Can you help me halp a friend? "Heat and other issues"

Im trying to help out some friends that had more money than knowlage when they set up their grow room.

The first problem I need to fix is Heat. Its not a major problem yet but the desert summer will be here soon.

The grow room is a 19'x15' garage with 8' ceiling and there are 12 - 1000w HPS's. The lights are in big wide vented hoods that use outside air to cool them. The ballast are the old style "not the new digitals" they are 220v and placed on a long rack up high in the room.

Most of the plants are Blue Dream and they are 3 weeks into flowering. Growing in 4 gallon pots of dirt.

I will get some pix tonight and post them here so you can better see whats going on.

Like I said, Im concerned about heat right now and what I need to know now is; What size air unit should they use for this size room? It has a small central air type unit now but its not big enough to handel the desert summer. The walls of the garage have been insulated.

I too know what the desert heat can be like and it sounds like they are going to be in trouble very soon as the heat is quickly approaching. I had thought up of an unusual solution and wondered if it would work.
Pulling in outside air is only going to increase the amount of heat so why not section off a small area. 5x5 or something and cool just that space and use it to run through the lights and exhaust outside. Perhaps then you can effectively cool the rest of the area and still allow for CO2 introduction if they wished because it still would be a closed system. So with the lighting taken care of you just need to AC the grow area and it doesn't need vented out of the area.

Keep in mind that most AC units require that you vent the unit outside. Like a window unit or a hole in the wall, there are other systems. If in an area such as mine 'swamp' coolers are prevelant because of the low ambient humidity. I can just hear ppl say what the hell is a 'swamp' cooler. In a nutshell it is a squirrel cage fan in a box that holds water and is surrounded by water absorbent pads. The water is pumped up through a spider and distibuted above the pad where it trickles down it. Warm air is drawn through the moisture and cooled and then blown into the space you are trying to cool. They only work in arid conditions!

On a side note to the DIY ppl out there if you live in such an area the parts are starting to flood in the big hardware stores as they are seasonal. They include water pumps and bulkhead fittings, the latter almost impossible to find in a store.

Get the biggest btu mini split ac u can find

Heres a couple pix of the current air unit.

twelve 1000 watt lights....O_O

going to need a few AC units and a strong vent blowing air out of the room/building also.

Heres some pix of the ladies and the room setup. Feel free to make sugestions if you see something you would change.

I flushed for a few days and Im only using the Pure Blend Pro Bloom to finish cuz they have used so many other wrong things plus Im fighting spider mites. I just want to finnish this crop and start fresh with a few changes and a good room scrubbing. I wanted to just toss everything and start over but that was out of the question. They already lost like 4 crops in the last 6 months so they want to hang on to what they have. Newbies! lol

The next crop I will be using Subcools Super Soil. Theres no way they can mess that up.

Tafbang,

Ya, Im trying to talk them into getting rid of at least 4 lights and changing another 4 to 600's to cut down on heat. I did get them to change from a co2 burner to tanks so thats a small start.

wow....that looks killer....all those ballasts in there will be adding to the heat issue.

lambofgod said:

wow....that looks killer....all those ballasts in there will be adding to the heat issue.

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I know, I wish there was somewhere else to put them.

is there an attic above the garage?

lambofgod said:

is there an attic above the garage?

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Ya but its going to get really hot in the attic this summer. I dont want to fry the ballest. It gets up to 120 here in the dessert so I could just imagine how hot the attic would get.

that didnt even cross my mind. ya figuring out a way to get those in a different place would help...although minor, im sure your friend will be trying to squeeze every degree he can.

lambofgod said:

that didnt even cross my mind. ya figuring out a way to get those in a different place would help...although minor, im sure your friend will be trying to squeeze every degree he can.

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I need to figure out the formula to come up with how many BTU's I will need to cool the room to the propper temp.