New Grow, Need help w/heat problems

Whats up world of rebels, freedom fighters, and music gurus. I am new to the scene. After years of blowing money I decided to make an investment and DIY. I have spent about $700 on the whole setup, and thats about all that I want to spend. I have attached some pictures for you to look at, to piece together my problem. I have a space in the back of my walk in closet that I converted to a grow room. Its the only space in my house that is stealth enough to keep out visitors and in-laws. The space is 4x4x4. I plan on growing 6 small plants which are not sexed yet (If I end up with one im cool, I just like to chief) As you can see in the photo that can be LST'd etc...which I have no clue how to do but I will read up and learn....any advice appreciated. My first problem is the 400w is putting out a lot of heat for this small area, and even though I have an air cooled hood and im venting out its way too hot with the door closed. Can anyone give me advice on how to cool this area down keeping it simple and cheap. HTG sold me most of my items, The owner said to trade out the 4" fan and filter for a 6" fan and filter, but of course I already spent the money cant return it now and im screwed (unless there is someone out there that wants to buy this, basically brand new). The second problem is I only have about 3 feet between the plants and the bottom of the light, can anyone help me with how to grow these plants through flowering and get a decent yield without burning them up. I am already neck deep in this project. I have spent endless hours doing research before I started all this. The problem was my first grow spot was a No-Go. The specifics for the room are below... Any help is greatly Appreciated......

400w HPS
Air cooled tube
4' wind tunnel fan
elf charcol filter
hydro setup+airstones+air pump and buckets
Grow and Bloom nutes
BIG BUD powder stuff
dip and grow clone juice
Temps are 100F with door closed, 80-86F with door open, 65-70 at night with no fan or light

Looks cool so far man, was going to get the same cooling tube but decided to just go with the Hood....

Unfortunately, i am in your same boat to an extent...

:/

on the air cooled tube, stick one end outside the grow area, and have a fan that sucks the heat from the bulb. hot air rises, just throwing air onto the light will not help much. get the air out, and keep fresh air circulating with the box fan amap (as much as possible)

im not sure if you can see it in the pics but I have that wind tunnel pulling the air through the charcol filter---through the light--then out the room to the attic. The box fan is circulating the air inside and I was hoping that it was maybe cooling off the light or at least not letting the heat hit he plants below.

i couldnt tell... does your attic have adequate ventilation? heat will most definitely accumulate if not, and heat rises, so if nowhere to go it will build up regardless of the fan. seems to me youve created a hot air balloon in a sense. sorry i cant assess the situation any better.

yea thats a good question. I think on each side of my attic there are just slated vents to outdoors. I will eventually take the ductwork from the wind tunnel and run it straight out the roof with the upstairs bathroom vent in the attic, but the inlaws are around a lot and might be nosy. Do you think If I just cut another hole in the ceiling and put another small fan mounted in the roof exhausting into the attic more, that will help? I wanted to eventually run some home made CO2, but because its so hot, the exhaust runs constant with the light. HELPPPP....

That raises the question of how large does an attic need to be to not build a heat bubble for a 400 watt, 600 watt, etc? I am going to be getting an air cooled hood soon as well and will be running filter->hood->some duct->fan->ducting out. By all accounts it should work. However, most spaces with 400 watts are a little larger than yours, at least by height, and that is probably why you have heat build-up. I think that the hood your using is crappy too(I have read on here that is the worst hood to get). Someone with more experience should come along soon enough though and help out. I hope so because I would like to read it.
Good Luck!

In addition to those questions...how much air needs to flow over one of those hoods to keep the room their in cool anyway? I am planning on having a filter, hood, then 230cfm venting into the attic...sorry for asking questions in someone else's thread.

you're better off using two fans - one strictly for exhaust and the other cooling your light. rule of them is you should be able to exhaust your grow room about three times a minute. So in order to determine what CFM rating of fan you should use, here is the formula

Determine cubic feet of grow room:
width x length x height
multiply by 3 (for 3 times a minute)
= aprox. CFM rating for exhaust fan.

It sounds like you have the identical set up to mine. It has a lot of potential im just having heat issues. Since my room is 4x4x4, that would make the CFM that I need 192cfm. The one wind tunnel I have is rated for 200cfm. What if I bought one of those metal in line duct fans from home depot? and just put that up in the ceiling with no duct work exhausting straight into the attic would that work? I have also read that some people put the ballast out of the grow room, If I mounted the ballast in the attic and ran the cord from the light down into the grow room would that drop the temps to what I need? thanks for all the input....that light might suck but being a first timer I wouldnt have known the difference from right to left. If you told me to use cow shit for substrate I would probably do it, but then I would be smokin boo boo:/ The guys at HTGsupply were pretty cool though, so i wasnt really thinking they would sell me some garbage, but you get what you pay for! Anybody have any ideas on how large I should grow these plants before flower? I dont have much room.

