Hey Chill, I lke that idea... and if I was cooling my lights directly with water it would get warm enough to do that. In my case, I am cooling just the room, and aircooling my hoods. My water never gets warm enough to serve as a heat reservoir for the rest of the house- which is why I'm trying to figure out how to set my chiller up inside my house. If I set it up so that the cold air return blows past/thru the compressor, then I'm golden, right? What aobut just setting it in a room and letting it run, hoping the heat makes it through the rest of the house? I don't think that will be terribly efficient, but it would have to be better than having it sit in an open window all winter! Besides, one has to wonder what the neighbors might think of an 'air conditioner' running in the window all winter...

Boy, do I need a local 420 friendly HVAC tech to help me out now and again! Anyone in NoCo can help a brother farmer out?

When we set these systems up in canada the Ice Boxes were run off of one res with no active chilling. The water-cooled air handlers were run off of another reservoir that was being chilled. The water for the Ice Boxes will get warmer and warmer during the light cycle, storing most of the BTU's created by the lighting. The lights go off, water-cooled air handlers turn off, but the Ice Box fans and pump keep running. The warm water is cooled off overnight while heating the room at the same time. The key is getting the correct water volume to make it effective and also making sure that your have enough heat exchange on the chilled side.

IF anyone wanted to set a system up like I described above using only Ice Boxes you can do that. Have the IB's connected to the lights on one res and IB's wall mounted cooling the room on another res that is being cooled.

I like the idea of putting the chiller inside because you will get maximum efficiency out of your system. You will be using every watt you are drawing, nothing wasted. Putting the chiller by the cold air return for your heating system would be perfect, putting it in a room by itself would not. You can move it around inside to see where it works best but basically if the room its in gets in to the 90's I would move somewhere with more air exchange.

Using every drop of precious wattage...

Chillville said:

I like the idea of putting the chiller inside because you will get maximum efficiency out of your system. You will be using every watt you are drawing, nothing wasted. Putting the chiller by the cold air return for your heating system would be perfect, putting it in a room by itself would not. You can move it around inside to see where it works best but basically if the room its in gets in to the 90's I would move somewhere with more air exchange.

Click to expand...

The plan is to put the chiller in the basement living room. The room is pretty big, like 18 x 12. The only drawback is that it does not have a dedicated cold air return to put the chiller in front of. I'd have to depend on natural circulation of air with the gas/forced air heating system of the house to move the heat around the house. While I don't think the room would get quite that warm, I'd like to tap into the cold air return side of the furnace, right before the squirrel cage, and run an 8" duct from there to the back of the chiller. The part that Im not sure I could handle on my own is really pretty simple; hooking up an electrical line to the thermostat upstairs (digital Robertshaw unit, already has a button to turn fan 'on') so that I could run the blower fan constantly and turn the fan speed down so it's running slowly but constantly, whether the furnace is heating or not.

seems to do the trick with me, depend where you live tho :cool0041:

Lessons Learned Operating Water Chilled Growrooms

Thought I'd share a few things I've learned since my system has been up and running for awhile:

1. This system is a pretty involved and intricate install, unless you're only running one circuit. Don't let that stop you.

2. Number one shouldn't stop you from doing your whole setup with multiple rooms, the results are TOTALLY worth it!

3. Yes, you can run different temps in different places; rooms and hydro systems both.

4. Yes, you can cool both the water in your hydro system(s), and in your rooms with the same water, and therefore with just one chiller.

5. It's better to set a wide temperature 'delta' for the chiller, that is, put the setpoint a few degrees lower, and the trigger temp to kick the system on a few degrees higher than the average water temp you want. The literature suggests 8 degrees. I thought that was a bit much at the beginning, but now it makes sense and works well for me.

6. I got a bigger system than I strictly needed for my setup. Apparently, that doesn't hurt a thing, and I'm not giving up much if any efficiency over getting a smaller one- and this way, I'm ready for expansion should I decide I want to.

7. The biggest draw on your chiller is likely to be your bloom room and its hydro systems.

8. If you want to build more capacity for blooming, seriously consider a flip box and separate light tight space, so you can run two bloom rooms on 12 hour intervals, one on while the other is off, or 'out of phase' for you engineering types out there ;-) This will smooth out your power usage, and you won't need to upsize your chiller. Yeah, that's doubling the size of your setup with the same cooling plant, with only a small amount of extra work plumbing waterlines and Iceflow boxes into the new space. Sweet, huh?

9. Once the main system is in place, adding circuits to your manifold is easy peasy... in my case, because I built manifolds with valves on all inlet and outflow taps, I can now add or subtract circuits, move them around, or do repairs and maintenance without ever taking the chiller and pump offline. The extra expense of a few valves and manifolds is downright trivial next to the advantages gained.

