Paranoia or problems with my little ones

If your tent isn't flame proof, you'll have a problem anyway for none that are flammable should be sold by any reputeable vendor, and any convection rad can still go up in flames whereas your ceramic, provided it's not one of these ridiculous "Handy Heater" things will be safer and more efficient.

Grow tent is by unit farm so pretty confident in its quality :)
I do have a good quality ceramic heater, will be pretty tight putting it in but may be solution. I’ll give it a go on my day off so at least I can be home and monitor it
 
Yeah dude I reckon the mat will work nicely. Never used one myself but I think it will be good. Just not sure how much heat they actually give out. It is a pain that you need to raise everything for the heat bar actually. Hmmm, maybe the mat is better! Lol.

Don't worry too much about fires mate. My extinguisher hasn't been used yet and most of the stuff in my tent including the light is DIY'd by someone with very little experience in that department. Me! Electrical fire is the most likely event. Just make sure everything is wired and plugged nicely and don't overload anything. Big light on a separate socket and you're all good dude.

Only got two outlets so everything is spread over the two. Think it should be fine though with leds.
Been away last couple of days, but will put the mat in tonight see if it helps. It gets quite warm to the touch, but having it on the floor will make it struggle due to the cold concrete floor. I should get some insulation of some kind for under the tent really.

On another note, the leaf edges curling has got much worse on the bcn. Didn’t have a chance this morning to take any good pictures, but will get some this afternoon when I’m home in good light. I’m thinking it could be light intensity? Raised the cobs up a bit.
Pretty pale still as well. They were fed 1/4 strength on Friday for the first time

1C4A8D02-A2A2-4261-9AFD-BCBA099AF2E7.jpeg
 
Only got two outlets so everything is spread over the two. Think it should be fine though with leds.
Been away last couple of days, but will put the mat in tonight see if it helps. It gets quite warm to the touch, but having it on the floor will make it struggle due to the cold concrete floor. I should get some insulation of some kind for under the tent really.

On another note, the leaf edges curling has got much worse on the bcn. Didn’t have a chance this morning to take any good pictures, but will get some this afternoon when I’m home in good light. I’m thinking it could be light intensity? Raised the cobs up a bit.
Pretty pale still as well. They were fed 1/4 strength on Friday for the first time

View attachment 954198

Regarding the heating mat, just find a lump of 1/2 inch plywood, good enough for insulating and there's now way possible your heat pad could get hot enough to be an issue or your pots would melt first.

In fact, the only thing to stop you lifting the entire tent off the ground onto the likes of old pallets is basement height so if you have the spare height then lift the whole damn thing off the floor and cut your heat losses from that side of things. The savings in energy alone will be worth it.
 
Regarding the heating mat, just find a lump of 1/2 inch plywood, good enough for insulating and there's now way possible your heat pad could get hot enough to be an issue or your pots would melt first.

In fact, the only thing to stop you lifting the entire tent off the ground onto the likes of old pallets is basement height so if you have the spare height then lift the whole damn thing off the floor and cut your heat losses from that side of things. The savings in energy alone will be worth it.

Heat mat definitely won’t be an issue with regards to getting too hot. In fabric pots, but won’t be an issue. Fan heater though is a tad dodgy, just feel the space is way too tight to have one in it.
Piece of ply is a good idea for sure. Have headroom above tent so no issue there.
Having lows of 17c so it’s not terrible, but could be much better.
Humidity has also been all over the place. Would seem the humidifiers built in hygrometer is all over the place. Have it set to 60% but got a reading of 99% on my separate min max thermo.
Climate control is proving to be a bastard!
 
Heat mat definitely won’t be an issue with regards to getting too hot. In fabric pots, but won’t be an issue. Fan heater though is a tad dodgy, just feel the space is way too tight to have one in it.
Piece of ply is a good idea for sure. Have headroom above tent so no issue there.
Having lows of 17c so it’s not terrible, but could be much better.
Humidity has also been all over the place. Would seem the humidifiers built in hygrometer is all over the place. Have it set to 60% but got a reading of 99% on my separate min max thermo.
Climate control is proving to be a bastard!

The way I see it is that you lose so much by the tent sitting on bare concrete you'll always have problems as so much heat will go out that way and that temperature differential will create a higher density of water vapour as the air being cooled by that gets denser, think like how the moisture on your windows goes in winter.

