Venting tent exhaust air into furnace possible?

Lenin1917

Well-Known Member
How do you put an AC unit in a tent ??
It’s in the room that the tents in, not in the tent lol. But I i will be putting a portable ac in the drying tent I’m setting up. They’re not to big, take up maybe 2sqft of floor space.
 

pain4life

Well-Known Member
You're scaring me now... Why couldn't I just vent a tent through the drier vent that's already in my basement.... What kind of furnace/water heater is this okay with?? The drier vent has been there for years now and its not a problem.
Sorry, didn't mean to cause panic. I think it all depends on the volume of air you're exhausting. There needs to be an equal volume of coming back into the house from somewhere. Most small grows will be fine using that vent. Use dampers on the dryer vent if needed.
 

rkron0413

Well-Known Member
I poked mine right into the return side of my furnace. The tent air gets pulled thru the carbon filter thru the exhaust fan into my return duct. I keep my furnace fan running all the time. That was way easier for me to do than to duct it outside.
 

Meast21

Well-Known Member
Sorry, didn't mean to cause panic. I think it all depends on the volume of air you're exhausting. There needs to be an equal volume of coming back into the house from somewhere. Most small grows will be fine using that vent. Use dampers on the dryer vent if needed.
I have 5 tents that are either 3x3 or 4x4. My basement is 700 sq feet... I have my central air on all the time and it blows a lot of air down into the basement bc I have ducts down there.... As long as I can't die from some fumes I don't care.
 
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LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
I just got one of the AC Infinity ones:
https://www.acinfinity.com/hvac-home-ventilation/ducting-clamps-grilles/ac-infinity-backdraft-damper-ducting-insert-6-inch-black-galvanized-steel/



Couldn't decide if I initially wanted it on my intake line (to block the opening when the exhaust fan ratchets down to zero) to stop from smell leakage, or on my exhaust line so that when the fan drops to zero it shuts and doesn't let cold air in. After some experiments, this one will go on the exhaust.

It would be easy enough on a dryer line to have two of these at the Y-connector so that when your dryer isn't blowing it closes. and when your tent exhaust closes it's not blowing. They're pretty cheap too.
 

Three Berries

Well-Known Member
Change in seasons here. First winter with a tent. First winter to be able to remotely monitor temp and humidity. Currently no exhaust fan needed and maintaining ~80f during lights on, 70f off with the tent. Had a backdraft flap on the exhaust fan but with the fan never running decided the natural flow of air would be better rather that stave them for CO2 or high humidity stagnate air.
 

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
Change in seasons here. First winter with a tent. First winter to be able to remotely monitor temp and humidity. Currently no exhaust fan needed and maintaining ~80f during lights on, 70f off with the tent. Had a backdraft flap on the exhaust fan but with the fan never running decided the natural flow of air would be better rather that stave them for CO2 or high humidity stagnate air.
For me half the issue is cold air coming 'down' the exhaust line and pushing stink out into the room if the fan isn't running. Had it happen a few times late summer when my T6 shut itself down and it was cool enough to create backdraft at night. I ended up moving to an always on setting but really wanted to utilize the auto functions to keep my tent temperature regulated to a narrow temperature band with lights on and for when lights out hit and the humidity rises to keep it in reasonable check.

Moving to a Controller 67 this week which will allow me to set a minimum fan setting as well so I can make sure there's always some air pushing through the tent in one direction only. Not unusual for our winters to be down in the 0f to -10f off and on, especially at night. The duct to the window is only about 3' long, so a backdraft could quickly be a problem even if it triggers the fan to ramp up again.
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
Basement gets hot in the summer, I basically have to have central air on all day (when AC is on air gets into basement with 3 vents off the furnace). My friend/hvac guy said I could take the warm air from the exhaust of the tents and instead of the hot air just getting thrown back into the basement he said it could go back into the furnace with extentsions of the ducting off the tent directly into the furnace? Does anyone do this?? .... In the winter I need the warm air down there bc my basement will get down to 67 degrees so I would just un-hook it then let the air kick into the basement.
I used to vent directly into my cold air return for my furnace. It worked great the whole time I lived at that house(6years). I always wanted to tap into one of the ducts on the output side or the furnace too so my room would be heated and cooled the same as the rest of the house. Those vents were harder to get to in my basement and I would have had to run ducts across the whole thing though so it never happened.
 

xtsho

Well-Known Member
How do you put an AC unit in a tent ??
Using one of these. I've done it and just used a Y-splitter to vent out the same duct as my exhaust. It worked but wasn't ideal and took up a lot of room in a 4x4. I only did it for one summer. I just shut down indoors and grow outdoor plants in the summer now.

 
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