Ii will be raining in your attic if you don't get it vented to the outside, trust me on this one, If its not raining you will have a bumper crop of mold until it get cold enough to freeze the mold then the rain will come.
Any bend you make in your ducting cuts down the air flow. How far from the entrance you have into the attic to the outside wall? VV

um I left enough duct work to eventually go out the roof prolly somehow using a T to combine with the upstairs bathroom vent. I dont really have a way to go directly out the house unless I drill through the left side wall and then through the brick in my house? right now the fan is just pulling air and the light heat up to the attic space.. Im sure I could come up with something, but it might not be stealth, The in law was planning to come help me install new installation in the attic. what about crawl spaces inbetween floors and walls? still mold build up?

I cant tell from the pictures and I don't think I ran across in your posts where you mentioned you had an intake... Do you and how big is the opening?

no I dont have an intake I just open the closet door from time to time which lets air from the house inside, I dont really have a way to get intake or exhaust directly to or from outside.

Jlansmok20 said:

no I dont have an intake I just open the closet door from time to time which lets air from the house inside, I dont really have a way to get intake or exhaust directly to or from outside.

Click to expand...

I think you need to come up with an intake. What you want to try and do is create sort of a "wind tunnel" type thing going on. Air flows IN from bottom of cab, flows upwards past the plants and out an exhaust. Doing this keeps the air in a constant upwards flow... Hot air rises and never really gets too far past the exhaust fan. If you have no intake to constantly be feeding fresh cooler air in, the heat will build up inside the cab and push itself downwards making your temps a lot higher.

The only way to solve heat problems, is proper ventilation. Period. get stoned and brainstorm. u will think of something.

Update.....I took down the elf charcol filter and put it on the floor, which is probably exhausting some of the cool air along with the hot air but my temps are between 80-87F. is this good enough temps, the plants seem to be doing fine, they are growing they are about 5 inches this week. I will probably grow them for another week because the water is running low, the roots are starting to show at the bottom of the rockwool. I want to flush and get them on bloom nutes and then change lighting to 12/12. So hopefully by the end of next week they will be between 7-10 inches and i can start to bloom because in my grow area I only have about two feet of grow space and that is with the HPS light.

email468 said:

you're better off using two fans - one strictly for exhaust and the other cooling your light. rule of them is you should be able to exhaust your grow room about three times a minute. So in order to determine what CFM rating of fan you should use, here is the formula

Determine cubic feet of grow room:
width x length x height
multiply by 3 (for 3 times a minute)
= aprox. CFM rating for exhaust fan.

Click to expand...

bingo, email saves the day...

i was going to say the same thing, but he beat me to it.


okay... i think you need to run 2 fans.... 1 being so it can be a nice flow of air to the light and the grow room. 2 for the co2.

air cool the light, seal it (it has glass right?), connect the fan just to the light, yes...no carbon just fan. then buy a fan for your exhaust.... keep it towards the top.

you will also need an air intake. how/why the hell are you abusing your plants? WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF SOMEONE PUT YOU IN A 4X4X4 SPACE AND YOU HAD TO BREATHE THE SAME AIR???? no? okay then dont do it to your plants. everything needs fresh air. get you a fan, if not...at least cut holes for passive intakes.

running 2 fans in the ventilation system is crucial. Because the main heat problem would be the heat that is put off from the light. When you cool the light down...you allow the place to dramatically cool down and if still needs to be cooled down, you can use your exhaust fans periodically to help the cooling.

when running co2, you would keep the fans cooling the light (because it should be sealed with a glass as well) and turn off the main exhaust for a few mins to let the co2 sit in there, then you would cycle your exhaust fan to clear the room, and you would need to replace with fresh co2. your main exhaust fan would be the fan that your carbon filter would be attached to, because the light is sealed, the air doesnt need to be the treated, because it would be sealed right? right? you would also keep your intake fans running during all of this


and yes, remove that ballast out of the room, it will cause the heat to raise most definitely!!!!!!!

hope that helps


and btw...sunleaves isnt crap bro, some of the stuff may be crap from htg, but not sunleaves....


but i've been looking into those fans, the sunleaves windtunnel.....are they really as quiet as there are advertised?

Both of my 600 hps ballast's are Sunleaves. They work great, quiet, dont put out much heat. Never had a problem.