Exhausting in the winter

[Wookieefoot]

Now that its winter in my neck of the woods. How do I deal with my heat exhaust? It's going to look like I'm running a dryer 24/7! Also I should say I haven't hooked up my HPS and started exhausting yet. I'm still vegging but just thinking ahead.

How do you guys in the colder climates deal with this?

 

[powerrobbie]

Lots of people find ways to use that heat from the lamps to actually heat there homes in the winter and not just dump it outside....thats not efficent you need to be warm and the heat in the grow room needs to get exhausted so this works best

 

[Iron_Lion]

dont vent into the attic unless you like to be the only house on your street with no snow on your roof.

If you watch police FLIR videos thats how they always catch people is by some dryer vent or other oddly placed vent that dumps hot air outside the house 24-7

 

[Wookieefoot]

Lots of people find ways to use that heat from the lamps to actually heat there homes in the winter and not just dump it outside....thats not efficent you need to be warm and the heat in the grow room needs to get exhausted so this works best

I thought venting inside was a no-no?

 

[Wookieefoot]

dont vent into the attic unless you like to be the only house on your street with no snow on your roof.

If you watch police FLIR videos thats how they always catch people is by some dryer vent or other oddly placed vent that dumps hot air outside the house 24-7

Haha! Just that image of no snow and my neighbors having 5-6" on their roofs is hilarious. I should say I'll be venting a 400 watt hood.

 

[MagicChef]

I think you misunderstood. He is saying that dumping it outside isnt efficient, when you could dump it out to an adjacent room or whatever, and it will heat that room up. In the summer months it's not a big deal dumping outside (if your carbon filter works) but in the winter its a dead give away.

 

[Herbophile]

I dump mine into the return side of my forced air hvac system. The extra heat is great during the cold months. Fortunately we have more cold months than warm months where I live.

 

[Bunz]

I thought venting inside was a no-no?

As long as your air is filtered, venting into the attic is a good thing. I can understand it being a no-no if you are in a snow environment, but seeing how I live in So Cal, I gotta get a bindle if I wanna see snow......

I vent into my attic and have huge gable vents at each end....never had a problem.

Bunz

 

[Wookieefoot]

Hrmm. I use a tent in a small room so just exhaust into an adjacent room. Simple enough. Thanks guys!

 

[Wookieefoot]

I dump mine into the return side of my forced air hvac system. The extra heat is great during the cold months. Fortunately we have more cold months than warm months where I live.

The return side? Sorry don't know much about HVAC systems.

 

[875]

my neighbor has some sort of water furnace that continually vents so not necessarily bad thing... sight-lock fences and plant some cedar type bushes around it. but routing it into your existing duct work for added heat in winter is most efficient way. you are already paying for the power, might as well harvest all "products". i route mine through a dirty laundry shoot to the upstairs bathroom....

 

[Wookieefoot]

Thanks for all the ideas guy. Appreciate it!

 

[Herbophile]

The return side? Sorry don't know much about HVAC systems.

In a forced air hvac system there is a cold air return that draws air from around the house via duct work. It then gets drawn through the furnace to be reheated and redistributed through out the the house.

If you have a forced air furnace a quick google search will show you lots of nice diagrams that show you how the system works in detail.

 

[Wookieefoot]

In a forced air hvac system there is a cold air return that draws air from around the house via duct work. It then gets drawn through the furnace to be reheated and redistributed through out the the house.

If you have a forced air furnace a quick google search will show you lots of nice diagrams that show you how the system works in detail.

I was looking at my system last night after reading your post. There was a manual attached to the system I never knew was there, LoL. I see what your talking about now. I would just have to make sure all air going in is 99% scrubbed or I'd have a problem, right?

 

[Phaeton]

I am within 100 miles of the arctic circle, last week reached minus 40 degrees.
I vent none of the waste heat outside. The RH reached 20% and visitors mention the smell being obvious before the door is opened. I am sure this is more healthy to live with than the zero RH nature provides.

The furnace does not run during the 12 hours of 7000 watts recirculated heat, even at -40. If I lived in the flats I could test this at -60 F, I am so glad I had the foresight to built on top of a hill.

