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a/c my room in the garage

SuperLarry

Member
i have a 9x7 room that is 8 feet high built into a garage with 2x4 and drywall. i have a GE window A/c that I think it 8000 BTU. Today it was 80 outside, 83 in the room and 83 in the garage. It won't get much hotter this summer but it will get hotter. I'm wondering do I just put the A/C in the wall of the room. Would it be better to put it high or low on the wall? Will the A/C exhaust the room air into the garage (smell)? I figure I need to have it at least a little off the ground because to drain the water that will run off the back... I figured I would just set it to 75. It would be nice if I could set it to 65 when lights were off and 75 with lights on.... Any ideas would be very much appreciated!
 

DIGITALHIPPY

Active member
Veteran
unless its a digital a/c you can use on of these to adjust temps day/night

cost me like 80$ at my local h-store.

u should mount the a/c highest up on the wall you can, thats where the heat is, and thats the best place to cool. cold falls, heat rises.a/c's infront of the the plants dont get airflow and the grid freezes

 

SuperLarry

Member
thanks for the reply digital. one of my main concerns is with a window unit will it put the odor from the room into the garage? it has a digital thermostat but its not programmable by the time of day... at least i can keep the max temp at 75 though thats the main concern. also how much water is going to come out of the back of one of these things and how will it change the humidity in my room. another thing im wondering is if it circulates the air in the room and the odor is not escaping that means that the air is not getting fresh CO2 either, but if im running my exhaust fan i will lose my cold air and it will fight the a/c. i can see this leading to a generator or tank as well but id rather not get into all that until i get everything else dialed in.
 
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I basically have the same set up, but I used an 8x8x8 shed instead of framing and sheetrocking a room. I run a window a/c that hangs out the side of my shed and sits on a shelf. I have 4 lights, 2 are vented in one direction through the shed and the other 2 the oposite direction in an attempt to circulate the air in my garage some. I have odorsoks on the outside of the sheds on the exhuast side of the vented lights. You can't smell a thing. I'm not sure if the odorsoks are doing much. the shed is pretty sealed, I made sure before adding a co2 system. I don't think you have to worry about the a/c causing the odor to escape. Someone corect me if I'm wrong but I think the window a/c's recirculate the air in the room and they don't exchange air with the outside air.

If you are concerned with co2 levels and aren't ready to invest in a co2 system get a timer for your exhuast fan and set it in intervals so the a/c wont be in constant battle cooling the hot fresh air. probably your cheapest fix for now. grow equiptment aint cheap. I know how it is. I've got over $5,000 invested in my flower room. only took me four years to get it almost done(I need to get a more powerful a/c before summer).

oh yeah humidity. my a/c helps keep the humidity down. Living in the PNW I still have to use a dehumidifier especially for the night cycle.

peace.
 
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Y

yamaha_1fan

A window unit does not exchange air if you close the vent lever. So no odor will escape but you wont get fresh air either. I wouldnt be too worried about the fresh air. Look at my grow and I have no setup for fresh air or C02. The plants will be fine with the air that comes in when you check the plants IMO.

How big is the garage? The reason i ask is if its not that big, the heat from the A/C will build up in the garage, heating up the room. I had this happen before when I built a room inside of a room.

If you get a digital A/C make sure it has a power failure feature. Basically when the pwoer goes off, it knows what settings (temp, fan speed) and turns back on when power is turned back on. My LG unit does that and I control it with an external thermostat.

In my current grow I run a DH plus the A/C. My A/C does not drip any water. But in a previous grow in another spot, I had to set up buckets but had no DH. You will just have to see. You can set up a tube and drain the A/C to a bucket or maybe even back to your rez.
 
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B00st3d

Member
Theres no way your gonna be able to lower the temp average by at least 8 degress without that A/C runnin just about constantly.And an 8,000 btu window unit prolly pulls around 6 or 7 amps, my 5k pulls 4.5 amps, that I know. So it would be like havin a 600 watt ballast goin in terms of power consumption. Now if you wanna set it at maybe 80 degrees then thats a different story. But I think 80 would be fine really.

Just build a box out of wood with an intake hole and an exhuast hole, then duct up fans to each side so that the intake draws from somewhere else so as not to suck c02 out of the room, then use the same fan that pulls heat from the reflectors if ur usin air cooled and that fan will also suck the heat out of the A/C box, and the a/c will run like it was hangin out of a window, thats what I did.
 

