Is it ok to vent my tent into my central air intake? Any HVAC guys?

Will that hurt my central air in any way? I am running a small 4 inch inline fan sucking through a carbon filter and blowing it out of the tent and right up into the intake of my AC blower unit. Will that mess up my unit if it is constantly blowing in? Also what would happen if I vented a portable AC r2d2 unit looking things into the air intake? As of now I am venting the portable into my garage and it is heating up my garage. I may have to cut through a wall and vent out the dryer vent. hmmm

Anybody?......

Do you have a supply vent going directly to your space/box?

i dont see why it would

aTTicRaT said:

Do you have a supply vent going directly to your space/box?

Click to expand...

Naah no need. It has little vents down the bottom that act as a passive intake. They get plenty of fresh air. The fan is powerful enough for negative pressure. The setup has proven itself many times already. I am just trying to vent a different way because the summer is here.

ElectricPineapple said:

i dont see why it would

Click to expand...

That is what I was hoping but just trying to make sure.

im no expert but i work hvac before and i dont believe it will hurt unit except to cause it your central ac to work harder in winter it will be a help
but i think with a intake of hot air will cause unit to run more and cost more for electricity and lessen the life of your unit.it has to cool the warm air coming in first so using a added boast of hot air is going to run ur bill up because these intakes are usually located right by the in dorr unit now if u have a package unit u could be ok because it travels through a distance of duct before hitting unit. Im no expert so if im wrong someone say u hit the blunt to many times

If i was u go for the dryer venting

I've done HVAC work for about ten years now, if you have passive intakes bringing cool air in then you should be cool with just that 4" fan exhausting to the return of the a/c. The R2D2 unit however will be exhausting hot air which when dumped into your central a/c will cause the equipment to work harder and longer and of course it will decrease the efficiency. Exhausting into your clothes dryer vent is one solution that's stealthy too, or you could even vent straight into the attic (which is hot as hell anyhow) just seal around the penetration well to keep the hot air out.

u but google some before u advise using a hvac air intake as a exhuast. Unconditioned air entering a hvac can cause high humidity problems for one and why would u say to do it.
A hvac unit takes conditioned air though intake cools it then exhaust where it is drawn back into intake hence why it is called conditioned air so to say add another source of heated air that is not conditioned to his hvac units is cool is wrong i believe it will be cool but when your unit works harder to cool added hot air and power bill goes up and cuts life of unit not to mention high humidity problems is not cool. why would u say it is not ok to use portable unit for these reasons but ok for the unit that keeps his whole house cool i do not understand that logic

Btw what is the temp of ait coming out of tent must be high to heat up garage
do the right thing vent into dryer vent and dont take chances

If you don't mind doing a little roof work, you could vent it through to a bathroom vent. Maybe through a soffit or directly out the roof if your soffit is vented.

found this old post for u
09-25-2009 05:47 AM #2
mikeohle

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Stranger Stranger Join DateAug 2009Posts7

And if u are venting into portable unit and the air thats coming out of it that is supposed to be cool is heating up garage imagine it would do the same with hvac but on a smaller scale

the 4" inch exhaust from his "box" is not significant enough to cause a problem with heat or humidity going to the return/intake of the central air because the "box" itself is inside this conditioned space that is pulling conditioned air from passive intakes, the temp. split is not that much different. The portable unit however contains all the components of a central air conditioner and with that comes a compressor and condenser coil. This is like the unit that is out side on a normal split system in your normal everyday central a/c unit. This is what gets rid of hot air (cold air in the winter if its a heat pump) and why it is on the outside of your house. To dump the exhaust from the compressor/coil of the portable unit into the central a/c is not good as it would just make the central a/c work twice as hard to cool the ambient air mixed with this hot air coming from the portable.

It seems to be working well. I do get blowback into the main house but it is nice pure carbon filtered air. The air that is getting blown in is not very hot, maybe 75-80F, only running a 250w light. I think it actually improved my cooling in the main house because the intake was in a room that stays pretty hot and now I have the portable running to keep it cool in there. Another option I was gonna try was running the tent exhaust into the portable ac air intake. SO far it seems to be working well and I am keeping an eye on it. I was even thinking about buying a backup carbon filter just in case. Thanks for all the replies.

I worked hvac for years too and understand them very well also. but listen to what he says if he is pulling cold air into tent and exhausting hot air enough to heat up a probabley 20x25 grage how do u see that as ok if u say it would not be ok to run exhaust from tent through portable unit then into central unit which portable sshould cool it some then why would it be ok to just dump straight from tent.yes he is intaking airconditioned air but it leaves the tent hot'


dude just vent into attic or dryer vent
if u add hot air to return hotter then rest of air coming from house into intake it will raise temp simple logic

ok if it works dont fix it lol good luck

The room that I am speaking of is normally 85-90 degrees because the ac vent is always closed and it is not insulated very well. Now that the room is being cooled by a portable it is about 73 degrees. My tent stays pretty cool and I do not have a cool tube or anything, stays under 80 degrees and that is blown into the intake. So it is actually having to work less because the air being sucked/blown in is cooler now. So it is cooler, cleaner pollution free air being blown in. I do not have the ac exhaust blowing into the central air intake, still blowing into the garage and it is not heating it up that much, maybe 5 degrees. The dryer vent is in the next room over so I would have to run the portable ac exhaust through the wall and then into the dryer exhaust. I was trying to knocking through the wall again but I think in the long run it will better. I may just end up running them both out the dryer vent.

get us a temp reading at the garage exhaust right at end thats the important temp before u dump into hvac
whats the wall made out of
i would go for the dryer vent
then u could keep some towels dry just a few in dryer and a few smelly fabric softer sheets or whatever they call them i dont do laundry but have u stood outside before when smoking while its running smells good and will mask odor if u have a cookout this summer and neighbors over even though u got a carbon filter. others mite not lol

ATTICRAT I wasnt trying to argue with u and i can tell by your post u know hvac. im sure better then me lol Did u get that name for growing or crawling in attics doing hvac lol sure gets hot up there

No problem fabfun I'd rather listen than argue. Well I got it in kinda a strange way. My buddy started a company called AtticRats that installed phone, cat-5, coax etc etc. I worked for him for about two weeks and he was like "You should be my mascot man I can't navigate through these tight ass spaces like you can" so the name just stuck, plus the amount of rats I see doing HVAC work is disgusting so the two just kinda go together as well

The relatively small amount of "hot" air you're putting into your return isn't going to cause a problem at all. Yes, your unit will work harder, but definitely not hard enough to see a noticeable difference on your electric bill, let alone shorten the lifespan of your unit or cause humidity/mold issues...after all, a byproduct of air conditioning is dehumidification. The only issue I was concerned about was the smell, but I see you're carbon filtering. Keep it that way man...don't listen to fools.