Tying Into House Ac

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StonedBlue

StonedBlue

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So I've been working on a new grow room for awhile. It's in an upstairs bedroom but I've been thinking about moving it into my garage. I have an attached 2 car and want to section it into rooms. I will use just over half the space. My furnace is there and I wondered if an hvac guy could cool and heat it from the central ac/heat or if that would mess up flow pressures and rates ect or whatever is important to the existing rooms.
The garage has the advantage of having the electricity box right there and water and drainage would be easy. But the temp control seems like more of a problem. It gets into triple digits in summer and sub freezing in winter. My fleeing room is 2400 watts light plus accessories plus mother room.
 
JWM2

JWM2

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You’re gonna have a fight on your hands. I’ve tried to grow in the garage before and it was not fun. Plus if your heating or cooling system ever fails you are screwed. My best advice would be to have seperate heating and cooling for just your grow space. That will at least give you some controllability over it.
 
1diesel1

1diesel1

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So I've been working on a new grow room for awhile. It's in an upstairs bedroom but I've been thinking about moving it into my garage. I have an attached 2 car and want to section it into rooms. I will use just over half the space. My furnace is there and I wondered if an hvac guy could cool and heat it from the central ac/heat or if that would mess up flow pressures and rates ect or whatever is important to the existing rooms.
The garage has the advantage of having the electricity box right there and water and drainage would be easy. But the temp control seems like more of a problem. It gets into triple digits in summer and sub freezing in winter. My fleeing room is 2400 watts light plus accessories plus mother room.
Yes, it would not only screw up it he sytstem it would shorten its life span. The system is designed for a certain square footage to cool. Making it a bigger square footage would cause it to cycle more often making it work harder. I’ve done exactly what your thinking I ended up using a portable ac the biggest one I could get and it worked it’s ass off.
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StonedBlue

StonedBlue

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Thanks for the input. My garage is well insulated but I think Y'all have convinced me to keep it where it's at.
 
JWM2

JWM2

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My biggest concern would be could you get enough of your current HVAC air into the grow area to keep it at the right temps? If for some reason you didn’t have enough heating or cooling then you are back to square one. With seperate heating and cooling you could control the conditions of your grow space much easier and if for some reason you need to stop growing you can always tear it down fairly easily.

In fact this is one reason why I created The Growing Rack (shameless plug). It’s a smaller self contained grow space (compared to a room) and you can easily control the internal environment. Plus it’s more substantial than a tent and cheaper (and larger) than most grow cabinets. Imo it’s a great hybrid that’s easy to use, quick to assemble and just works. I actually created it for my own use and thought others might enjoy it as well. Which is why I made it the size it is. After designing many grow rooms / spaces over the years I figured this would make the job much easier for new growers to start and give old timers (like myself) something that is mobile and has enough space to actually work as intended. And I can’t tell you how cool it is to have a grow space on wheels. I never thought it would be as useful as it has been but being able to unplug it and roll it to its next location is really neat. Anyhow I’m not trying to hijack this thread. I feel bad for even mentioning it ;-)
 
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A

AverageJoe

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So I've been working on a new grow room for awhile. It's in an upstairs bedroom but I've been thinking about moving it into my garage. I have an attached 2 car and want to section it into rooms. I will use just over half the space. My furnace is there and I wondered if an hvac guy could cool and heat it from the central ac/heat or if that would mess up flow pressures and rates ect or whatever is important to the existing rooms.
The garage has the advantage of having the electricity box right there and water and drainage would be easy. But the temp control seems like more of a problem. It gets into triple digits in summer and sub freezing in winter. My fleeing room is 2400 watts light plus accessories plus mother room.
What's up...

Browsing the forum and came across your post. I have 2 story house and use a game room on the second floor. Have central air and heat.

I recently rebuilt a new flex duct distribution box which attached to the coil in the attic. Then reran all flex ducts getting rid of all Y splitters, so all room vents had a direct run from the ac. My room is 15x15 and is serviced by a 9 inch flex duck line. The room used to start a line with several other rooms using splitters. New config helped.

