Winter Attic Climate Control

[outdoorsman101]

How can I control the temp in a grow tent during the winter in an attic that will be getting v cold?

 

[ArtVandolay]

Well, you could buy a small heater and put it in the tent. Your grow light will probably keep it warm enough when lights are on. Check out ebay there are many sizes/wattages. I wouldn't recommend heating the whole attic - you don't want your roof to be the only one in the state without frost or snow on it

 

[meds4me]

personally i would look at making some sort of "room" for the tent to be in. That way you could "pre-heat" some of that attic air into your grow area.

 

[dirtyolsouth]

HI,

Both of the suggestions are great from art and meds4me... Even if you put a heater inside of your tent there is no insulation so it's going to be hard to keep temps decent if you live where it gets really cold. How cold does it get there for overnight lows...? Do you run your lights at night... That can help quite a bit. If you can either build some type of structure around it with 1 x 1's and 4 x 8 sheets of 1/2 styrofoam insulation or maybe attach a layer of insulation sheets around the outside of the tent so that there is some type of insulation. If you go with putting a heater inside the tent there are some decent quality thermostats that you can run your heater with that the sensor can be placed away from heater in the grow room and it will regulate temps much better than the cheap built in thermostats that heaters come with.

Bundle up!

 

[outdoorsman101]

it's going to be autoflowering plants so the lights will be on 24h/day and lows in the winter will get near negative

 

[dirtyolsouth]

it's going to be autoflowering plants so the lights will be on 24h/day and lows in the winter will get near negative

Do you have any idea how cold it gets in your attic? When you say "near negative..." Do you mean Fahrenheit? Celcius? It's a big difference... HID? fluoros? CFL's? We're trying to help you here... we need details!:holysheep:

 

[outdoorsman101]

sorry, fahrenheit, and I'm not sure what type of light to use yet, I haven't bought it... The attic will probably get to around 20 degrees fahrenheit at the lowest. So, yeah it will be very cold.

I was thinking about doing fluros, but maybe a HID would be better because of the heat it produces. Would there be a problem keeping an HID on 24 hours/day for 8 weeks?

 

[dirtyolsouth]

Hi,

I grew up in ND so I do know cold... lol... Nothin' like having to plug your car in at night so it starts in the morning... I think a MH light is your best bet for helping with the heat but it's not going to produce THAT much heat imho... I don't even know if a 1K MH would produce that much heat + 40º in a tent but it might. But the plants still need some fresh air so I think a timed exhaust cycle to exchange the air every so often will help keep the CO2 levels acceptable. I think you're going to need some kind of heater too but I don't know from experience. My 1K adds probably 25º F to my 2 x 4 x 8 closet... Once my exhaust got unplugged by accident from my timer and when I got home 2 hours into my day it was about 95º in the closet compared to 72º in the bedroom... So I'm guessing a 600+ MH might help alot but I doubt if it will keep things warm enough on it's own...

Happy Growing!

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I live in a cold climate also. If you insulate your tent, I think that a 600W should keep your tent warm enough without adding a heater. However, I believe that the preferred light schedule for autos is 20/4, so if you turn your lights out, you will probably need auxiliary heat.

 

[benamucc]

Try pulling your intake air from a heating duct for the rest of the house. (Assuming that the house is heated with forced air) Use a horizontally mounted damper to control the flow from the "trunk" line. When the furnace kicks on it'll blast the room if you don't use a damper. A vertically mounted damper will "scoop" air into it. This makes a horizontally mounted damper much more precise.

If you're tech savy they have electronic LV dampers that you could wire to open when your intake fan calls for air. This would keep the duct sealed from the rest of the HVAC system when the fan was off, preventing any back flow of "dank air".

Also if you run your lights so that the schedule leaves your dark hours in the middle of the day you will negate any heat loss from the lights, and your intake air will already be a nice temperature. Also remember depending on the type of light you end up using the ballast can help produce a fair amount of heat...and they take a while to cool down...

Good luck.