DIY Ideas on routing ventilation piping...

[GodAmJT]

Hey Guys,

Been around here for a few years and have grown some plants in several different houses in different towns, so my set-up has changed and evolved several times and now I'm at a point where I think I'm pretty solid with the exception of some minor tweaks like wire/cable management, drying/curing, etc... The room I grow in, is a small room in the basement of my house in a town outside of Boston, so Summers can be hot and sorta humid and the Winters are cold and dry. The basement has a little bit of climate control by means of a few heating vents that blow heat down there in the winter, as well as the portable dehumidifier I use during the Spring/Summer to keep the RH down in a safe range.. The room itself is about 9ft x 9ft or 3m x 3m, concrete floor and walls and a ceiling that I have put bats of fiberglass insulation and then reflective insulating poly-board, partly for sound suppression and partly for thermal insulation. During this past Summer, it was the first year growing in this house and in this spot, so I hadn't anticipated the temps getting as high as they did, and the basement consistently felt hot, even though the temps were reasonable..

On to the meat and potatoes..


I have been considering using some hard piping to go from my grow box and soon, my grow tent, to be routed into my house's HVAC, to pump warm air into the house, however, I wanted to use a dampener to prevent heat from the HVAC to flow back to the grow area.. Have any of you guys ever done this? If so, was it successful? Smell abatement has been a little bit of an issue, but with the lower humidity and once I swap these new filters in, I may be okay for a few months, but I'm not worried about the neighbors or police as this is a legit medical grow, not to mention in a couple weeks, weed becomes legal to own/grow/consume in MA, so realistically, this is more for efficiency of my grow..

Sorry for the essay, just wondering if you guys do similar things..

 

[Chester]

I've been considering something similar ... I'd like to vent a closet into the cold air return duct ... spread through out the house I can only imagine a clean fresh smell especially when flowering ... a damper would reduce the efficiency of your ducting but should keep the air from entering the grow ... since you only heat when it's cold would heating the grow be a bad thing ?

 

[GodAmJT]

To be honest, I'm not sure, however, the house's furnace is in the adjacent room, about 15ft away, and it kills the humidity in the basement as it is, and inside the grow area, with the lights on, RH drops to low 30's which is close to the low end of where I'd want it.. Once I fire the tent up, I have a feeling that the temps generated could benefit the rest of the house..

Do you think the dampeners reduce the efficiency much?? I was going to do a 6" on one pipe and a 4" on the other.. The ancillary HVAC pipes are 3", however, there are 3 outlet pipes in the grow area that I can tap into, which should be enough flow.. I may run to Home Depot to just see what kinds of plumbing they have.. I may take some pictures of the room and make a drawing of the plan, see what you think..

 

[Waximus]

In Winter, I route my tent exhaust directly into my rooms-kind of a long duct to the other side, to try to equalize the temp. I've done it the past 2 years, and it has reduced my energy (oil) costs by 35-40%!!! And, the room humidity seems to stay more stable. I'm sure the oxygen levels in the house are in the stratosphere, as well!

In my setup, I don't have an air duct system to hook into, or I certainly would.

 

[GodAmJT]

@Waximus and you're using primaily LEDs for light, correct?? That may be another solution, as I know the ducting goes along the mid-section of the house to the primary source pipe from the furnace..


Heading downstairs to take some pictures.. I figure some of you guys may have better solutions.. ANY increase in efficiency is a + for me, so regardless, all feedback is thoroughly vetted and considered before I either affirm or deny it.. Gimme a few minutes and I'll post some pics to give you guys a better idea of what I'm working with..

 

[Chester]

Sounds to me like a lot of work and $$ G ... I think I'd smoke a bowl every time I thought about doing it until I forgot all about it ... as long as you're not venting to the outdoors you're adding heat to your home w/ the tent running ...

 

[Corgy]

How much total wattage do you have in the grow room. Lights, fans, any pumps, controllers, anything electric..... Everything single watt ends up as heat in your grow room and any excess above what's needed for the growing will obviously benefit your heating bill. It sounds like your replacement air will be coming from the existing vents(?) into the grow room so you'll be running a "closed" loop. Is a passive flow through those possible or is that forced air only?
I think you will need a temperature controller for your exhaust fan to keep the system balanced and temps, both in the house and grow room, from fluctuating. Especially if you don't run 24/0.
Speaking of exhaust fans, I highly recommend Soler & Palau fans, the TD Silent series, for economy, noise and reliability. I would never touch any of the "canna" fans grow shops sell, they are crude, noisy, gas guzzling excuses for air locomotors.

I've been wrestling with the same issue, only from a loft and 2 floors down, which means breaking through a wall and 2 floors....And with no professional help available, security/stealth, it remains little more than a thought project for now..... Lol

 

[GodAmJT]

lol I know the feeling!!! I have several, "thought projects" going on right now, and this seems to be the more prevalent one though..


As for the current air circulation; it's a passive intake for both the grow box and the tent, w/ canna-in-line fans pulling through carbon scrubbers for a little odor neutralization, push the filtered air back into the basement air, which is then pulled in from the furnace (eventually), and thrown into the house.. What I was hoping to do, is take the air from the inline fans, and blow that back into the house circulation, but downstream, so that I'm not trying to tie into "intake" duct work, as that's on the other side of the house.. Let me see if I can get some better pictures, but I had also considered getting a larger, commercial-sized vent fan to just draw air out of that entire room into the basement, but with the living room registers/piping being right above the grow area, I'm more apt to put them in there, actively pumping "weed air" into the house, but passively, as it wouldn't be the intention of bypassing the house's HVAC, merely supplementing it..


Pictures in a second..

 

[GodAmJT]

So here are some sorta crude pics of my basement.. I tried to do a panoramic of the room so you can get an idea of the layout.. JUST REMEMBER; room is roughly 3m x 3m, and those solid metal pipes are approximately 3" in diameter, or about 80mm.. Since there are 3 there, I figure I could tie into them to minimize flow disruptions of going from a larger diameter to a smaller diameter.. It'll increase velocity, but I didn't want to over-burden the fans by pushing too much.. If I do a 4"- x3" split for the 4" grow outlet, and see if I can fashion up a 1-6" to 2-3" pipes, I can divert the exit air to the upstairs of the house for heat in the winter and even just to vent the basement in the Summer and maybe pull some of the other cooler air in the basement towards the grow, when my canopy temps were in the high 80F's/low 30C's..

 

[GodAmJT]

Here's the proposed routing..