sfgiantsfan
Well-Known Member
Hey Folks! Merry Christmas!
So I grow in the winter in my garage. The climate I live in gets pretty hot so it's not productive, maybe not even possible, to grow in the warmer months in my garage.
Since I switched to LED lighting, lack of heat is an issue. While my garage never gets below about 50 degrees, that's too freakin cold for our plant of choice. Due to my keeping things on the down low, I can't run my lights on during the cooler temps like I used to so I need to follow the daylight/nighttime hours. I get up early so it allows me plenty of time to garden before my son gets up.
To combat the heating issue, I looked at several options. I fashioned up a very small space heater to an intake to blow warm air at the vent holes but that made me nervous. But I did find one solution that is working for me that I haven't seen used on any other forum so I wanted to share it with you.
Again my setup is in my garage with an average ambient temperature of about 52 degrees during a 24 hour period. My goal was to keep the temps from getting below 60 degrees and not over 80 although a bit over would be fine.
I looked into a reptile radiant heating "bulb" that emits no light, only heat. I was nervous about it but I found one, in a very small self-contained cage that looked interesting so I thought I'd give it a go. After about 3 weeks or so, I'm happy to say this has worked great for me and my application. It's 100w, I set it up on a thermostat/timer and I setup a computer fan to gently blow the warm air down toward the plants. It's located directly between the cross angle aluminum of my lights. No shade is created by it at all.
My box is like 30" x 30" inches and 50" tall and this does the trick, safely.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Here's the "bulb":
So I grow in the winter in my garage. The climate I live in gets pretty hot so it's not productive, maybe not even possible, to grow in the warmer months in my garage.
Since I switched to LED lighting, lack of heat is an issue. While my garage never gets below about 50 degrees, that's too freakin cold for our plant of choice. Due to my keeping things on the down low, I can't run my lights on during the cooler temps like I used to so I need to follow the daylight/nighttime hours. I get up early so it allows me plenty of time to garden before my son gets up.
To combat the heating issue, I looked at several options. I fashioned up a very small space heater to an intake to blow warm air at the vent holes but that made me nervous. But I did find one solution that is working for me that I haven't seen used on any other forum so I wanted to share it with you.
Again my setup is in my garage with an average ambient temperature of about 52 degrees during a 24 hour period. My goal was to keep the temps from getting below 60 degrees and not over 80 although a bit over would be fine.
I looked into a reptile radiant heating "bulb" that emits no light, only heat. I was nervous about it but I found one, in a very small self-contained cage that looked interesting so I thought I'd give it a go. After about 3 weeks or so, I'm happy to say this has worked great for me and my application. It's 100w, I set it up on a thermostat/timer and I setup a computer fan to gently blow the warm air down toward the plants. It's located directly between the cross angle aluminum of my lights. No shade is created by it at all.
My box is like 30" x 30" inches and 50" tall and this does the trick, safely.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Here's the "bulb":
