It's gonna be hot! Seeking advice on setting up tent in a loft

[bikesnweed 42]

I'm in the process of planning a small grow tent in my loft. It's the only place where I have space to do such a thing.

I found a tent that fits in my local grow shop. It's 120x60 with a height of 160. I cannot go any higher thanks to the sloping roof. They suggested a 400W HPS which seems right to me, not that I have any experience of growing under lights.

Before investing I have been measuring the temperature up there. It's summer in Belgium and the temp has been reach a max of nearly 30 degrees C in this room during the day (usually more like 25-27), when the lights will be off. In the night it goes down to 20-22 degrees. The guy in the growshop said the bulb should raise temps inside the tent by about 5 degrees.

I'm wondering if I should get an aircon unit to keep the temp down in the outside room. The space is not so big so will not be a huge drain on energy bills. Alternative would be to set it up and see if it works ok and invest in aircon if things are are really too hot. I could also aircool the hood, though I heard this may not be good for the bulbs.

I'd be really keen to hear what more seasoned growers think.

Cheers

[SukonmiSkunk 97]

i Install ducted air cond for a living.. well i did(25 years in the trade).. and it will always be way hotter in your roof space than it is out side.. general rule is about 15degrees Celsius hotter.

how is your roof space set up? is it just a roof space.. or been converted to a spare room? Is there going to be light leaking out from your roof tiles/tin? you dont want to be walking down the road and your house looking like a disco ball with light beaming out everywhere.

That size is about the the same size as my growdrobe with a 400 so you should be fine with the light under normal conditions, but being summer.. and the roof being around 15c hotter.. i think youre going to have heat issues. with that said.. i think for the rest of the year youll be fine. The next issue youre going to have.. is where are you going to be bringing air in from?, if youre using the roof space.. and intaking air from youre roof space.. it will be hot air not cool.. causing issues. also you will need to run a filter on your intake air. The dust that floats around in the roof space is a lot more than a bedroom and will definitely need to be filtered.

Is the tent the best option?

[Dust 6,284]

hi man, well like you said the most logical would be to setup the room first and see how it goes, if you are able to run it at night without no one seeing etc, an opened window should do the trick and pu you around 26° which is suportable for the girls if you start to go above 28° you can think about starting to buy an aircon, up to 30° they handle it if you have a good airflow and you can also add a little CO2 to help them handle the heat. but as you migh know the more you keep the temps around 25° the happier they are they will just not die if you have higher temps it can be done but won't be the best results, but it's only for the season it comes back to normal a little later and you will need a heater :P

good luck

[bikesnweed 42]

i Install ducted air cond for a living.. well i did(25 years in the trade).. and it will always be way hotter in your roof space than it is out side.. general rule is about 15degrees Celsius hotter.

how is your roof space set up? is it just a roof space.. or been converted to a spare room? Is there going to be light leaking out from your roof tiles/tin? you dont want to be walking down the road and your house looking like a disco ball with light beaming out everywhere.

That size is about the the same size as my growdrobe with a 400 so you should be fine with the light under normal conditions, but being summer.. and the roof being around 15c hotter.. i think youre going to have heat issues. with that said.. i think for the rest of the year youll be fine. The next issue youre going to have.. is where are you going to be bringing air in from?, if youre using the roof space.. and intaking air from youre roof space.. it will be hot air not cool.. causing issues. also you will need to run a filter on your intake air. The dust that floats around in the roof space is a lot more than a bedroom and will definitely need to be filtered.

Is the tent the best option?

The space is a converted room so hopefully light will not be an issue, I'll check it out though just in case. Good point about where the "fresh" air will be coming from. Also, good point about whether the tent is the best option. Alternatively, I could just put the plants directly in the room under the lights, this might help a little with the heat over the summer. The room is not so big. I would just need to make sure there are no light leaks when I have the exaust air coming out of the skylight in the roof. There is a big wooden beam running down the middle of the room so I can easily suspend the lights etc from there. Will save a little bit of cash on the tent to boot I'm liking this approach, gives me more flexibility to scale up too

I wonder would having the space open make any difference due to the light that would have been reflected from the interior of a tent? Maybe I could knock together a makeshift frame and put some white plastic on it to help reflect the light but still keep it open. It's a rented house so I'm afraid repainting the walls is not an option.

hi man, well like you said the most logical would be to setup the room first and see how it goes, if you are able to run it at night without no one seeing etc, an opened window should do the trick and pu you around 26° which is suportable for the girls if you start to go above 28° you can think about starting to buy an aircon, up to 30° they handle it if you have a good airflow and you can also add a little CO2 to help them handle the heat. but as you migh know the more you keep the temps around 25° the happier they are they will just not die if you have higher temps it can be done but won't be the best results, but it's only for the season it comes back to normal a little later and you will need a heater :P

good luck

Thanks Dust, good to know that the worst thing that can happen is a lower yield. Thanks for the CO2 tip. I met a guy in Spain a few weeks back who explained to me how to make a simple CO2 "machine" from some coke bottles, bicarbinate of soda and some vinegar. Now's my chance to give it a whirl

Ha yeah, in a few months I'll be posting questions on how to raise the temp!

[Dust 6,284]

yes it is a nice wa to add CO2 with this method, probably not the most efficient and totaly uncontroled lol, but still efficient it seems, you will see a few of our members using this method, and i believe there is a thread about it somewhere

Good luck

[SukonmiSkunk 97]

might be better to move away from the tent. Im guessing the beam running down the middle is the a/pex roof support, and will be good to hang the light off. probably give you a bit of extra head room as well and that will help keep the heat off the canopy. Mind you all these heat issues will be only for the one season, the rest of the year it should be fine.

where it narrows down to the edges of the roof , you could build a wall along those sides. a light timber frame with pandafilm will be more than enough.. and will also help block light. Also if you snake your exhaust though a length of ducting this will cause a light trap too so no light should leak out the exhaust, make sure its taped on good, so it doesnt blow off.

theres a way you can bring cool air in from the ground if you have wardrobes/closets near. you can run a duct up from the ground inside a closet and into the roof space. Using some sort of vent/cover on the ground to disguise it. This is how we run ducts from the AC on your roof to a ground floor rooms, it hides it nicely, youll lose a little shelf space and its a bit of a mission to get it right, but it only has to be the once.

If your roof has been converted, do you know if theres insulation in the walls? This would help keep the heat out as well. Run a thermo test in your room if its reasonable for some one to live there, then plants shouldnt have any issues. if its the one room in the house were you cant be on a hot day.. well.. plants will probably suffer on those days too.

Fresh air is key to everything so spend some time on thinking about how you can achieve this.. remember hot air rises, so the lower down you can collect the fresh air, the cooler it will be with out having to run AC all the time, also whether or not you need to run intake filters. Filters probably arent needed if you take the cool air from lower down inside the house.

[bikesnweed 42]

Nice one SukonmiSkunk, plenty of tips there. It's freakishly hot up there for the moment, so I'm thinking to set it all up over the next month or so and plug it in once the weather gets a bit cooler.

Found this by Danny Danko on High Times which has a few more ideas, http://www.hightimes.../read/beat-heat not sure I like the sound of water cooled lighting though!

[bikesnweed 42]

yes it is a nice wa to add CO2 with this method, probably not the most efficient and totaly uncontroled lol, but still efficient it seems, you will see a few of our members using this method, and i believe there is a thread about it somewhere

Good luck

Cool I'll poke around and see if I can find it, cheers