Design Questions 1600 Square Foot Basement

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FET

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Design questions 1600 square foot basement


My biggest questions are Ventilation/AC/CO2 based.

Ok so this is a rough floor plan... those orange areas are representative of gorilla grow tents starting counter clockwise 4x8 8x8 8x16 10x20 10x10.

Clearly way over the top and unnecessary. If I could just do two 10x20s I would but the square in the middle is the area dominated by the furnace. The circles with x's are support poles and everything else are walls or stairs even the unmarked edges of the page is a wall.

Its is best to have fewer atmospheres to control so the 10x20 is a given and the 8x16 is the next best option.

I have 8 digital ballasts and 16 hps cooltubes. I want to go led but these were too cheap to pass on. I'm wanting to put 8 in each tent and flip the ballast back and forth. I can get the light speed flip16 controller for cheap. Its a Canadian company but I can't find any reviews or any other info about them.

I haven't bought an AC unit for the house yet because I'm waiting to determine my grow needs before deciding.

I want to use CO2 so when it comes to cooling my grow rooms Mini Splits seem like the only reasonable choice.

I was put off by the idea of designing an AC system for a temporary light choice but noticed that cooltubes can run up to 50 percent cooler that non air cooled lights. I also noticed that leds use roughly that much less power... which produces that much less heat... so it will be roughly the same btus entering the grow room regardless.

I know that 8 1000 watt lights even if they are air cooled is alot of heat in either tent. I've read some threads claiming that I need between 3400 and 4000 btus per light and I understand why. I know that I don't want to oversize my AC by too much either

So here are some of the questions.

Can I put two units in the tent to drop the cold air down evenly and push the hot air up to be cooled?

I will never be running both rooms at once so do I need a system for 8x btus or 16x btus?

I have natural gas available to me from our utilities provider. A co2 generator makes alot of sense except for all the added heat. I'd like to find some more info to get a handle on that.

I will likely be adding a few more tents but only when it makes sense to do so. For now I have two similar size grow spaces.. extra room and extra tents. I was wondering if its possible either for cooling or for co2, to create a third room where the cooling and co2 generation can take place at all times. Then just control which room it is operating to switch back and forth. Similar idea as ballast flipping but for AC and CO2.

Ventilation when using co2 and air cooled lights is very confusing.

In order to get cool air to pass over the lights I need to pull it from inside the house where the aor is cooler than the outside and then exhaust it outside.

In the winter I would need to do the same because that air is just too cool...

So if I'm dumping cool air from inside my house in the summer and warm air from inside my house in the winter. What kind of strain am I putting on my furnace in the winter and my houses AC in the summer?

So I was thinking that during the winter I would exhaust that clean heated air back into the house to ease the furnace requirements. Why waste it?

Of course once I upgrade to LED there will be no air cooled Ventilation....

So you could address all my questions or just tell me what you think I should do instead and I can draw the inference.

Thanks for any advice in advance.
 
ComfortablyNumb

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One at a time here as I consider them.
Put one of each tent against the wall. It will help it stay cooler and give you more room to walk around.
Use the walls to keep temps down.
Remember to leave yourself room to walk and carry stuff that's wider than you.
 
FET

FET

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One at a time here as I consider them.
Put one of each tent against the wall. It will help it stay cooler and give you more room to walk around.
Use the walls to keep temps down.
Remember to leave yourself room to walk and carry stuff that's wider than you.
Good thought but access from every side trumps something that has an easier solution through increased cooling abilities. There is no way to reach ten feet across to do the various things that are necessary and I won't sacrifice sqft or waste light on the floor by creating walkways. Still interested in your other thoughts as they come to you.
Personally.. I would poly the whole thing. Run fresh air in and exhaust. Easier to control a large room.


As for Ponky.. containment seems difficult that way. Running everything at once also limits my grow by the restriction of available amps. I can also use less equipment this way. Possibly use less cooling if I can use one unit constantly but switch the areas that I'm cooling.
 
ComfortablyNumb

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When you say access from every side, do your tents have doors on all sides?
 
Ponky

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Good thought but access from every side trumps something that has an easier solution through increased cooling abilities. There is no way to reach ten feet across to do the various things that are necessary and I won't sacrifice sqft or waste light on the floor by creating walkways. Still interested in your other thoughts as they come to you.



As for Ponky.. containment seems difficult that way. Running everything at once also limits my grow by the restriction of available amps. I can also use less equipment this way. Possibly use less cooling if I can use one unit constantly but switch the areas that I'm cooling.
You can run it in a split. Just run a double poly wall. Have a little corridor between them 9r something. Poly is good for the overhead room and just ease of setup. Use the good tape. Buy the zippers.
 
ComfortablyNumb

ComfortablyNumb

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I have never used those kind of lights but light is the number 1 most needed part of the recipe. Without quality light, you will have substandard grows.
 
ComfortablyNumb

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I'm confused.
You are not going to use more than one tent at a time because you don't have the amp service?
Then why have all the tents?
I must have missed something....
 