10. Don't skimp on components. As ever the system is only as good as its weakest link, so how badly do you want to deal with a cooling system failure because you got cheap parts, or a second rate chiller? Get good gear from a reputable company that specializes in watercooling and it won't let you down. That's money saved in the long run, not money spent.

11. If you can properly plumb the whole setup, the thing pretty much runs itself. That means a bit more engineering on the front end, for the ease of use and dependability on the back end. In other words, all that work at the beginning to properly design it pays off big time!

12. I set my system up to cool the air in my bloomroom, not the air coming out of my hoods. For that, I just aircooled them with air from outside the room. Saves serious power to do it this way. Also, those Iceflow boxes get cold enough to condense water out of the air, and that's done a very good job of stabilizing the humidity in my bloomroom even without a dedicated air handling system. Since the room is sealed, I got a dehumidifier- but I've yet to use it. I'm also not sure how well this would work in lower altitude and/or higher humidity areas, but I suspect it would be more similar than different. It IS a sealed room setup, after all!

13. Some things are possible with a chiller system that you just can't do with an AC system, period. Examples:

a. Run ONE head unit that then actively cools several rooms, AND cools both air and water. And for those who get the air handling units (if needed), your humidity too.

b. The opportunity to run an outside heat exchanger (aka 'compressorless chiller') to cool your water without having to run the chiller system at all. Unless your climate NEVER EVER goes below 65 (sorry, south Florida), this will save you beaucoup bucks! If you go this route, think about timing the bloomroom in your setup for the coldest part of your day, like 7pm to 7am. You might find yourself not using your chiller much at all most of the year.

c. There are several options to consider to heat your home in the winter with heat you're extracting from your growrooms, some as simple as moving your chiller inside. This also saves you serious coin, this time on heating bills!

d. Hooking this up to geothermal is a no-brainer... and very easy to do.

13. No AC system ever does more than merely move heat around. Don't believe me? go check the coils on the back of your fridge. Or freezer. Or AC unit. Toasty, huh? All these sytems do is move heat from one place to another. The more efficiently you do that, the more benefits you gain, and the less money you have to spend to do it. Because it is so much denser, water does this better than air. It really is just that simple.

With a little thought and effort- and face it, you're already building an aritificial environment for growing plants in your house, so I KNOW you're up to the job!- you can build a system that cools your growrooms, cools your hydro systems, can use cold air from outside to do it, AND can contribute to heating your home, all at the very same time! And every step is SAVING you money, as opposed to costing you hundreds of dollars in electricity bills. Bottom line? Less power used means less coal gets burned at the utility, which is better for the environment, and better for your wallet. Now, that's what I call a win-win!

I keep seeing the argument that ac just moves air. The way i see it, ac moves freon instead of water, besides that the 2 systems are pretty much the same except with a chiller you may have alot more volume of coolant. They both move air over a heat exchanger in the room, they both pump coolant to the outside unit that cools it. How is this any differnt?
The calculator i used to see what size chiller and heat exchanger i needed came out to the same btus of ac i would need at twice the cost and a more complicated system. Plus if I put in 1 sytem to cool everything, multiple rooms, ect If it goes down everything goes down, With 2 split units I have back up and just turn a couple light off til i get things fixed.
I do see a huge advantage if you can run the compressless heat exchanger, I think im going to build one out of old ac parts for next to free. Hook it up with a outside thermostat to shut off if it gets to hot and let the ac take over. I ussaly just switch to intake and exchaust for the colder months to save power, but id like to keep the room sealed.

purpleberry said:

I keep seeing the argument that ac just moves air. The way i see it, ac moves freon instead of water, besides that the 2 systems are pretty much the same except with a chiller you may have alot more volume of coolant. They both move air over a heat exchanger in the room, they both pump coolant to the outside unit that cools it. How is this any differnt?
The calculator i used to see what size chiller and heat exchanger i needed came out to the same btus of ac i would need at twice the cost and a more complicated system. Plus if I put in 1 sytem to cool everything, multiple rooms, ect If it goes down everything goes down, With 2 split units I have back up and just turn a couple light off til i get things fixed.
I do see a huge advantage if you can run the compressless heat exchanger, I think im going to build one out of old ac parts for next to free. Hook it up with a outside thermostat to shut off if it gets to hot and let the ac take over. I ussaly just switch to intake and exchaust for the colder months to save power, but id like to keep the room sealed.

Click to expand...

AC moves air across the cooling coils to cool it. A chiller uses much denser water for the same job; resulting in an efficiency boost of 30%- or even more if you live at high altitude and/or low humidity. For low altitude and high humidity climates, consider a heat pump system, I hear these can run at over 100% efficiency under certain (very damp!) conditions.

