Keeping Grow room cool??

Hello,
To all of you out there i am very new at all of this so if i post this thread in the wrong spot or anything like that i am apologizing in advance.
My question to all of you is how to keep a grow room nice and cool without spending to much money. Right now i have about a 3 foot wide by 3 foot tall grow room. I have the sides insulated with some good reflective material. I currently have a intake 4 inch fan on the bottom of my set up bringing in fresh air, and on the top i have another 4 inch fan pushing out the hot air. I also have about a 12 inch fan setup in there just to help keep the air moving. As of right now i am going to be going with three 100 wat CFL lights and then three smaller CFL lights. With all of this i have in there i cant seem to keep the temperature down. It always wants to stay in the mid 80's. I have read up on alot of different things and it seems that the best temp to keep it at is min. 70-80 degrees.

Like i said i am not willing to spend alot of money to make this happen, i am just looking for some advice. Maybe if i open it up three to four times a day would do the trick?? Idk.

Thanks in advance to all of you.

What is the temp of the air outside your grow room? i.e. the air that is being drawn into the enclosure? Your always going to be a at least a couple degrees warmer than that when your lights are on.

stop dicking around. get a portable ac. if possible. it will hardly run to cool that small tent. and you will have the temp stead and setting you want. all you have to do is cut a small slice in the tent so you place the front of the ac unit in the tent then tape it up . and the only problem you will have the thermostat is in side the ac unit will have to take it apart very easy. pull out the thermostat wire. and place the wire inside the tent usually 3 feet long. and you would have a great set up and the ac would dehumidify as well . and it has a built in fan. expect to spend 300 dollars this portable ac unit would be the best set up for you. and vent the ac out the window or out an adtick .. up stars .

kinddiesel said:

stop dicking around. get a portable ac. if possible. it will hardly run to cool that small tent. and you will have the temp stead and setting you want. all you have to do is cut a small slice in the tent so you place the front of the ac unit in the tent then tape it up . and the only problem you will have the thermostat is in side the ac unit will have to take it apart very easy. pull out the thermostat wire. and place the wire inside the tent usually 3 feet long. and you would have a great set up and the ac would dehumidify as well . and it has a built in fan. expect to spend 300 dollars this portable ac unit would be the best set up for you. and vent the ac out the window or out an adtick .. up stars .

Click to expand...

I tried telling this to someone on here yesterday. They were trying to run 4 1kw HPS's in a 10'x10' room, and dealing with temps. in the upper 80's. They kinda acted like I was crazy. They did need to increase air flow a bit, but 4000w in a 100 sq. ft. room is gonna need some AC help (at least during the warm months). Dude was like, "I ain't doing all of that shit."
Okay Chief, good luck with your oven...

You could try taking out some of the CFL`s til you get to 80f.The small space you are working with
makes it difficult to keep temps down,especially in summer.I have the same floor space as you,but
twice the height nearly and my temps were up in the 90s last summer,thats using a 250w hps.
I only grow 3 plants at a time, as i can only afford to run 300w of lighting plus fans etc.Go for 100w per
plant,and direct your internal fan onto your main lights to try to cool them down a bit.
Frozen bottles of water in your grow space mite help,but will be a pain changing them every day.
As Aim says above if your temps outside grow space are high,you will have higher temps in your
grow space when lights are on.
A bigger tent would be an answer,and a cheaper option than an air conditioner.
At the end of the day we can only work with the tools weve got,and cut our cloth to suit.
Good luck tj,i hope you sort it out.

I appreciate all of the help. First of all to respond to the above person, my temperature in my room is about 72 degrees.

Also, i would agree with all of you. I think an ac unit would be a great idea. Having said that, this is my first grow i have ever done, and i am not inclined to drop 300 bills for something that may not work out for me in the future. Maybe once i get better at what i am doing and get my set up strait i will have to do that. It seems like a great idea i just dont have the cash for that.

thanks for the input,

Keep them coming.

I appreciate the answer. I might have to take out a couple CFL's. That seems like a reliable answer, the only thing i question is how will the yields be at harvest time. I always heard that more light the better. So i guess what a better question may be is what is a better sacrifice, a little more heat for the extra light, or a little less light for the proper temp?
How do your yields do with your grow situation?

A good 20" box fan pushes 3,000 cfm....they're good for air circulation but will stall out under pressure and spin pointlessly

Less than 20 bucks at wallmart

This is my out take fan at the top.
This is my intake fan at the bottom.
This is my light set up with my fan on top.
This is just a broad over view of the whole thing.

Any suggestions to the whole thing would also be much appreciated. I am brand new to this so please feel free to help me out!

tjohnny said:

I appreciate the answer. I might have to take out a couple CFL's. That seems like a reliable answer, the only thing i question is how will the yields be at harvest time. I always heard that more light the better. So i guess what a better question may be is what is a better sacrifice, a little more heat for the extra light, or a little less light for the proper temp?
How do your yields do with your grow situation?

Click to expand...

Ive only been growing for 2 years,but my yield when temps were up in the 90s were not worth a light.
The right temps should give better yields(they have for me anyway).
When on a small budget you have to make do with wot yav got,to do the best job.
Its as simple as that,when yer skint.

Have the lights turn on at night and have your intake come directly from the cool night air. you can use some 6 inch ducting to funnel air passively from a window, just be careful if temps get below freezing.

TN Jedeye said:

I tried telling this to someone on here yesterday. They were trying to run 4 1kw HPS's in a 10'x10' room, and dealing with temps. in the upper 80's. They kinda acted like I was crazy. They did need to increase air flow a bit, but 4000w in a 100 sq. ft. room is gonna need some AC help (at least during the warm months). Dude was like, "I ain't doing all of that shit."
Okay Chief, good luck with your oven...

Click to expand...

Hell he sprung for 4 thousand watters but not AC wtf was he thinkin!! I run (1) 1000 watt and I need AC help except for the late fall thru winter... But I've always kept my temps around 80-85 with lights on and around 70 when not

well maybe i can take a few lights out of here and we will see if that will work. What i am going to be growing will be two auto flowering Blue Mystic plants. I have never grown before and am just starting to get into it, so i think a auto flower will be a nice start to help me get the hang of things. For two plants how many CFL's do you guys think i will need without generating too much heat.
Also, anyone ever grown Blue Mystic? The reason i am going to grow it is because i heard the smell isnt too bad when growing? Or at least it has a different kind of smell?

Again, i appreciate all the help and keep the answers coming!

I have 750 Watts of cfl in a 20x26" cab.....no excuses, listen to advice

I pull a lb using that set up

To be honest, if your worried about heat the last plant type you want to grow are autos. They generally need 18/6 light time through the whole grow to get best harvest potential. Not only can this be expensive, but if you have heat issues this will not help. You would be better growing from normal fem seeds to keep cost and heat issues to a minimum. See if you can get a cheap AC unit from somewhere cause you are probably going to need it.

That's great to hear someone is thinking like me. I've got 2 blue mystic AF in my closet under 400 watt MH on 18, off 6. Just starting, about 3" tall now, can't wait!

I chose blue mystic because it (supposedly) has a neutral smell while growing. Can anyone share real experience with this? If it ends up stinkin' I guess I'll have to invest in a charcoal scrubber/filter. Actually, I like it when my girls stink like crazy, the last grow was Jock Horror, just 2 in a closet, and you could smell em when you pulled in the driveway! Me and all my buddies thought that was freakin awesome, but my Old Lady hated it! In the end, all that REALLY matters is effect, but in the past, the smell was always an indication of potency.