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FET

FET

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When you say access from every side, do your tents have doors on all sides?
Yes all sides
You can run it in a split. Just run a double poly wall. Have a little corridor between them 9r something. Poly is good for the overhead room and just ease of setup. Use the good tape. Buy the zippers.
I wish I could. Its so much easier. Not sure its the right way for me.
I have never used those kind of lights but light is the number 1 most needed part of the recipe. Without quality light, you will have substandard grows.
I know LED is where I'm going but I have guys who've owned grow stores since the early 90s who refuse to use anything but 1000 watt hps and claim 3 pounds per light. Not the kind of guys who make stuff up but thats plenty for me if I can reproduce those results. As for quality I know I'd prefer full spectrum but for what I payed I can't complain.
I'm confused.
You are not going to use more than one tent at a time because you don't have the amp service?
Then why have all the tents?
I must have missed something....
Was just saying that running everything at once is a higher demand on amps then splitting... 189 amps is max load from what the box says... probably because of a base load already being used or expected. The main breaker says 200. If I understand right I can run a breaker at 240 and reduce my amps for the lights.
 
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ComfortablyNumb

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Oh dude. If you are an Electrician or know one, I'd run a new line from your gang box and use a larger breaker. You have lots of room for it.
and a new line is safer than overloading an existing one. If you know an Electrician, offer him a case beer to do it.
That will solve your electric problem.
 
FET

FET

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Oh dude. If you are an Electrician or know one, I'd run a new line from your gang box and use a larger breaker. You have lots of room for it.
and a new line is safer than overloading an existing one. If you know an Electrician, offer him a case beer to do it.
That will solve your electric problem.
For sure... I'm just trying to learn as much as I can before wasting anyone else's time... professionally. Lol.
 
ComfortablyNumb

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For sure... I'm just trying to learn as much as I can before wasting anyone else's time... professionally. Lol.
Well, you are not wasting our time, this is what we choose to do. LOL
 
FET

FET

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Thank you. Forums are great. I always wonder how some people can give so much of their time to strangers... then I spend an hour typing a post to steer someone in the right direction and figure I get it after all.
 
FET

FET

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Well, you are not wasting our time, this is what we choose to do. LOL
Thank you. Forums are great. I always wonder how some people can give so much of their time to strangers... then I spend an hour typing a post to steer someone in the right direction and figure I get it after all
 
Ponky

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Ok. I'm now high enough to give a quick think. I would get at least 2x 8 light controller. Or even 3 or 4. And run 600 watt lights to keep the tents as cool as I could. I would run them on a split. So half on all the time. And I would regulate the temperature of the intake air for all the tents. To around 70/72.
They would all draw from the same source area. I would went the heat from the lights with vented hoods. To either heat the house or do whatever. I would use some wifi enabled thermostats. So run 8 to 12 lights x 2.
If your running CO2 you don't need to exchange the air very frequently. But could do so with interval timing. I just would find CO2 control to multiple tents would be quite challenging. I would use fresh filtered air in and lots of CFM instead. Reduce AC costs. I have multiple tents in one room. And the room gets fresh air sucked in with a duct fan. Each tent is exhausted by a duct fan. And the room has AC in it. And the lights have their own in and out. I set the air intake and the AC so that the AC stops first and only kicks in if temps get over 77.
 
ComfortablyNumb

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Thank you. Forums are great. I always wonder how some people can give so much of their time to strangers... then I spend an hour typing a post to steer someone in the right direction and figure I get it after all.
The greatest gains in morale are made when we help others.
 
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FET

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Even here in Canada if I pull outside air we are talking about 30 to 40 degrees sometimes... I feel that isnt helping the lights cool. During the winter I worry the lights would be shocked by the temperature. If I remember right if I over cool them I dim them too.
 
ComfortablyNumb

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You might be old enough to recall what used to happen if your car overheated and you poured water straight in. Cracked block.
Unless the lights are made for shock cooling, they need to cool slowly.
Maybe if you mixed some outside air with the inside air (during cool days) to keep the lights a bit cooler in the first place.
 
FET

FET

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You might be old enough to recall what used to happen if your car overheated and you poured water straight in. Cracked block.
Unless the lights are made for shock cooling, they need to cool slowly.
Maybe if you mixed some outside air with the inside air (during cool days) to keep the lights a bit cooler in the first place.
Definitely which is why I'm thinking about pulling the Houses AC cooled air from my basement and exhausting the heat out during summer. During the winter I would just heat my house with it. During the summer though I would be dumping a lot of cfm creating a negative pressure in the house. Does this have negative consequences? I feel like it must. HVAC is a pretty tricky thing design wise.
 
ComfortablyNumb

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Definitely which is why I'm thinking about pulling the Houses AC cooled air from my basement and exhausting the heat out during summer. During the winter I would just heat my house with it. During the summer though I would be dumping a lot of cfm creating a negative pressure in the house. Does this have negative consequences? I feel like it must. HVAC is a pretty tricky thing design wise.
A negative air pressure is difficult to maintain like that. I've always seen it the other way around. You create a positive pressure and let it force the hot air out. My brother was an HVAC guy and that's how he 'splained it to me. It has something to do with preventing mold. I think he said a low pressure environment allows it to propagate faster.
 

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