If your freon lines fail, you're up the creek without an HVAC license and freon certification, specialized tools, etc etc, unless you like the idea of strangers visiting your op. If your chiller fails, you unhook it from your system and haul it to the repair shop- much more secure this way, and a lot cheaper to boot!

Also if your chiller fails, consider running your house's water through the system in a drain to waste approach; if your incoming water is cool enough, this will provide enough chilling power to get you by until the chiller unit is fixed.

Compressorless heat exchanger works the same way, with the same comonents you just listed. If it freezes in your locale, consider running 50/50 water and propylene glycol ("RV antifreeze") to improve efficiency further, lubricate moving parts and protect against freezing water lines down to below zero fahrenheit.

While it's true that up front costs are higher, lower costs of operation, ongoing maintenance and upgrades will quickly recover the additional costs, and then keep on saving for the life of the system.

Thanks for all the good helpful information looking to make some changes.

ttystikk said:

1. The veg room does indeed have a bare bulb fixture, and the air comes in through the door from the basement (75-80 degrees) and is exhausted out the window to the outside.

The bloom room is different entirely; air is pulled from the basement through 8inch ducting and the ocho hoods, then exhausted outside through another window, WITHOUT ever mixing with the air in the room. Surely there are some tiny holes in the ductwork, but the 8" maxfans suck from the downstream end and push the heated air out the window. The air in the room is meant to stay in the room, where it can be actively managed for humidity and CO2 content.

2. I have a grand total of 7 eight inch 'Iceflow Boxes' (basically automotive heater cores with plastic housings that include 8" openings), 4 8" maxfans, and 2 6" inline fans. The original idea was to use all 4 maxfans and 4 iceflow boxes to cool the air in the bloom room, by mounting each iceflow boxe immediately downstream of its maxfan, the assembly hanging from the ceiling horizontally. They pull room air through the fan, PUSH through the iceflow box, and back into the room. I think that mounting the boxes downstream of each hood is ridiculous... I am also no longer certain I need all four to cool the room. As long as I get acceptable BTU transfer, the fewer, the better, right?

As for the other 3 iceflow boxes and 2 6" inline fans; I want to put one in the big basement living space where air is pulled from for the above uses, with a 6" fan pshing air through it, and another similar setup in the veg. room. Again, these would be just the fan pushing air through the box, all hung from the ceiling.

3. The liquid cooling res. is in the furnace room, which is not in any growing space, and stays relatively cool. The reservoirs for the rdwc setups are in their respetive growrooms, only because there was no other place to keep them.

4. The pump is sitting on the floor of the basement directly underneath the res, since it's a non self priming type. The pump is a chunky 40lb. 1/2hp Flojet unit, I seriously doubt it will have trouble lifting the water up to the ceiling where most of the runs are to get water from room to room, or to the main floor above where the chiller is mounted in a window. By the way, the pump has a main outlet, which goes thru a 1" hose to a Tee fitting which necks down to 2 x 3/4" lines, each going to a 6 way manifold. Those 2 manifolds each will serve the cooling needs of A. the bloom room, and B. all other uses. All lines leaving the manifolds are 1/2", flow through the iceflow unit or a copper coil that sits in the control bucket of the rdwc system, then back to another identical manifold that collects the warm water and returns it to the res. There is a smaller fitting on the face of the pump that is attached to its own 1/2" line going directly to the chiller upstairs. the return from the chiller flows into the res.

Click to expand...

hey man, do you like the iceboxes?? i was thinking of geting a few to use to cool a room completely but i didnt know if it would do the job.. do they do a good job keeping temps down?? would you recommend them?

vangs said:

hey man, do you like the iceboxes?? i was thinking of geting a few to use to cool a room completely but i didnt know if it would do the job.. do they do a good job keeping temps down?? would you recommend them?

Click to expand...

They are pricey, at $200 retail for the 8" size. You'll also need plenty of hose, clamps, manifolds and of course a chiller to be able to use it. If you're handy with tools, you could easily go to your local auto parts store and dig around until you find an automotive heater core that is suitable for your application. Chevy S-10/Blazer heater cores come to mind as one especially affordable option...

My current experiment with these is to use them not only to cool the room, but also to dehumidify it. I'm constructing a unit (with an Icebox in it) with a small footprint that will do both of these functions, and should be highly efficient while doing them. The biggest issue has been to deal with the consequences of lowering the working water temp by 10-15 degrees, mainly how to keep the RDWC water at the 60 degrees I prefer instead of at 45. This should be a simple fix; use a thermostat to control the supply of cooling water to each RDWC coil.

