Temperture advice or experience

tomatofarmer

tomatofarmer

New Member
Welcome all, First I have constructed a box in my closet (its actually a closet threw another closet). The box is 6' tall and the base is 3' by 3'. so its a sizable box. The walls are screwed into a frame of 2 by 4s. The walls are made of 1" thick particle board. I have painted the interior with white reflective rubberized roof paint. and wood caulked the small gaps in it to try and make it more of a seal. On the outside of 3 of the walls i have big pieces of styrofoam like insulation. and the 4th wall is the door which is only a to size piece of the same insulation. no particle board on the door.

I have 1 90watt led 1 HID 90watt and 1 250 watt infrared? (GE is the brand i dont know what there called they are bulbs found in this 30 year old house from when it was built) The closet it is in is basically exposed to outside temp, not wind or weather tho. Where i live gets real fucking cold well below 0 and im worried bout the plants. So far the records of temp i have are when its 50ish outside it stays above 80. when its 30 out it stays about 61-75 degrees. I will post pics soon. I was thinking more lights or last resort a space heater but that would require more montering for me to have a space heater running (i dont trust them damn space heaters)

Im looking for advice or insulation techniques or someone to tell me to get my plants outa there before it gets to cold or something last thing i want is to murder my girls because its going to be a long winter.
 
My grow box is in my basement. It's cold and damp down there. I had troubles keeping the temps up to 75-78 and the humidity was getting up into the 60's. I was at risk for powder mold. So, I ended up putting a small space heater inside my box. It keeps the temps stable and keeps the humidity in the low 40's. Works really well. At first, I put the heater under the plants. But, it was blowing hot air on the leaves and making them wilt. So, I moved the heater up closer to the top and use a fan to spread the warm air down amongst the plants. Works out really well.


Space_Heater_1.JPG




Heater_Change.JPG
 
No vents in the closet, it is exposed to outside temp which was 50 outside two days ago and 30 outside today and will be well below 0 this winter (most likely into the -20's). As it gets colder on the outside of the box the temp inside drop as well. When it was 30 degrees outside my box was at a good 67 when its 0 outside it will most likely be alot lower.
 
Your Box has alot more craftmenship then mine. Mines pretty janky compared to yours i will post picks in three days. But is a space heater better then adding more lights? Despite my ladies looking gorgeous i am on the low side of lumens per foot i believe so adding lights might help that and heat and probably be cheaper on bills. Also i would feel more comfortable leaving the lights unattended then the space heater.
 
Ya know a 400w MH/HPS in there would be about perfect. It would also bring your heat up a bit. Only problem would be when you turn off the lights at night. Then it would get cold as hell. That's why I put the heater in there. It keeps the temps stable when the lights are off and the vent is running.
 
Try using some type of heating mat. Like a heating pad or germinating pad. If you insulate the box well enough and wrap the heating pad around the pots you should be good. The pad would give enough heat off to warm the room and keep the roots warm. Just keep an idea on you soil temp and if it gets to warm like 85 or higher turn it down or move the heating pad. I use one to heat my space and its night because you don't have such high of a fire risk with them. Good luck and keep us posted!!!!
 
If you like I guess theres no reason you cant run a small heater on low, and just let it warm up the place at night when its cold, Youll have to keep an eye on RH in the basement.. If you can get fresh air in that would be good, and circulating air always is a good idea..
You can purchase heat mats for under your pots if you like?? Plants are fairly hardy but you dont want them freezing!! So maybe if you can raise the temps in the base ment and keep em fairly stable you should be right.. Im sorry I cant provide much more suggestions for you mate? Hope you get it sorted, looking good so far.. Have a good one. Smokemup
 
I have decided to offer my thoughts. First of all I live in a cold part of Canada and temps drop alot at night... currently -5c in daytima and -20c at night. I have always ran my lights at night (9pm - 9am) so that the temp flucuation is minimal. I suggest this for you.
Secondly I want to address the insulation issue. Insulation is used to "trap heat", BUT with a ventilation fan running you would be lucky to trap the heat for 10 minutes after the lights go off, so more insulation would be pointless IMO. It all comes down to intake air... if you are drawing your intake from within the warm house your temps should never drop much below the temp in the surrounding room. If you wanted to heat the intake just add a heater on a timer to your intake.
Last point.... I have my exaust hooked to a splitter so I can either exaust out the attic, OR switch it to just exaust in the surrounding bedroom. When I exaust out the attic (summertime) it pulls all the heat from the house, if I exaust in the attic in the winter it melts all the snow on my roof and looks like I have a sauna up there. So in the winter I just exaust into the bedroom that my grow room is in. The temp of that bedroom is always hot with the lights on and that air is just pulled back into the intake.
So to get to the point.... run your lights at night and it will be a big help with temps.
I hope this helps,

Jonny
 
Thanks Stilletto for the advice but my setup is different frm yours im sure. I live on the water in UP michigan and the air he is phenomenal people with athsma come up here for therapy because the air is so clean and fresh off the water. current no intake or exhaust the door i have on it is 1 piece of insulation with maybe 20" on each side (not the top or bottem) that has maybe a millimeter or two of gap, just enough to see a tiny bit of light, and checking on the plants also completely airs it out in like 1 go. Also i foliar feed with seltzer water and have a co2 geny in there with them ladies. so as of right now i think my options are either space heater, more lights, or more insulation.

Anyways stilletto is your box exposed to outside temp? Becuase mine is in a closet in another closet and it is away from the wind and snow and rain and whatnot but still exposed to the temps of outside.
(also in vag i have been running lights for 24/0 with great results so the run at night might only work in flowering)
 
Put a heater in the closet that your grow box is located in. That way, the area around the box stays warm and the temps inside your box willl remain constant.
 
I wish it was that simple the closet its in has multiple vents in it that go right outside, Even when i get my pics uploaded it is still hard to explain, but all that would be doing is trying to heat up the air outside. I think im going to have to get a space heater inside the box and more lights. Our setup looks decently similar but the outside of mine is exposed to (i assume) more severe temps. My ladies are about 40 days old now and i think im going to flower at 60ish. by that time its going to be hella cold outside so im going to have to do something.

Im still interested in more input and ideas though. Last thing i want to do is have them die in the trial run of one of these ideas

Thanks for all the ideas and techniques so far.
 

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