DIGITALHIPPY

Active member
Veteran
he dosent need a box boosted its in his g-rage... sounds like it dosent matter if its hot or ugly.75 is fine, smell SHOULD NOT get through the a/c you might have some light pollution though....(light coming through the a/c)
if its digital just set it at 70 or so, most of the night it should more then cold enough for them.

-besides when your temps are steady day/night the plants strech less......
 

swampdank

Pull my finger
Veteran


300 bucks. works wonders. save the proceeds froma zone and get one before summers heat. im broke too but i absolutely needed this to grow here in the summer. the 8000 btu window unit just didnt cut it.
 

SuperLarry

Member
for some reason i assumed a window a/c would be better then having aportable? either is an option really. anyone care to comment on which would be better?
 

SuperLarry

Member
thats what i thought.... cheaper to buy too! :)

edit: im not sure i understand.. maybe its too early in the season but my home depot and wal-mart are only selling portables. everywhere i see window a/c's it looks like the price is way up since last summer.
 
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B00st3d

Member
The portable is a waste of time for your application. The window unit is more practical but keep in mind that it sucks alot of power every time it starts up. If you dont wanna draw attention then build a box like I did otherwise youre gonna draw attention with an A/C unit hangin out of your garage. Without seein the setup its hard to steer you in the best direction but I think you could just hang the window unit thru the wall of the room. All the heat would go into the garage tho and lemme tell ya , its a whole lotta heat. So you really wouldnt be doin yourself any favors that way. Its like stickin a cooler full of ice in a hot oven and thinkin the ice wont melt. I have the 440 cfm can fan that sucks heat from my reflectors also suckin heat from my a/c box via a T-connection then I have a 280cfm can fan blowin air into the A/C box. The intake for the box comes from outside the room so I dont affect the c02. Just order an a/c unit if you cant find one. My 5000 btu was 70 usd on sale.
 

DIGITALHIPPY

Active member
Veteran
if u have venting, even passive inside the bigger room, then your fine, i bet your garage door leeks air, and noise so be careful. so yea u can put it there, you will need to build a reinforcement to hold it up though.

kind of like this





DEFINATELY window unit, portables are 95% effeciant as windows but the extra housing and fans about double the cost, window units the best bang for the buck.
 
hey swamp is that a grow tent? and if it is what size is it and your a/c size and is it workin for ya????thought of something similar... if you have test or are currently running it what are temps lookin like and how big of a lamp are you usin?? :joint:
 
Digi theres that shed again. I use basically the same sheds, same maker at least. I bought one of those cheap metal frame with wooden shelve units that people use to store things in there garage for around $30 and put my a/c up on the top shelf for support. Pretty cool to see someone using pretty much the same set up. The shed works great I just lined the walls with black and white poly and painted the center beam that was meant to be a skylight black to make it light proof and BAM 8x8x8 foot grow room. I've got another one that is 3x6 that I use for vegging. Cheaper than buying 5 hydro huts for sure and I haven't had any weird issues with my plants because of them.

peace
 

FRANKENBLUNT420

me blunt is like, wicked yo!! owight
damn that shed thing sounds like a good idea. what temp issues do you have to deal with , with one of those things?
 
My sheds are in my garage. my garage is pretty big. you could park 4 cars in it. My veg shed I just leave the doors open to keep cool. It only has a 1k wt MH in it. My bigger shed for flowering has 3200 watts of hps in it. I have the lights vented out the sides and a 5000 btu a/c cooling it. I just added a co2 generator to my shed so I keep the doors closed on my bud room at all times. My temps have been 79-81F recently. My a/c pretty much runs all through the light cycle to keep the temps that low. Eventually I would like to get two vented 600 watt hps for my veg shed and use the a/c from my bud shed so I could close my veg shed up. I definitely need a bigger a/c for the bud shed before summer. The air in the garage is definitely cooler than the air inside the shed. I don't know the exact temps in the garage but I know it is cooler because when I leave the doors open while watering my plants the temps inside the shed drop like 4-5 degrees. They have worked perfect for me. I didn't have to build something permenant in my house and I could always take these sheds down and move em if I had to.

peace
 
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