Cost effective way to heat up a grow tent environment

Hey guys,

As the title states I'm currently having some issues with maintaining the appropriate temperature ranges.

I'm a grower from Malta and we recently passed the law to be able to cultivate up to 4 plants.

In summer temps are ideal but during the winter I'm having some troubles...

My highs are max 22 Celsius / 77 Fahrenheit and at lights off they dip all the way down to 14-17 Celsius 55-62 Fahrenheit.

Any cost effective methods to heat up the tent? The room it's in has no ac/heating so it would have to come from an external source.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated as always.

Thanks in advance.

When is lights off? Night or daytime? If so adjust your light cycle so lights off during the day, lights on at night. Before dawn is usually the coldest time of day, so I usually have my lights kick on around 9pm to 9am. That alone may increase the low range in your spot. Works for excess heat too.

123drp said:

When is lights off? Night or daytime? If so adjust your light cycle so lights off during the day, lights on at night. Before dawn is usually the coldest time of day, so I usually have my lights kick on around 9pm to 9am. That alone may increase the low range in your spot. Works for excess heat too.

Click to expand...

Yeah, my lights are set to the lights on cycle during the night but still having issues with the temps.

Since switching the light on cycle to the night it has helped but the resulting temps are the ones in my post

So probably going to have to introduce heat some other way.

Thanks for the reply.

That’s on the cooler sided sure, but still workable with. Little 500w space heater should do the trick

Lenin1917 said:

That’s on the cooler sided sure, but still workable with. Little 500w space heater should do the trick

Click to expand...

Yeah for sure, definitely agreed but much slower growth compared to my other grow I did in the summertime.

Since I'm running autos I'm worried it's probably stunting them a bit.

I'll look into getting a space heater for the space.

Thanks.

Or a heat mat under your pots

Herb & Suds said:

Or a heat mat under your pots

Click to expand...

I was thanking of doing so.

Do you think it would be sufficient enough to warm up a 3x3x6 space however?

Didn't commit to the idea because I'm skeptical but have never used them so cant say for sure.

Thanks for the reply.

I use mini 350 watt space heaters on inkbirds currently. It's kind of a pain and my ideal room will have baseboard electric heaters hard wired on their own breakers.

meangreengrowinmachine said:

I use mini 350 watt space heaters on inkbirds currently. It's kind of a pain and my ideal room will have baseboard electric heaters hard wired on their own breakers.

Click to expand...

Yeah seems like a space heater or a heat mat is what I'm going to have to go for.

Baseboard heating would indeed be ideal but got to work with what I have hahaha

Thanks for the reply.

A dehumidifier in flower Kicks out a good few hundreds watts of heat or use tube heaters up each side of the grow as they are cheap

budman111 said:

A dehumidifier in flower Kicks out a good few hundreds watts of heat or use tube heaters up each side of the grow as they are cheap

Click to expand...

Hmm yeah, where I live we do have quite high humidity and I did always notice an increase in temps when running the dehumidifier.

Ill look into this but the dehu I have is huge XD normally just keep it in the same room not in the tent it's self.

Thanks.

JCMT98 said:

I was thanking of doing so.

Do you think it would be sufficient enough to warm up a 3x3x6 space however?

Didn't commit to the idea because I'm skeptical but have never used them so cant say for sure.

Thanks for the reply.

Click to expand...

A couple of these and a stat would probably do it
https://www.amazon.com/iPower-Waterproof-Hydroponic-Gardening-Germination/dp/B082HTLNT8/ref=sr_1_57?crid=26TU3WS8FK3WZ&keywords=heat+mat+for+plants&qid=1643142836&sprefix=heat+mat+for+plants,aps,424&sr=8-57&th=1

Herb & Suds said:

A couple of these and a stat would probably do it
https://www.amazon.com/iPower-Waterproof-Hydroponic-Gardening-Germination/dp/B082HTLNT8/ref=sr_1_57?crid=26TU3WS8FK3WZ&keywords=heat+mat+for+plants&qid=1643142836&sprefix=heat+mat+for+plants,aps,424&sr=8-57&th=1

Click to expand...

I will look into this, thanks or providing the link.

They seem to be out of stock currently, if i go for this option I'll try source them locally.

Thanks bud!

JCMT98 said:

I will look into this, thanks or providing the link.

They seem to be out of stock currently, if i go for this option I'll try source them locally.

Thanks bud!

Click to expand...

I put towels under mine to keep heat rising instead heating the floor

Herb & Suds said:

I put towels under mine to keep heat rising instead heating the floor

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip will do so.

I've ran autos on 24/0 for that same reason

Tiflis said:

I've ran autos on 24/0 for that same reason

Click to expand...

I had my last run go for 18/6

This time round I'm running a 20/4 cycle thought it would help but didn't do much it seems

JCMT98 said:

This time round I'm running a 20/4 cycle thought it would help but didn't do much it seems

Click to expand...

What 24/0 does is it maintains whatever your "lights ON" temps are. If they are too low to begin with, upping the hours isn't going to help any (heat wise, might still give you better growth from increased hours)

Tiflis said:

What 24/0 does is it maintains whatever your "lights ON" temps are. If they are too low to begin with, upping the hours isn't going to help any (heat wise, might still give you better growth from increased hours)

Click to expand...

Hmm true since they might get stunted from the cold might as well give them full 24hr cycle to help counter it.

True that.

Thanks.

JCMT98 said:

Hmm true since they might get stunted from the cold might as well give them full 24hr cycle to help counter it.

True that.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Cheapest solution