Just a quick question about using tin foil on the walls of my grow room

if you have to use foil be sure to try and get it as flat as possible with no wrinkles. with cfls you should be ok they dont put out alot of infrared wavelengths which cause burns. and def dont put out enough lumens to bleach or burn.(within reason)

Only HIDs can produce hot spots with tin foil ...cfls are fine

kryptakrOnic said:

Only HIDs can produce hot spots with tin foil ...cfls are fine

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ya thats what i figured this is a pretty low budget grow room lol but its my cousins first grow room so i didnt want something stupid to happen like his plants getting burned

Yea no worries I hear using the dull side is indeed better then using the shiney side...good luck bro

IT DOESNT MATTER WHICH LIGHTS YOU USE.

TIN FOIL DOESNT CAUSE HOT SPOTS!

Why keep passing on a bunch of BS? Everyone know that mylar is a better reflectant than tin foil, so how is tin foil going to concentrate light greater than mylar? It wont.

again:

TIN FOIL DOESNT CAUSE HOT SPOTS. and stop telling people it does.

nexcare said:

IT DOESNT MATTER WHICH LIGHTS YOU USE.

TIN FOIL DOESNT CAUSE HOT SPOTS!

Why keep passing on a bunch of BS? Everyone know that mylar is a better reflectant than tin foil, so how is tin foil going to concentrate light greater than mylar? It wont.

again:

TIN FOIL DOESNT CAUSE HOT SPOTS. and stop telling people it does.

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It does if applied incorrectly

i've seen gift wrap that looks like mylar, it's cheap and i bet it would work.

i used some of them cheap emergency foil blankets with a 400w hps and all is ok

For a small grow you can just buy some white poster board, it's like 79 cents for a 2'x3' sheet.

Ya thanks i just had no idea ive never used foil before lol. ive heard that with bigger lights it can cause burns and ive heard that its fine and doesnt cause burns so i was just makin sure because ive always just painted my walls but foil is all we had atm. THANKS!

I was originally going to use tinfoil for my CFL grow but it turned out to be too much trouble because foil is hard to work with. I just went down to the local Paper Warehouse and they had a bunch of silver mylar sheets. It was 2 bucks for ten 2' x 3' sheets. They were much easier to handle and my understanding is that mylar works better and is less dangerous. I've seen a lot of people use tinfoil though, so it'll probably be okay. I've had my grow up for close to 2 months now and the mylar has been working great, so that's what I recommend.

Agent Smokealot said:

It does if applied incorrectly

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Well then the same can be said for mylar rolls, and also could be said that you will get hot spots if your paint isnt totally flat either... You're reaching, and failing.

Or maybe it applies if the tin foil is hanging all over the place and starts a fire...

Think of it like this:
Lets say your light puts out a total of 20000 lumens.

Ok, if mylar is 95% reflective and totally flat(giving max reflection), that means a max of (20000 x .95)=19000 lumens can be reflected back. MORE lumens/energy CANT be reflected back than is original produced...

Ok, tin foil is only about 80-85% reflective, so you do the math there.

If your reflective material is incapable of reflecting back 100%+ of the lumens/energy, then how in the hell is less lumens/energy going to hurt a plant?

Also, how many hoods or reflective shields have you seen without tons of dimples, like a golf ball?

On the other hand, a magnifying glass increases energy by concentrating it, and it is only possible via the shape of the lens. Even with increasing the energy in a small concentrated spot, the overall energy is decreased. There will be a 4% loss due to Fresnel reflection off the surface of the magnifying glass.

Common sense goes along way; some people just refuse to use it in obvious situations.

If you read this, please, in the future, don't keep spreading a fucking lie.

Save up all your potato chip bags and paste them to the wall.

bump, so people can see the facts about "hot spots"