Club Vert(600)

I can discuss how to make that water cold, but it will have to be later; I've got errands to run!

Please do. :0)

ttystikk said:

I can discuss how to make that water cold, but it will have to be later; I've got errands to run!

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Javadog said:

Please do. :0)

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Okay, I can elaborate. There are several options for sources of water to cool your system. One is to simply tap the municipal supply, provided it's cold enough. This works well in winter and poorly in summer when it's really needed, so it's not a popular option. As emergency backup, it can save the day!

Another is a natural source like a lake, stream or more often a well. Using the temperature gradient of water does not mean you're required to mix it with anything else; it can be returned to where it was drawn from and as long as the heat it brings back can be dissipated, it will remain an effective heat sink.

A lot of people think a tank of water is good enough. It is not, because it has no way to change its own temperature; when heat from a cooling system is added, how does it leave?

A chiller unit is a compressor cooling system with a working fluid like Freon or R134a- in other words, what people usually recognize as an 'air conditioner'. The only significant difference is that instead of making air cold and blowing it out the front of the unit, it makes water pumped through its pigtail shaped chilling circuit colder. That's it, no more mystery!

The efficiency gains are not inside the box- they're in the water. More specifically, water carries a heat load much more easily than air does, because it's so much denser. This allows the system to transfer heat out of the growing space and into the outside environment much more cost effectively than AC, by using less watts per BTu of heat removed.

It is necessary to build some kind of air handler in the grow room, small or large, in order to control temperature and humidity effectively in the space. It's important to note that chiller capacity and air handler capacity need not be the same!

Thanks for the explanation Tyystikk, I kind of knew all the ins and outs of the water chiller and different possibilities, had looked at various options but didn't bother in the end as there was too much additional cost and space needed for the Res, and Pump, and chiller, etc...the chill box remains in it's...box. I pay for my water (even though we are surrounded by it in Holland) so that is not an option. I am also surrounded by canals, but not close enough to utilise the water. My good friend is a lighting and electrical engineer and he told me about water chilled lights many moons ago. I got in touch with a company in the US who are quite big in water chilling, and they quoted me 1000's of $ for a set up. I quietly moved on.

I don't water cool my light fixtures- because I'm cooling the room, not the equipment. In fact, I don't use light fixtures at all because they get in the way of the light I want shining on my plants.

I hang my bulbs vertically and bare so as much light as possible lands directly on plant leaf surfaces. That filament to foliage distance is managed ruthlessly in order to maintain as much of the plants growing material in the ideal distance range from the light as possible- THIS is the core of the efficiency gains.

Cool the SPACE with water cooling and air handlers and yes, your initial costs will be higher... sort of. After all, you can run chillers to cover multiple rooms that you'd need multiple pieces of AC and dehuey equipment for otherwise.

That's another thing; everyone loves to compare AC cost- but they TOTALLY FORGET about the equally essential need to control relative humidity. Gotta do both!

Luckily being in the Northern hemisphere, room chilling is only an issue over a couple of months in the year (and even then, when it's 30+c outside, it's cooler in my grow cab). I will move to water chilling when I have the space as I understand the economies of it. Having never used AC I cannot comment on that. And not to get into the cool tube/fool tube debate....but they work for me.

DST said:

Luckily being in the Northern hemisphere, room chilling is only an issue over a couple of months in the year (and even then, when it's 30+c outside, it's cooler in my grow cab). I will move to water chilling when I have the space as I understand the economies of it. Having never used AC I cannot comment on that. And not to get into the cool tube/fool tube debate....but they work for me.

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I'm not a dogmatist- your cool tube is solving your heating problem without using AC, and thus delivers real benefits. That's the solution that works in your case, and I'd be an idiot to tell you to change it without having a solid alternative. Saving money on running AC costs, nevermind buying the thing(s) in the first place, all mean money not leaving your pocket. Whether the light reduction from the cool tube is significantly reducing your yield is thus really beside the point.

I only have 4sq feet to work with so there's plenty light getting to the plants (even with say a 10% reduction). The real work involved as you pointed out before is keeping the canopy an even distance to get max' light spread to all of the plants.

I'm in the Northern hemisphere as well, and I find water cooling to be extremely advantageous year 'round!

In summer, it cools more efficiently than AC, allowing me to operate fewer watts to cool more lamps. Since it does dehuey duties as well, these savings are amplified!

In winter, the unit delivers heat without smell to my living space, saving me the cost of heating my home. In Colorado! It does this while continuing to deliver the same efficiency advantages as it does all summer.

In addition, a well designed and integrated water chilling system will use the RDWC water volume as a temporary heat sink if the heat load exceeds its cooling capacity for a short time, such as through the hot part of a summer afternoon.

How the hell does it do that?! It moves heat around the system, right? If the chiller gets behind, the chilling reservoir starts to warm up, and the water passing through the exchangers in the RDWC system(s) is warmer than usual- and thus ends up being cooled by it instead.

This is effective with temperature differences of just a few degrees- which translates into an enormous amount of heat storage when multiplied across a multi-site big tub RDWC system, let alone several of them.

When the heat load of late afternoon finally dissipates, the chiller just chugs away until it catches up with the excess heat in the RDWC water.

So how much does all this heat storage actually raise the RDWC's water temperature? Maybe two to three degrees... VERY tolerable, considering the water temp comes back down every night and I don't need to buy or operate as much cooling capacity. That's money in my pocket, courtesy of carefully engineering disparate systems together into a symbiotic whole.

None of what I'm doing is unique- doing it all here, together, in the service of more efficient and effective indoor horticulture, now, there's the new bit!

DST said:

I only have 4sq feet to work with so there's plenty light getting to the plants (even with say a 10% reduction). The real work involved as you pointed out before is keeping the canopy an even distance to get max' light spread to all of the plants.

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I think it's cool as shit that the same principles apply so similarly, even though the scale of our grows are so different.

We (my friends are also trying vertical grows after watching mine) are finding out that training and shaping the plant for optimal canopy management is where the biggest gains still remain to be made.

Here's an update on my vertical garden. I've been tying up lots of branches since flipping to 12/12, 12 days ago. They are growing like crazy right now and I'll be away from them until Sunday. I took these pics during lights out just now for comparison when I get back.

4sqf can't be right? That would be 2x2 I think his area is 16sqf =4x4

Looking lovely dez

Thanks Whodat! I am very pleased with the grow at this time. Everything is growing and healthy. I"m hoping for a bit of stretch still to come to make better use of the screen.

whodatnation said:

4sqf can't be right? That would be 2x2 I think his area is 16sqf =4x4

Looking lovely dez

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yup, that's right soz for the error, use to "m" over here.

Yeah, I think that's a nice layout for a vert garden.

Yeah dats what's Im talkin bout!

How about a 4ft octagon whodat I took a bunch of pics and will post a octagon layout and construction thread in this section when i finish.

Hey there gents!!! I am now under pretty strict space restrictions and will be trying my black thumb at some Vert Growing!!!
My first(of many) questions is will this:

What do you guys use to make the cool tube? I was thinking it was just a 600w cool tube with the reflector wing taken off. Is that correct?

Thank you in advance! I am in the middle of reading through all of this info, but i didnt see that answer.

Hÿdra said:

Hey there gents!!! I am now under pretty strict space restrictions and will be trying my black thumb at some Vert Growing!!!
My first(of many) questions is will this:

What do you guys use to make the cool tube? I was thinking it was just a 600w cool tube with the reflector wing taken off. Is that correct?

Thank you in advance! I am in the middle of reading through all of this info, but i didnt see that answer.

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You are correct.