I used 25' stainless steel wort chillers when cooling multiple resses with one chiller. Works fine. However, it seems like the lowest I could pull the res temp was 69-70 (tested with a laser therm).

In an ideal world, each res would have it's own chiller. Lowering res temps to 55-56 the last 2 weeks of flowering really finishes the flowers nicely.

noone88 said:

I used 25' stainless steel wort chillers when cooling multiple resses with one chiller. Works fine. However, it seems like the lowest I could pull the res temp was 69-70 (tested with a laser therm).

In an ideal world, each res would have it's own chiller. Lowering res temps to 55-56 the last 2 weeks of flowering really finishes the flowers nicely.

Click to expand...

What size chiller were you using & how many gallons total being chilled?

1HP chiller cooling total of 200 gallons (2 UC systems)

wooooow. Is anything in the system insulated? Like buckets, piping, chiller loop reservoir? That seems like Alot of chiller, but then again, I'm not exactly the most experienced when it comes to this sort of thing lol

Nothing being insulated. I would've liked to pull the temps below 70, but that's the limitation when you're using coils to cool instead of having a dedicated chiller.

noone88,
are you running water through your coils, or did you get the glycol? Are you running an actual rez on the chiller, or just the fluid in all the lines?

Thanks,

-TF

I just got a killer deal on a 3 ton Chillking unit, 7 iceflow boxes, a pump, and a CO2 burner... I am trying to cool a 16x9 room with 8 1000w hoods ("ochos"), which are already aircooled with outside air. I plan to leave the aircooling in place, and also run cooler coils to cool the hydro systems in the room. I've been doing a lot of reading and I'm getting the distinct impression that I am just a hair too small on the rated capacity of my chiller to handle all those lights, but that doesn't take into account that I'm aircooling the hoods, either.

I also plan to cool my hydro systems- total of 500 gallons- and I'm already repositioning my ballasts outside the room. I already got rid of the CO2 burner because I didn't want to add extra heat to the room, and I already have a CO2 tank and regulator setup on my environmental controller. I figure if I'm going sealed room, I won't have so many trips to the hydro store for refills anyway, right?

So I'm still in the proess of trying to set the whole thing up- I have a 55 gallon drum for a reservior, plenty of tubing and hose clamps, and I even went so far as to build a stand for the res. so the pump only has to life water maybe 5 feet from top of res. to chiller, and the iceflow boxes are all within 6" of the top of the res as well, all to aid water flow. I'm going with a Titan Controls Mercury 4 unit to control the fans pushing grow room air through the iceflow boxes, so I can set an idle speed and maintain continuous cooling throughout the time the lights are on. Unlike some, I'm fine with the idea that the iceflow boxes will potentially condense water and I plan to run that water right back into the hydro systems it transpired from in the first place!

Just to make things even a lil more interesting, since I'm right at the ragged edge of capacity for my chiller, I plan to run a cooling circuit of incoming water from the main house line- even in the summer, water comes in at 62 degrees- and use it to provide some additional cooling. Think watering the lawn when the res starts getting a lil too warm...

I am trying to figure out how I can calculate the benefits/penalties of these strategies so I can see where I'm going- off a cliff or on the right track? Can anyone help me with actually quantifying the effects of these strategies?

One 1200 gph pump in a 30 gallon res for the chiller. A 500gph pump for each coil. Running water through the coils.

Noone, what temp did you have the chiller set to?

50F

Tried below 50F, saw no difference in the RDWC res temps. Need to use some kind of glycol mix if you want to pull it below 70 degrees.

The issue is that the RWDC system, like the UC system itself, is a huge radiator. It pulls in too much heat.

If you were ADHD and took the time to insulate everything (the PVC, grow sites), you might get it below 70 degrees.