Loft grow setup

[George2324]

I am designing my loft grow and could use some help to make sure it's going to provide enough airflow.

I am going to have a 3m by 3m tent in a large 8m by 8m loft.

The loft is being fully converted with stud walls and eave vents so there will be a flow of cold air between the room and the roof so the room will appear cold to the outside.

Now my main question is that I am getting an extractor fan fitted on the side wall of the loft. I plan on using this not to extract air but I am going to get the strongest intake fan I can find and pump the room with huge amounts of fresh air.

Will this be enough to then allow the exhaust from
The tent to disperse and passively exit the tent?

I don't really want to have a dedicated exhaust as that would be obvious to flir

Cheers for any input

 

[OlderGrower]

Well for one thing, if you bring air in, it can only come in at the same rate or close to the air going out, chances are your grow area will create a positive air pressure meaning the pressure inside your grow area will be greater then the air pressure outside it. Depending on how you intend to exhaust this area it could work but there needs to be a way for the air in the grow area to escape to the area not in your grow area, so either into your living space or outside. If you are concerned about the possibility that your home may be scanned with some sort of thermal-imaging device I would suggest you vent the air normally through the attic with a carbon filter. Since the attic normally is the hottest area in a home due to heat rising.

 

[George2324]

I plan on having a vent from the tent with a carbon filter pulling air out of tent into the attic but then the air escaping from the attic is my concern. Do you reckon I should have two extractor fans put in? I can place them side by side a couple of meters apart?

 

[George2324]

I think using a second fan to take out air from loft though would leave a heat sig I don't want.

 

[George2324]

You got any ideas how I could easily exhaust in this situation?

 

[Major PITA]

Like OG said, it doesn't do any good to pump in massive amounts of air unless you have a way to exhaust massive amounts of air. Regardless of how you hide it, I think you will find it way more efficient to pull air than to push it.

 

[George2324]

With this setup what could I do to exhaust massive amounts of air? The loft has raised flooring so exhausting to bathroom below is hard

 

[OlderGrower]

Well you might consider pumping the air your exhausting from the loft down into your living space though if you do that you will need a way to control the humidity your now pumping down into your living quarters. On the bright side, that would help with heating the lower area. One way to do that would be through the use of a dehumidifier. Though I digress. Unless your grow area is going to be quiet large and you plan on running a bunch of 1000 watt HIDs for lighting, the heat signature you most likely will be producing will be easy to hide by putting up a lining of foil backed insulation and put in a small a/c unit to keep the temps down outside the 3mx3m area in the loft. I am bad on converting metric to english but basically you have a 10 ft x10 ft area for your grow area located in the middle of a 26.5 ft. 26.5 ft area which will leave you roughly an 8 foot walkway around your grow area. Plenty of room to cool it down so it is a non-issue though you will need to be concerned with the height of the grow area, you will want roughly a 1 foot air space between the grow area and the roof so you can set up ventilation over the top of the grow area to pull the heat from the top to the area around the actual grow area, this can be easily accomplished with a few fans positioned to keep air flowing across this 1 foot void. Set up a portable A/C unit in the 8 foot area around your grow area to keep the temps within reason and your good to go. Hope this makes sense to you, it is my day off from work and I have been medicating so I realize sometimes I am not the best at communicating my point across.

 

[George2324]

That's a good idea that I plan on doing with the ac unit. However I thought a portable ac unit didn't actually work the way most people think. As an ac unit basically extracts the hot air out of the house. A portable one has nowhere for the air to be sent so how does it actually cool the room down? I've seen ones online that simply just mist the air with water to make it feel cooler but it actually isn't cooler.

In regards to venting into the house below I would like to do that but I would have to do it myself and have no idea now I would go about it as I have structural loft flooring put down that's got about a 6inch gap between the structural flooring and the cieling below. With kingspan In between. I don't want to be fking up the cieling in the bathroom. Plus if any visitors get a warm breeze when they are on the shitter it would be a bit suspicious.

My only issue is the exhaust I just wish there was a simple solution. Maybe there is a simple solution I just havnt got it yet

What if I have the tent exhaust heat from the tent into the grow room and somehow have an ac unit that actually works cool the air then vent the air at the other side out of the loft?

If the air that is being vented has been sufficiently cooled surely it won't be detectable?
Edit just realised it would be detectable unless I somehow managed to get the temps down to 0 degrees as outside temp could be 0 some times of year