Do NOT use these to cool your vented hoods, unless you're not sending that hot air out of the room- in which case, get non-vented hoods (like adjust-a-wings) because they're much better at reflecting light evenly!

ttystikk said:

They are pricey, at $200 retail for the 8" size. You'll also need plenty of hose, clamps, manifolds and of course a chiller to be able to use it. If you're handy with tools, you could easily go to your local auto parts store and dig around until you find an automotive heater core that is suitable for your application. Chevy S-10/Blazer heater cores come to mind as one especially affordable option...

My current experiment with these is to use them not only to cool the room, but also to dehumidify it. I'm constructing a unit (with an Icebox in it) with a small footprint that will do both of these functions, and should be highly efficient while doing them. The biggest issue has been to deal with the consequences of lowering the working water temp by 10-15 degrees, mainly how to keep the RDWC water at the 60 degrees I prefer instead of at 45. This should be a simple fix; use a thermostat to control the supply of cooling water to each RDWC coil.

Do NOT use these to cool your vented hoods, unless you're not sending that hot air out of the room- in which case, get non-vented hoods (like adjust-a-wings) because they're much better at reflecting light evenly!

Click to expand...

i plan on using the adjust a wings this time around. i dont plan on using them to vent, i want to attach some on the walls and use them to cool the room down to 74-78F. due to the fact that i dont want a huge spike in my electric usage, im gunna run a FLIP BOX. Im gunna have 2 1000w in each room.. the rooms are gunna be estimated 8x12. do you think instead of adding an A/C unit i could rather cool the room with the iceboxes? im trying to cut electric usage. portable a/c that i have is 12k btu and it runs @ 1800watts. If it is possible, how many would you think id need? unless you think that going with an a/c is better.. i just realized im gunna need an 8in fan powering them/

I am going to do the exact same thing 2k at a time flip flop. what size chiller you think?

how big of a chiller would be needed to run 2 5x10 rooms on a flop?

with 2 600w hps in each

I would run a chiller no smaller than one ton for either of these applications.

thank you Ty... I'm going to get a 1hp for 700 still need a pump etc. I will be doing a journal on it when I get construction going so Yall know

I got a question on cooling and I hope this is a reasonable place to ask it, cause I don't plan on using a chiller (yet). I have a well insulated room with total dimensions of 11 x 17 with 10' ceiling. As for the plan as it stands now, I'll have (4) 1Kw HPS and one 600w for mothers. According to the cooling calk that's 29,000 btu's of heat. The room will be vented from outside through furnace filters, with a 6" fan (470 cfm) sucking air out through a charcoal filter. Plants will be set up DWC with about 200 gallons of water in the room. Average temps here in WA range from 31 low to 77 high. What I hope is that pulling outside air through the room will be enough to keep it cool in the summer, and yet I can still move some air through and have it be warm enough in the winter.

What do you think? Am i in the ball park with this or is it just a pipe dream ...

thx

Swany said:

I got a question on cooling and I hope this is a reasonable place to ask it, cause I don't plan on using a chiller (yet). I have a well insulated room with total dimensions of 11 x 17 with 10' ceiling. As for the plan as it stands now, I'll have (4) 1Kw HPS and one 600w for mothers. According to the cooling calk that's 29,000 btu's of heat. The room will be vented from outside through furnace filters, with a 6" fan (470 cfm) sucking air out through a charcoal filter. Plants will be set up DWC with about 200 gallons of water in the room. Average temps here in WA range from 31 low to 77 high. What I hope is that pulling outside air through the room will be enough to keep it cool in the summer, and yet I can still move some air through and have it be warm enough in the winter.

What do you think? Am i in the ball park with this or is it just a pipe dream ...

thx

Click to expand...

I think you will need to seal and actively cool anything above 2kW. Venting the hoods isn't enough.

The biggest issue is whether you're in humid Western WA, or dry east side. In the damp, use ac. This is to remove the inevitable excess moisture. In the dry that same moisture must be conserved, so use a chiller.

I agree w Ty . getting my buildout done before I start a thread. gonna be asking for help.

ttystikk said:

I think you will need to seal and actively cool anything above 2kW. Venting the hoods isn't enough.

The biggest issue is whether you're in humid Western WA, or dry east side. In the damp, use ac. This is to remove the inevitable excess moisture. In the dry that same moisture must be conserved, so use a chiller.

Click to expand...

Thanks TTS - though you're adding costs to my gig ;-} I am in the damp part - the Capital. I'm drawing air from a lightly wooded area so it's always cooler than urban air but I'll plan on adding a/c.

Here's a crazy thought. I got unused space behind the shop where I build the grow room. The ground is a constant 52 degrees or so. The thought is to dig a trench and bury some pipe, then draw air through that pipe. Maybe a group of 2" ridged electrical conduit ganged into an 8" pvc or something. In theory this would cool my intake air. I have no idea how to figure how well it would work though. If it did I could just run a dehumidifier and control temp via fan speed. Ever hear of anything like this?