Climate change! Real! And happening! No, just on the sort term.

The temperature reached +40 F because of a storm in the Gulf of Alaska. That is an 80 degree change in 2 days, 40 degrees of it in the last 10 hours. What a roller coaster, not boring this week at all. The wind blew out the electricity for an hour and a half last night, resetting timers today.

 

[rocket high]

Lots of people find ways to use that heat from the lamps to actually heat there homes in the winter and not just dump it outside....thats not efficent you need to be warm and the heat in the grow room needs to get exhausted so this works best

This is what i do ... the carbon filter removes all the smells then it spilts into two 4 inch duct's that run to two air valves in the bathroom and kitchen ceilings it does make a big difference to the heating bill ...its deffo the way to go imo.

 

[powerrobbie]

Yes exactly.... as long as the air is scrubbed of course why dump all the heat outside when you are paying out the ass to keep yourself warm as it is...Although the OP stated hes only using a 400W....Doubt it will do that much to keep him warm and I bet you could even vent that into the attic without it affecting the snow on the roof but you mine as well dump it into another room....any little extra bit will help you save money on your heating bill

 

[rocket high]

I run two 400w hps's and im very surprised how much heat these things produce ... ive had people stand under them and comment on the hot air ...i just say its a new heating system that i put in to save on electricity bills and they believe me which is good for me as i dont want people to figure it out but i doubt they would .

Good luck OP

 

[Herbophile]

I was looking at my system last night after reading your post. There was a manual attached to the system I never knew was there, LoL. I see what your talking about now. I would just have to make sure all air going in is 99% scrubbed or I'd have a problem, right?

Yes, if it's not scrubbed it passes it all over the house. As long as you have a quality scrubber it shouldn't be a problem. I've been running mine in this fashion for 8 or so years and the only time I have any odor is when I've neglected changing my scrubber in a timely fashion. To eliminate any leaks I always run scrubber -> fan -> light -> exhaust.

The way mine works for the amount of air I'm moving is while the furnace is not running I have air come out of the return vents. As soon as the furnace kicks on and it starts drawing and moving air the system works as normal and all air gets moved through the furnace and and into the supply vents.

My problems occur during the summer months when it gets warm as I don't have any practical way to get the heat out of the house. So my AC works serious overtime cooling all that extra heat. Thankfully it's only a big problem for a month or two tops.

 

[TheGreenReaper]

I think this works for under 2k...venting inside...but in my experience if you are growing correctly over 2k, you will create a sauna inside your home, with moisture dripping down the windows like a YMCA pool. Been my experience in winter in CO. It isnt just hydro media...its the transpiration from healthy plants that dumps massive amounts of H2O into the air. I just didnt want a new ambitious but unknowledgeable grower find themselves in trouble with 8k and 10 gallons of a water a day being distributed into the air. The water has to go somewhere. Before I got sketched on this and quit doing it, the house had so much humidity that doors wouldn't work right etc, lol, cause everything here is built for dry air...and all the wood and materials in the house swell up like a salted pig.

I always found rocky mountain/desert dry air attics to be best. If you vent on one end with enough cfm, it will exchange all the air in the attic, by going out end vents (if you got em) or ridge vents, pulling fresh low humidity air in through the soffits. The air exchange that takes place in attic for some reason never acquired the "steam signature" up in the attic that the rooms give off discharging directly into the outside air. I think the attic provides for a gradual temperature differential, first from room to attic, then attic to outside, and the gradual transfer displaces the moisture over more cubic feet eliminating the steam blast. Not everyone lives in this type of climate...I understand...this info is worthless for anyone in the US right of the Kansas border and south of Minneapolis - and that is a lot of people. My apologies for not being of more help to those folks, and if you live in FL....just move already.

This has been my experience, yours may differ. I am in a new location, had attic at previous...currently have a basement window discharge (3600w) and its 2degrees F right now and freaking out at the discharge and need to fix it. I am a legal patient, w/ patients and ED recs and under 30 plants so end result wouldn't be a problem, but I just like to be invisible (why does anyone but my patients need to know) and I feel VERY visible at the moment.

Best wishes to all. Onward.