Heating my house in the winter with grow lights

Meast21

Well-Known Member
This is kind of off topic, but my grow lights would heat my 800 sq foot house up to 64 degrees in the cold winter with my furnace only turning on for 5 mins every hour. I have 5 tents running (2) 600 watt hps lights and (3) 400 watt hps light all on 12/12... Now I ran into problems and am no longer growing. My furnace is loud and I am sound sensitive bc of my tinnitus. I went the oil filled electric radiator route and my house got cold quick, the radiator can't keep up and its 45 degrees out and winter is not here yet. So any tips to heat my house up better with my grow lights down stairs would be helpful. I think I'm just gonna run 2 tents 24/7 instead of all 5 on 12/12 and see how it goes that way I'm saving electric with less inline fans running. What do you think about the placement of the hot air coming out of the ducting of the tent. Would it make more sense to have it shoot out in the middle of the basement instead of the corners? Thoughts?
 

amneziaHaze

Well-Known Member
I got a small apartment but last few years my pc and light total around 1100w i havent turned on the heat in years.just it creates dry air
 

Lou66

Well-Known Member
Depends on your energy prices. Using HPS or oil filled radiators to heat is dumb if electricity costs four times what natural gas costs or whatever your alternative ist.
 

amneziaHaze

Well-Known Member
Depends on your energy prices. Using HPS or oil filled radiators to heat is dumb if electricity costs four times what natural gas costs or whatever your alternative ist.
its not dumb when you are using it for growing and it passive heats your home.

How small is the apartment? U should probably turn on the heat once a month for 10 mins so the furnace gets some use so it doesn't seize up or something. It could be like a car sitting in the driveway and not running ever.
dont worry about her she got a cleaning and an oil change
 

Lou66

Well-Known Member
its not dumb when you are using it for growing and it passive heats your home.
Sure using an HPS at low ambient temperature instead of heating + using "efficient" LEDs is the smart choice. I won't argue that.

But I understood that op wants to heat his home. I'm not sure what energy his stove uses.
 

nxsov180db

Well-Known Member
My furnace is loud and I am sound sensitive bc of my tinnitus.
What's loud about it, the blower? If the blower is too loud maybe you could just disconnect the supply duct off the top of the furnace in your basement, you'll be heating up your basement just like you used to with grow lights so it'll have the same effect, even better because you'll still be sucking the air from upstairs through the furnace.
 

VaSmile

Well-Known Member
Depends on your energy prices. Using HPS or oil filled radiators to heat is dumb if electricity costs four times what natural gas costs or whatever your alternative ist.
The energy cost is allocated to the grow opp not the heat bill so it make no sense not to use the heat produce to lower your heating cost, no reason to dump all that "free" heat out the window
 

Nizza

Well-Known Member
Picture the dehumidifier on that diagram being your grow tent. The fan speed of the grow tent you would want at a higher static pressure than the pressure of the duct system when it is on, in which scenario you can do supply to supply and return to return, and let the furnace kick on and off as it needs.

The other way I would recommend doing it is adjust the fan on speed to something low that doesn't bother you on your furnace and do return to return, or a dedicated return (tent pulling from basement) then dumping supply into the return ducting. Ideally you want the supply from the tent going to the supply duct because this air is dispersed around the outside of your house where the return duct are usually interior and near the thermostat location
 
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