Hi CJ,
Thank you for all the great information I only wish I read the entire thread before I bought window AC's that will not work for my design.
Need your thoughts what split systems to run. Here are the details of my setup:
Climate: High desert Socal. Avg highs of 90-110F summer. Lows down to 20F in winter
Insulation: My rooms are built inside a garage with R19 insulation. The rooms themselves have R13 insulation
Flower: 2 rooms that are 10x10x8 each. Each room has 4000w bare bulb and they are running on a flip box. One of the flower rooms has a CO2 burner and I am sharing the air between the flower rooms using inline fans. I know that the room that is dark does not need CO2 but due to AC needs and money shortages this is how it must be setup. Plus I am hoping that the more humid air from the dark room will balance out the drier air from the light room and reduce the need for dehumidifiers.
Veg: 1 room 19x6x8. 2400w bare bulb + CO2 burner. Room is sealed well so the pilot light on the burner pretty much supplies the room with the needed CO2 so it rarely goes on.
I have a hallway in-between the flower and veg rooms that is a lung room. I original planned on mounting the window ACs in each grow room with the compressors in the lung room. After firing up the Veg I drastically underestimated the heat load of the window AC's. The lung room with only 1 AC running is like 110+F. Instead of adding lots more fans to the lung room and trying to get this to work I am scrapping the idea of the window AC's and going with a mini-split.
I really do not like the idea of having 2 or 3 outdoor units if I can help it. I live in a more rural area and any neighbor behind me would see these 2 or 3 units lined up and think WTF. Plus at night it is very quiet and you can hear everything. If I can keep it to 1 outside unit I do have a 3 sided compressor shed behind the garage that I think would be perfect for the outdoor unit.
My guess after reading this thread is you would suggest at least 2 units (1 for flower and 1 for veg). A dual zone for flower and single zone for veg.
I know that my veg needs a minimum of 15ooobtu so I figured an 18k unit would be good. Since I am sharing the air between the flower rooms I was hoping to only need a 36000btu for both flowers (18k per room). I know that 24k per flower room would be needed if they were not sharing air but since they are I think the 18k per room would work.
This is the unit I was hoping would work for all 3 rooms.
http://www.air-conditioner-system.c...1-MSZGE18NA8-(THREE)-Ductless-Split-1377.html
I know the max the outdoor unit can handle is 48k btu so if all 3 units are running at the same time that is still 16k btu per unit which I think would work. Would having the unit running basically 24/7 be a issue?
I hope I gave a clear enough description. Any advice you can give would be much appreciated and if your willing to come to the high desert I will definitely need someone to install this correctly.
Thanks