Cooling idea, think it will work?

Crusherdub

Active Member
Sup people,
In the summer my grow room will get to about 94/95 degrees. im wondering if this idea will help cool it to around 84:
Get an evaporative AC swamp cooler, these work best and lower temps most when humidity is low and they raise it quite quickly. My idea was put one of these in the room (A 4x2x8 closet) along with a dehumidifier to keep relowering the rising humidity and keep up cooling potential. This could also be made a closed system with my cool tube's intake being outside the room, or an open system with my cool tube pulling in air from the grow room.
Any Thoughts, Tips, or Suggestions?:blsmoke:
 

Sketchbomb

Member
you're just introducing water into the air and sucking it back up. you'd be better off doing some ducting or throwing a block of dry ice in there. hmmm, dry ice is carbon dioxide so i guess you'd kill two birds there lol
 

Crusherdub

Active Member
how would i do the dry ice setup? like put it in a bucket with water, or alone in a bucket? i like that idea. how much would i need to be using?
 

aficionado

Active Member
Here is the physics of what you are proposing.

1) You lower the temperature in the room via cooling the air with vaporization of water - absorbing significant heat but substantially increasing the relative humidity.
2) You reclaim the water vapor through a dehumidifier where water saturated air comes in contact with the cool copper coils (think soda can on a hot day).
3) Water condenses on the coils and is collected in a reservoir, releasing heat.
3) The coils stay cool by removing the heat generated when the air comes in contact with it. That heat is displaced back into the room with the "dry" air.

So essentially you are creating a complete system where the heat is transferred (ambiant to swamp cooler, to dehumidifier, and back to ambiant), but never displaced. This is like trying to cool your house by opening the refrigerator (it wont work BTW ;)). Until the energy (heat) is removed from the system (your closet), you will simply be recycling it and actually will make it hotter due to the electricity you are burning to transform the energy from one form to another. To cool you room, you have to displace (remove) the heat - not recycle it.
 

aficionado

Active Member
Oh, and the dry ice idea - great on paper, not so great in application. CO2 has a very low sublimation point (solid to gas), meaning it does not need a ton of energy to vaporize. When using it to cool a room, you will need substantial quantities to absorb the heat needed to reduce the ambiant temperature of 64 cubic feet of space. You will find it will be very uneconomical and impractical.

On top of this, you could increase the CO2 concentration in your room to unhealthy levels - also, not a good idea.
 
Top