Large heat mats in a tent grow?

  • Thread starter Mr. Molecule
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Mr. Molecule

Mr. Molecule

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Hey all, I'm a former professional medical cultivator and I'm going to be setting up a 4'x4' tent in my garage in about a week to grow (for personal) for the first time in 3 years. It's killing me to pay dispensary prices and then on top of that injury, not get the kind of quality I got used to as a grower!

I'm in the Northern California area, so while it hasn't yet gotten cold, it's headed that direction.

I had this idea to use two 48" x 20" heat mats, which would give almost the whole 4x4 floor of the tent the type of heating that those mats could provide—they'd definitely keep the bottom of the root zone warm, but might also keep the ambient temp of the tent warmer too.

What I'm wondering is whether this would be a bad idea and would encourage mold to grow under them, etc. The idea would be (once it starts getting truly cold, with temps in the low 50s in the daytime) to have lights on at night and off during the day to mitigate the day/night temperature curve. So the heat mats would kick on when the lights go off. Part of the idea is that this could be an alternative to using any kind of space heater or whatever, and definitely an alternative to putting the pots on 2" styrofoam as insulation from the cold concrete floor. When I go into flowering I'm sure I will put a small dehumidifier in, and the mats would probably become redundant and get turned off.

What are your thoughts? Would it be hazardous because they could grow mold underneath? Or have some of you done something like this successfully?

EDIT: Another thought I just had: or does the tent material act as a sufficient barrier to the cold coming from the concrete floor it's on? After all, there will two layers of it, the actual tent layer plus the "floor liner" piece.
 
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TripsRabbit

TripsRabbit

1,259
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You could just grow autos and leave the lights on 24/7
 
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