be wrong though. Either you're on a 2nd floor or your room has no insulation otherwise that ac unit should be effective to some degree.

Either get clever with what I recommended on positioning your ac near your intake or upgrade. Your tent isn't insulated to if you can't dial in your room, you will continue to have this issue.

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Exhaust fan is at max. The A/C unit can cool the room, I just don't think the intake fan can bring in enough cool air to make a difference.

My place is pretty old, insulation is probably lacking a bit but it isn't horrible. First floor. I'm gonna try to put the AC back out in the room and put the intake near it.. maybe I'll get lucky and it will work this time around. If not I'll have to try to vent the AC vents directly into the tent with the AC unit running in the outside room.. If that fails I will consider getting a window unit and getting rid of the tent altogether.

I appreciate all your suggestions and your time!

I don't see it mentioned unless I missed it, what type of lights are you running? I'm trying to narrow whats causing the heat if it's warmer indoors compared to outdoors somehow.

SoN3at said:

I have a HUMIDIFIER in the tent. I have very low humidity, the A/C unit makes it worse so I compensate with a humidifier with humidistat that keeps it around 45-55%

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Good work on the diagram.

SoN3at said:

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so your problem is that you are exhausting your cooled air out of the room?? try just exhausting and intaking from the room, and using the AC. Let it catch up with lights off, and then monitor what happens when lights turn on. Keep the door to that room shut and close any curtains to keep the sunlight out. If there are heating vents try blocking those off too

Have you tried this? I know you said it's an old house, but you are just trying to a/c the whole world the way that is set up I think
also if this works out you can put the A/c Unit outside the tent for a shorter exhaust run on the a/c unit and it will save some space in the tent.

there's no point having your exhaust fan up high when you've got an ac and humidifier blowing air around. you want it as close to the top of your light as possible to suck up the heat it puts out before it can be blown around the tent.

My Name is Mike said:

I don't see it mentioned unless I missed it, what type of lights are you running? I'm trying to narrow whats causing the heat if it's warmer indoors compared to outdoors somehow.

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620 true watt leds. 2 of them.

I put ac unit outside tent in the closet, the intake fan is now a few feet in front of ac unit on floor, and i had to hurry to work so i quickly made a wall by hanging towels to enclose the ac unit in the closet as best as i could to try and trap as much cool air in that small space as possible.

So far it seems to be keeping the tent about 1-2 degrees cooler, so theres that improvement i suppose. Kinda thinking i would see much better results if enclosed the ac unit a little better.

Nizza said:

so your problem is that you are exhausting your cooled air out of the room?? try just exhausting and intaking from the room, and using the AC. Let it catch up with lights off, and then monitor what happens when lights turn on. Keep the door to that room shut and close any curtains to keep the sunlight out. If there are heating vents try blocking those off too

Have you tried this? I know you said it's an old house, but you are just trying to a/c the whole world the way that is set up I think
also if this works out you can put the A/c Unit outside the tent for a shorter exhaust run on the a/c unit and it will save some space in the tent.

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Your saying exhaust into the room? And just recycle the air through the ac unit in the tent? I think the room would heat up very fast. But. You said something about shortening the ac exhaust. The hose i have on the unit is pretty long and i could definitely shorten it. Maybe that would help my cause a bit.

SoN3at said:

The hose i have on the unit is pretty long and i could definitely shorten it. Maybe that would help my cause a bit.

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Here's mine.

Fan in the tent connected to light fixture pushing heat out of the tent at a window.
Vents in bottom of tent opening allowing fan to suck in cool (room) air.

Temp outside my house is 87°F. I don't have AC.
Temp on dehumidifier and in tent. The dehumidifier has been running since abut 9AM.

SoN3at said:

620 true watt leds. 2 of them.

I put ac unit outside tent in the closet, the intake fan is now a few feet in front of ac unit on floor, and i had to hurry to work so i quickly made a wall by hanging towels to enclose the ac unit in the closet as best as i could to try and trap as much cool air in that small space as possible.

So far it seems to be keeping the tent about 1-2 degrees cooler, so theres that improvement i suppose. Kinda thinking i would see much better results if enclosed the ac unit a little better.


