Is it worth it to seal my grow and add co2?

Hi! I have some questions I could really use some input on...

1.) Is it worth it to seal my setup and add co2? I am heavily leaning this way.
2.) Do I need any additional equipment other than a co2 tank, regulator, and co2 controller?
3.) How does the ventilation work in a sealed setup? Do I just run my flower room exhaust into my veg room and eliminate my passive intake?

I am using a 16'x20' insulated shed (grainery) in Michigan to house my veg and flower rooms and I feel like I am throwing a lot of heating (in the winter) and cooling (in the summer) right out the window! $400-$600 a month in electric bills alone! This seems excessive to me for such a small setup.

Here's a brief rundown of my current setup....

I have a 16'x10' room partitioned off for the flower room, a 8'x10' area partitioned off for my veg room, and another 8'x10' room partitioned off as my "work" room which is where my ballasts are hung and which has passive air intake from outside through screened vents.

Flower Room:
3x 600 Watt HPS Bulbs, ballasts mounted in the work room, in cool tubes that pull cooler air from the veg room and exhaust it outside via 250cfm inline fan.
The flower room is exhausted outside via a 450cfm inline fan that pulls room air from flower through my carbon filter.
5000BTU Window Air Conditioner and 1500 Watt electric heater on temp controls to maintain proper temps.
Dehumidifier hooked up to external drainage.
2 Oscillating fans, wall mounted.

Veg Room:
2x400 Watt MH Bulbs, ballasts mounted in work room, batwing reflectors.
Oscillating fan, wall mounted.
Passive intake from work room, passive exhaust to flower room, air exchange is created by the exhaust fan in the flower room.
5000BTU WindowAir Conditioner and 1500 Watt electric heater on temp controls to maintain proper temps.

The flower room is airtight, I could make the veg room airtight fairly easily... but I am not sure what I would have to change ventilation wise or if I would need any additional equipment outside of a Co2 canister, regulator, and Co2 controller?

I am thinking I should eliminate the passive intake in my veg room, re-route my flower room exhaust to my veg room, re-route my cooltube vents so they pull air from outside instead of from my veg room, and seal any air leaks, add a tank with a regulator hooked up to a co2 controller.... Am I missing anything?

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thanks!!

I wouldn't be using windows air conditioning units if I was you with CO2. There are 2 schools of thought on this. 1. CO2 with occasional venting and 2. CO2 with no venting. I personally like number 2. I have a ductless mini split 18k x2 +9k btu. It cost me $3500 and another $1300 to have it installed 3 days ago. The benefit is that the air stays in the room. For a room as big as yours I would get a burner. I am surprised that you are spending $400 - $600 a month in the summer. Does that include you normal house electricity too? With the amount of heat that lights put out I would never buy a heater. Bring the light cycle into the night hours and maybe turn down the 250cfm fan on your cool tubes so more of the heat will penetrate your room and turn down your air conditioner. CO2 will allow you to run your plants in up to 90 degree F temps so you will see a return in your investment immediately. Also getting a CO2 burner will act as a heater in the room. I bought a heat exchanger ($60 - $100) that will evacuate the air out (90% efficient apparently) so you have great control of your temps.

Suggestion for heat -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtfaZMahSUU

Suggestions for cheap cooling year round -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVDBRQvBVso read up on it and figure a way to DIY and post a vid

Awesome, thanks for the post and recommendations. +rep

Concerning the Window AC from what I understand there's no air exchange with the outside as long as the vent is closed on the AC. I watched this video recently

[video=youtube;6OU7WHgJ_cY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OU7WHgJ_cY[/video]

Am I mistaken?

Unfortunately I don't have the money to buy a minisplit but I hope to install a minisplit heatpump/ac unit by next winter. This winter I am going to have to make do electric or propane heat.

I read the burners weren't as good because they released heat into the system during hot time, and they are cost prohibitive at the moment.

The $400-$600 a month does include the electrical for the main house, sorry for not including that. The times I need heat are during the day in the winter when all my lights are off. This winter I put the cooltube fan on a temp controller so it only kicked on once the temp in the flower room was over 75f and that seemed to help some during lights on. I don't ever have to run the AC during the winter.

Also your second link is to a heater, which I love the idea and plan on building something like this for the winter, but not sure how I could use it for cooling?

computergroove said:

I wouldn't be using windows air conditioning units if I was you with CO2. There are 2 schools of thought on this. 1. CO2 with occasional venting and 2. CO2 with no venting. I personally like number 2. I have a ductless mini split 18k x2 +9k btu. It cost me $3500 and another $1300 to have it installed 3 days ago. The benefit is that the air stays in the room. For a room as big as yours I would get a burner. I am surprised that you are spending $400 - $600 a month in the summer. Does that include you normal house electricity too? With the amount of heat that lights put out I would never buy a heater. Bring the light cycle into the night hours and maybe turn down the 250cfm fan on your cool tubes so more of the heat will penetrate your room and turn down your air conditioner. CO2 will allow you to run your plants in up to 90 degree F temps so you will see a return in your investment immediately. Also getting a CO2 burner will act as a heater in the room. I bought a heat exchanger ($60 - $100) that will evacuate the air out (90% efficient apparently) so you have great control of your temps.

Suggestion for heat -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtfaZMahSUU

Suggestions for cheap cooling year round -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVDBRQvBVso read up on it and figure a way to DIY and post a vid

Click to expand...

ns420 said:

Also your second link is to a heater, which I love the idea and plan on building something like this for the winter, but not sure how I could use it for cooling?

Click to expand...

No, You can however make the units with piping and antifreeze to make what I call water batteries. Basically you get some 55 gallon drums and insulate them. Run water through the system with a small pump when it is sunny out and the heat will be stored for future use. Place a separate isolated pump and tubing system with a radiator and a fan in the 55 gallon drums and you can extract the heat to a room. Awesome stuff. You can actually replace your furnace and hot water heater with this if done correctly.

