Best way to use heat venting from air cooled lights?

**sweetcheekz** · 09-20-2011, 12:26 PM

Hey guys, got a problem that I am looking for the best solution for. Any input is appreciated.

So...my air cooled lights currently vent to the outside from my basement. The house is on a hill, so the basement has one wall accessible from outdoors, the rest of it is in ground. I cut a hole in the wall showing to vent directly outside....
Now, it's a 3 floor (including basement) home, and I'd like to vent the heat back into the main floor so it'll warm up the house.
This is a big house, so I can keep this a secret from the kid while she's still living here (not home much and never enters basement)

Options,
Solution: Just cut an intake in main floor wall close to basement exhaust (but high enough to reach 2nd floor) and run venting so it makes a "U" and goes into the house
Problem:
- Even with filters, it's going to be noisy with the 745 cfm fan. I don't want the kid to hear this.

Solution: Build a storage room (which would be useful anyway) on side of house, vent into that room and have a passive intake into house
Problem:
- I'm a little lazy
- The room would probably look ugly and the wife would hate it
- The kid *might* be curious about the new attachment to house and go look at it, if she saw it. There's a chance she'd never see it

Solution: Build a box about 4'x2' and mount it vertically covering both the basement exhaust hole and main floor intake hole, but keep the two holes far apart
Problem:
- Once again, ugly, but not a big deal since it's the side of the house no one see's
- Possibly still to loud?
- Would have to well insulate box, as it'd get cold quick and start pushing cold air in as soon as the lights were off

Just trying to even out the bill a little by saving on heat

I'd love to hear more (and better) ideas!

**ak.fortyseven** · 09-20-2011, 12:39 PM

they make a muffler for the fans.

**BCcannabis** · 09-20-2011, 12:40 PM

I put my heated air directly from my grow area into my furnace room. The heated air gets mixed in with the houses air and fresh air intakes and dispersed throughout the house. Noise is not an issue becuase i run my furnace fan 24/7 and this is easily louder than my grow.

**sweetcheekz** · 09-20-2011, 12:42 PM

Ahhh nice. Thanks! Any idea how well they work? If they work well....I'll just run a "U" piping directly into house (because that's the easiest).

Will doing that be too hard on my fan, due to resistance added?

**sweetcheekz** · 09-20-2011, 12:44 PM

BC cannabis, that is what I originally thought about doing but was a little worried about back pressure when exhaust fan wasn't running. I guess you put a filter and it wouldn't matter, eh?

**ak.fortyseven** · 09-20-2011, 12:45 PM

The 6" Duct Muffler (for use with 6" High Velocity Fans) reduces noise by up to 25 dBA; a reduction by 3dBA cuts a listener's perception of sound by half!

**ak.fortyseven** · 09-20-2011, 12:47 PM

they arent cheap though, but what i got from your post you didnt seem to ethusiastic about building something. you can DIY a muffler too.

**GNOME GROWN** · 09-20-2011, 12:49 PM

i would run it like a forced hot air unit in a house (HVAC unit).. on the exhaust of the fan run some pipe and u can connect a T or Y splitter anywhere u want to run air into different rooms of the house..that way all the air wont be forced into 1 duct causeing lots of noise, and u heat each room in the house!..

i had a 450CFM fan heating 2 rooms from 2 600w lights..it came out one pipe and once i connected it to a 4 way air grill it quiet down a lot! and if you insolate the pipe it helps with noise!..

good luck man, hope this works out for u! it def. helps keep the gas bill down in the winter!

**sweetcheekz** · 09-20-2011, 12:51 PM

I'm cool building any DIY simple stuff, just didn't much want to build another full room when I have plenty of other house chores to do :-p

I'll check em out and search around for DIY plans.