I ruin 2 tents for perpetual hydro harvest. So,,,, 2 air cooled lights, all the water pumps involved and a DIY chiller to maintain res temps. I vented my lights and the chiller directly into the attic by cutting holes in the ceiling. All air was filtered by CAN filters before being vented into attic.

I also had 2 separate circuits feeding the room, so that was a unplanned bennifit. 1 circuit would not support all my equipment.

Side note. I also installed water and drain line, so my RO tank was in the same room. No hauling water up the stairs...

Im currently remodeling the room getting ready for a new grow. You can see part of my RO tank in the photo far right side.
 
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StonedBlue

StonedBlue

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My attic just has a distribution box and a couple y's
 
ethcan

ethcan

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Grab the thickest Roxul foam board from home depot. Build a wall with it against your garage door. Consider lining the entire perimeter with it. Bonus points for framing up a wall and putting in a door.

Get a mini split. They are seriously easy to install.

Both of these steps may initially seem more daunting than trying to use central HVAC and growing in an uninsulated garage, however your power bill will be brutal, not to mention the benefits of being able to heavily control your environment will more than pay for the initial cost.

Smell is another concern, and adding another layer of isolation from the outside world will help you to control it.
 
StonedBlue

StonedBlue

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My plan was to build a room, insulate it.
One wall is on outside of house, 2 are shared walls with house and the one I'm building.
The wall that seperates house from garage should already be insulated right? Then I was going to use a window shaker I already have with an inverter for heat.
It would just be so convenient. Fuse box, drain and water supply are all within a couple feet.
 
sixstring

sixstring

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So I've been working on a new grow room for awhile. It's in an upstairs bedroom but I've been thinking about moving it into my garage. I have an attached 2 car and want to section it into rooms. I will use just over half the space. My furnace is there and I wondered if an hvac guy could cool and heat it from the central ac/heat or if that would mess up flow pressures and rates ect or whatever is important to the existing rooms.
The garage has the advantage of having the electricity box right there and water and drainage would be easy. But the temp control seems like more of a problem. It gets into triple digits in summer and sub freezing in winter. My fleeing room is 2400 watts light plus accessories plus mother room.
you could have a guy install a zone damper system and give you another thermostat in the garage.then the 2 areas would call for heating and cooling independent of each other,sometimes at the same time.prob cost about 1k for a single zone system with labor plus maybe some additional costs for some extra ducting in the garage.
 
cemchris

cemchris

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Take the above advice. As much as the upfront cost of the minisplit is your power bill will be as big as the cost of that system over a year. Not to mention you want to be able to kick the heat on in your house while you cool your rooms or dont want to have your house A/C running full blast all the time when it's not needed. Not sure where you live (that's very dependent) but growing up in Texas and learning to grow there it's minisplit/separate full setup or go home. Everything else is a bandaid. You can swing window units if you want but they are gonna cost 2x as much on the power bill or more. Portables you are better off digging a whole and lighting all that money on fire. Those are for backup if some other cooling option fails not a full time solution.
 
B

Burned Haze

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Look into server portable commercial A/C

Kwikool makes some tough and nice a/c’s (even geothermal option, but would need water chilling and lots of water/flow)


Side thing is always have highest workable microne filter for the a/c that isn’t suffocating it( I’m using filtrete 1900’s) . The filters says to change the filter 1-3 monthly, being a growroom, visually check them (it made me change them every month instead )
 
Dan789

Dan789

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Thanks for the input. My garage is well insulated but I think Y'all have convinced me to keep it where it's at.
You could also adjust the times of the year when you’re planning your grow. The summers here outside Sacramento are smoking hot, and usually cold, but not exceedingly so in winter. So I grow during the winter, time my lights to be on during night time, then with the exhaust I’m salvaging that drawn off heat into my room to keep it warmer. Adding as necessary with a small convection electric radiator. I do have one tent with clones in veg that I run during the day, so I’ve got lights on all round the clock.
The advantages of selecting the optimal growing season along with when you’re running your lights can overcome many problems you’re experiencing. Without undue extra expense via your utility bill.
 
Indiva710

Indiva710

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Depends on how big ur garage is but a window
Ac could be a lot easier And cheaper than a mini split as you said it would be in different sections but all depends on sq ft anyways...
 

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