To cool your place you need to look again at the first link. It's called geo thermal cooling. The basic concept is that the ground under the frost line (here in Michigan the frost line is 37 inches) is 53 degrees F all year round. You can place coils of any kind of tubing (I would use PEX 1/2") under the frost line and run a pump through the tubing and the water in the tube will chill to 53 degrees F in the right conditions. Then use a radiator to once again extract the cooling into the room you want to use it in. You can make a thermostat that will control the temperature in a room (or several thermostats hooked to the same system for several rooms) so long as there is enough surface area underground to support your square footage. I have not done wither of these yet but will when I move my grow operation to the country. I have not yet figured out a good way to get cold water out of the ground without digging a big hole. Maybe I can dig 2 wells and pull out of one and replace the water in the other. Time will tell. A well would work really well if the water was close enough to the surface. Like I said, If you figure out an economical way to do this (less than $2000) then post a DIY. I will too if I ever find one.

If you're going closed-loop (sealed room) I highly recommend getting an environmental controller. http://www.greners.com/i/meters-timers/controllers/brand/sentinel/sentinel-chhc-4-day-night-environmental-controller.html This will regulate your Co2, air conditioning and humidity, and allow you to tune it for day/night variations. (plants like it colder at night and there is no need for Co2)I've read that you can raise the temps to 85+ with Co2, but the leaves turn yellow so I have my doubts about that. When you can control the temps with a push of the button, make it 75 and everything stays green

Well I am using digital thermostats and timers to control my temps, my dehumidifier can be set to maintain a certain humidity level and I have it on a timer to only run during the lights off during the summer. I'd love to add a controller but at the moment it's cost prohibitive. With my ACs and Heaters on thermostats I am able to maintain 78-80 daytime temps and 70 night time temps easily, as well as a fairly constant 45-55% humidity.

smokingrubber said:

If you're going closed-loop (sealed room) I highly recommend getting an environmental controller. http://www.greners.com/i/meters-timers/controllers/brand/sentinel/sentinel-chhc-4-day-night-environmental-controller.html This will regulate your Co2, air conditioning and humidity, and allow you to tune it for day/night variations. (plants like it colder at night and there is no need for Co2)I've read that you can raise the temps to 85+ with Co2, but the leaves turn yellow so I have my doubts about that. When you can control the temps with a push of the button, make it 75 and everything stays green

Click to expand...

computergroove said:

No, You can however make the units with piping and antifreeze to make what I call water batteries. Basically you get some 55 gallon drums and insulate them. Run water through the system with a small pump when it is sunny out and the heat will be stored for future use. Place a separate isolated pump and tubing system with a radiator and a fan in the 55 gallon drums and you can extract the heat to a room. Awesome stuff. You can actually replace your furnace and hot water heater with this if done correctly.

Click to expand...

I have been looking into this and plan on building a couple of heat exchangers. Eventually I want to add solar heating to my house, shed, barn, and workshop. Here's some of the links I saved with DIY tutorials...

http://www.n3fjp.com/solar/comparisonhotair/comparisonhotair.htm
http://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/AirColTesting/DownSpoutCol/110511TestDSCol/110511DSColTest.htm
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/solar_barn_project.htm

computergroove said:

To cool your place you need to look again at the first link. It's called geo thermal cooling. The basic concept is that the ground under the frost line (here in Michigan the frost line is 37 inches) is 53 degrees F all year round. You can place coils of any kind of tubing (I would use PEX 1/2") under the frost line and run a pump through the tubing and the water in the tube will chill to 53 degrees F in the right conditions. Then use a radiator to once again extract the cooling into the room you want to use it in. You can make a thermostat that will control the temperature in a room (or several thermostats hooked to the same system for several rooms) so long as there is enough surface area underground to support your square footage. I have not done wither of these yet but will when I move my grow operation to the country. I have not yet figured out a good way to get cold water out of the ground without digging a big hole. Maybe I can dig 2 wells and pull out of one and replace the water in the other. Time will tell. A well would work really well if the water was close enough to the surface. Like I said, If you figure out an economical way to do this (less than $2000) then post a DIY. I will too if I ever find one.

Click to expand...

I have also been looking into geothermal heating, the problem is the high cost of installation. $10,000-$30,000 to have one professionally installed is something far beyond my budget. A cost effective alternative I believe is the ductless mini split heat pump units. Similar energy efficiency, much lower cost, and can be installed yourself without heavy digging equipment. Units like the Mitsubishi Mr. Slim have quick connects and can be installed in an afternoon. They have single zone 12k btu units for around $1500, 20k btu dual zone units for around $2500, and also have larger 40k btu multi zone units available as well. Definitely worth checking into.

[video=youtube;QovhagNTyaE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QovhagNTyaE[/video]

I would only suggest using CO2 if you are currently maxing out your yields and can't get any more out of them.

BossHoggins said:

I would only suggest using CO2 if you are currently maxing out your yields and can't get any more out of them.

Click to expand...

I feel I am. I am very happy with my results at this point (except for what I am spending every month in electricity) and feel that eliminating any potential for insects and increasing the Co2 to optimal levels will give me a good increase in yields. I have my nutes locked in, optimal temp and humidity, good lighting... I just can't add Co2 and it's costing me a fortune to heat/cool. I am in the process of renovating a 160 year old farm house/garage/barn so my budget is pretty maxed and I am trying to find any way possible to cut corners money wise.

Averaging 400-600 grams (dry weight, depending on strain) from each 600 watt bulb each harvest, which I think is pretty good for no co2? Don't have anything to compare it to.