Your saying exhaust into the room? And just recycle the air through the ac unit in the tent? I think the room would heat up very fast. But. You said something about shortening the ac exhaust. The hose i have on the unit is pretty long and i could definitely shorten it. Maybe that would help my cause a bit.

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yes that is what I'm saying, try it. also try to limit any type of heat gain such as windows and sunlight, heat coming in from other places and see if using just the air in the room will work.

running the tent on during night time helps

if not i don't see the point in running a/c. I would just increase airflow instead because if you have airflow managed correctly it can be within 2-5 degrees of the intake air.

rmax said:

Here's mine.

Fan in the tent connected to light fixture pushing heat out of the tent at a window.
Vents in bottom of tent opening allowing fan to suck in cool (room) air.

Temp outside my house is 87°F. I don't have AC.
Temp on dehumidifier and in tent. The dehumidifier has been running since abut 9AM.

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when you are venting to outside, the dehumidifer wont do too much because you exhausting air will cause the dehu to run more often. The air is replaced by other air from outside even if you think it isnt, you pull a vacuum on stuff it will pull air from somewhere..this will just increase intake temps and make it run non stop. It will run up your power bill and cause the unit to fail short because of too long of a cycle sometimes. Other times short cycles can kill equipment too this is why when setting up you want to experiment and test out how your equipment runs with where you live and what time of year it is

it takes a thorough understanding to run a/c and dehumidifiers properly to reduce energy use and use them to their full potential. setpoints can be important but other factors can really contribute to this

some climates call for certain setups so it is a good idea to look at average daily humidity and temps and use circulation to control that. A little thinking outside the box sometimes will eliminate the need for extra equipment and electricity usage for equipment that is unneeded.

rmax said:

Here's mine.

Fan in the tent connected to light fixture pushing heat out of the tent at a window.
Vents in bottom of tent opening allowing fan to suck in cool (room) air.

Temp outside my house is 87°F. I don't have AC.
Temp on dehumidifier and in tent. The dehumidifier has been running since abut 9AM.

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have you tried turning the fan speed down (or up)a little and shutting the Dehu off? also changing location of the intake/exhaust and eliminating bends can help with airflow for non-ac and non-humidification control tent setups. I would experiment a little especially in VEG

Nizza said:

it takes a thorough understanding to run a/c and dehumidifiers properly to reduce energy use and use them to their full potential. setpoints can be

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In the above pic the humidity was 60 in the basement, it got down to 58 then as a test I turned off the dehumidifier. After about an hour the humidity is already up to 68%. I cross reference with a second humidistat on the other side of the room. Outside humidity according to a website is 54%/temp 85°F. The temp in the basement is 82°F. The dew point according to a website is 64°F.

The plants are the cause of humidity.

I'm getting RH down as much as I can outside of the tent so as the make-up air passes through the tent it can absorb the humidity. If I don't remove the moisture from the tent the risk for moldy plants will increase. Eventually when I vent to outside I think the dehumidifier will be able to go.

You're right about pressure drops. I have the flex as straight as possible. The flex is about six feet short of the window. I need a coupling and another pack of flex to finish getting to the window. Then a bracket of some sort.

I now look at the tent as a machine. By-products are heat, moisture and oxygen.

shit.... I could probably open the bottom vents in my tent, and my exhaust fan on the inside would cause air from the outside to be sucked in... so I would have the intake bringing in cool air and the open vents.... Damn... I don't know why I never thought about that before.

SoN3at said:

shit.... I could probably open the bottom vents in my tent, and my exhaust fan on the inside would cause air from the outside to be sucked in... so I would have the intake bringing in cool air and the open vents.... Damn... I don't know why I never thought about that before.

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Are you being serious? I didn't know either. Someone helped me setup my tent and they pointed out the vents.

rmax said:

Are you being serious? I didn't know either. Someone helped me setup my tent and they pointed out the vents.

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I mean i used them before i just never considered it with my current setup.

Anyways. I tried it and it made no difference. I have the ac vents routed directly into the tent now just to experiment. If it works ill figure out a cleaner way to do it. I know this is prob the most inefficient use of duct hose possible but cant really move the ac unit because of the water line