Indoor Loft is too cold ....

[budzilla1989]

My temps are dropping to around 10c overnight, when lights are off

plants are like cress at the moment they are auto Maria 2's .

seems to be doing ok 1 week old.

When lights On temps anywhere between 20-30c

i bought a oil oil filled rad mini one 500w and it's not coming on with the timer I think it has to have the therm manually adjusted to start it

any cost effective soloutions to the oil filled rad ?
have been looking at electric heaters but they are like 1000w I'm sure that's gonna rinse my electric and they aren't to safe ?
would those heater work ok on a timer ?

Loft insulated and and a decent room is built .
i have a intake fan that runs 24/7 which is obviously cooling things down as it's drawing in cold air from outside

 

[namvet25]

Just set the thermostat where you want it and don't use the timer.

 

[Fluke83]

How many hours of dark are you running? Can you shorten it to maybe no more than 4 hours at most, maybe even none, or are you on a tight budget electricity-wise?

Then maybe you can skip the oil radiator altogether, or as namvet says, just use it without a timer.

Between a shorter dark period and the radiator on a low but constant setting maybe you could keep the temperature from dropping so much.

Depending on how long you keep lights out maybe as low as between 10-15 C might be enough, since the temperature in the soil inside the containers doesn't drop like the ambient room temperature, the soil stays pretty warm. Then the thermostat also won't kick in during light hours if you leave it on all the time.

 

[Duggy]

When its cold I run autos on 24/0 light cycle... It will help if you want lights off time to have your lights off period in the afternoon when its a little warmer.."AFN smoke out"

 

[budzilla1989]

Thanks for replys

I'm doing 18hrs light light 4am light goes on , lights out is 10pm

Temp is falling through the night from say 12-4am it's going down to 10c room temp.

The weather will still be getting colder here in the uk

24hr light is an option however is this healthy ? I'm not too keen
I quite like the hours the lights on at the moment , setting the heater manually would be a pain as it would mean I would have to get up the loft make a load noise getting the ladder down every night

is there any kind of timer heater that is efficient, safe and cost effective that could be time controlled anyone would recommend ?

 

[Fluke83]

If you have a thermostat on the heater just plug it into a constant electricity source, no timers, and set the thermostat to like 15 degrees or so.

If your lights on temps are above 15 the heater will turn itself off and not go on unless the temperature drops below 15 again, so no need to turn it on or off manually.

It's perfectly ok to keep a 24/0 lights on schedule for autos.
The first sticky post in this forum discusses this at length https://www.autoflower.org/f5/whats-best-lighting-cycle-autos-24-0-20-4-18-6-a-3691.html

 

[Muddy]

You may also want to change your light cycle so lights off is during the warmest part of the day. I run an insulated outdoor grow box where I am drawing outside air in. I run my lights out from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. I use a 1,500 watt electric space heater on a timer so it only runs during lights out. You could do the same thing with your oil filled heater. Set it's thermostat to the desired temp and once the timer kicks on, it should come on and work normally.

 

[Happy Horticulturist]

When its cold I run autos on 24/0 light cycle... It will help if you want lights off time to have your lights off period in the afternoon when its a little warmer.."AFN smoke out"

this is by far the smartest solution

 

[Happy Horticulturist]

You may also want to change your light cycle so lights off is during the warmest part of the day. I run an insulated outdoor grow box where I am drawing outside air in. I run my lights out from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. I use a 1,500 watt electric space heater on a timer so it only runs during lights out. You could do the same thing with your oil filled heater. Set it's thermostat to the desired temp and once the timer kicks on, it should come on and work normally.

This too