Portable A/C Units

I need to cool my veg and flower room down. Right now I've got a window A/C in the living room, but as summer approaches it's not doing the trick anymore. I'm thinking of buying one of those portable A/C units you see at Home Depot. It's a 10x12 room and the A/C unit I'm looking at is 8,000 btu which is more than enough for a "standard" room of this size. But I have 4 600w in each room. Who's used these before or do you have any better and cheaper suggestions?

Here's a link to the one I'm looking at..........http://www.jr.com/haier/pe/HA_CPRB08XCJ/#productTabDetails

8,000btu for 2400w of lightning in a 10x12 area is just not sufficient. My 10,000btu was constantly kicking in with just 2000w in a 10x10 room.
It's gonna cool the area down for sure but the a/c will as well stay on most of the time wich will give you a nice bump on the hydro bill.
For 2400w with the size of room you have i would buy a 14,000btu or so, they are more expensiv but will save lot's of energy in the long run.

That's my 2 cents.

you need to remember that the a/c will draw in from your rooms air and blow it out the exhaust releasing your potent smells. it would be wise of you to spend the money and buy a dual hose model the first time around. Do your research on a/cs for grows and you will see that this is an issue throughout the grow population with these damn portables. good luck on your grow. i bought a single hose the first tiem around ... this box was the result.

For AC Sizing I like to use 150 btu per square foot. (I only use 1000W HPS for bloom rooms)

Example: A 10 x 12 room is 120 square feet, so 120 x 150btu = 18000 BTU (or 1.5 ton AC)

Since your lights are 600W, you could use about 60% of the cooling which puts you at 10800BTU Needed (or a 1 ton AC - 12000 BTU)

I came up with these numbers through trial and error. My first room was 120 square feet and had a 1 ton AC that works well, but it could use an extra 1/2 ton.

Not to sound like an infomercial, but if your looking for a cheap and good performing portable a/c, hit up www.compactappliance.com and look at the edgestar portable a/c. 12,000 BTU for around 373 shipped. I know someone with 2, and they work awesome. only drawback, is that it's one hose, but the smell issue can still be overcome with a little clever thinking.

WeSmkDro said:

you need to remember that the a/c will draw in from your rooms air and blow it out the exhaust releasing your potent smells. it would be wise of you to spend the money and buy a dual hose model the first time around. Do your research on a/cs for grows and you will see that this is an issue throughout the grow population with these damn portables. good luck on your grow. i bought a single hose the first tiem around ... this box was the result.

Click to expand...

BINGO. he hit the nail on the head, dont rush into it, and a dual hose setup in a sealed room will be much more efficient, and allow for easy co2