Eliminate that issue, then environmental control should be easier as that "layer" of moisture will be spread about your tent no matter what you do, and temperature control will be better thanks to not having that temperature differential.

As far as the humidifier goes, the likely issue is that the sensor is "local" to the humidifier so will only control the immediate area there. No idea if some fettling could allow you to modify it so you can use a "remote" sensor which should give you better control there too, but it's maybe worth looking at.

So try raising the tent off the floor, even if it's only on wood it will make a difference but a slab of polystyrene foam, think insulation panel, would be much better as that will ensure that you don't lose so much via conduction between the tent and the cold concrete.
 
Ill get some wood under there as I think I have some lying around.

Will have to just have a play with the humidifiers settings and try and find that sweet spot. Not sure about modifying it, can't say I'm great with electrical work and don't want to break it!
 
Ill get some wood under there as I think I have some lying around.

Will have to just have a play with the humidifiers settings and try and find that sweet spot. Not sure about modifying it, can't say I'm great with electrical work and don't want to break it!
Get the inkbird humidity controller and it will do it all for you

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Get the inkbird humidity controller and it will do it all for you

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

Time to get the card out again :D

Edit: just remembered that my humidifier won’t go on again once turned off. You have to manually turn it on again and set the desired levels :wall:
RH seems somewhat stable now at 50-60%.
Tent temps dropping to 17c lights out still.
Eyeing up this mini 500w tristar rad for inside the tent still. $20 so not braking the bank! Will need a good controller for that though. Maybe just go for the inkbird thermo rather than the combo
 
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Time to get the card out again :D

Edit: just remembered that my humidifier won’t go on again once turned off. You have to manually turn it on again and set the desired levels :wall:
RH seems somewhat stable now at 50-60%.
Tent temps dropping to 17c lights out still.
Eyeing up this mini 500w tristar rad for inside the tent still. $20 so not braking the bank! Will need a good controller for that though. Maybe just go for the inkbird thermo rather than the combo

8 sq ft floor space, I'm going to guess 5 foot of height, you bring in cold air and expel warm air, I wouldn't waste time with a thermostat because that would need to run from at least 1 hour before lights out to at least 2 hours after lights on to have a chance of keeping that space at a higher, stable, temperature.

You really need more, imo based on my experiences of heating installations in homes, as you are not looking at a "draught proof" room but one where you will bring in colder air. And when you mix that with inefficient convection heating versus "forced" heating you are left with making sure that your oil filled rad is in a VERY specific place where it nullifies the cold air intake AND has the grunt to increase temperature in a space that is, for obvious reasons, not sealed.

I use an older version of this

4153238_R_Z001A_UC1212020


and run it at 1kw, and it keeps my room, bigger than your tent, stable whilst the warm air is at "pot" level. You can also get them in a "vertical" form, which will fire out more heat and take up less space than that 1/2kw oil filled rad. If you have space for that Tristar 500w rad, you have space for a small forced ventilation heater which you only have to have blowing "down the side" of the tent to be able to keep temperatures stable without cooking the pots and roots whilst keeping them warm without a heating pad.

You're problem isn't like with many others where they have lower temperature swings, your basement is much colder than you want your tent to be so you will need to jack things up a bit, minimum 1kw for forced heating, 1.5-2kw for pure convection heating in a space where you're not only forcibly circulating air but also bringing in much colder air whilst forcibly expelling warmer air, as pure convection sends the heat upwards where it will get sucked out by your extract before it has the chance to be circulated around the tent.
 
8 sq ft floor space, I'm going to guess 5 foot of height, you bring in cold air and expel warm air, I wouldn't waste time with a thermostat because that would need to run from at least 1 hour before lights out to at least 2 hours after lights on to have a chance of keeping that space at a higher, stable, temperature.

You really need more, imo based on my experiences of heating installations in homes, as you are not looking at a "draught proof" room but one where you will bring in colder air. And when you mix that with inefficient convection heating versus "forced" heating you are left with making sure that your oil filled rad is in a VERY specific place where it nullifies the cold air intake AND has the grunt to increase temperature in a space that is, for obvious reasons, not sealed.

I use an older version of this

4153238_R_Z001A_UC1212020


and run it at 1kw, and it keeps my room, bigger than your tent, stable whilst the warm air is at "pot" level. You can also get them in a "vertical" form, which will fire out more heat and take up less space than that 1/2kw oil filled rad. If you have space for that Tristar 500w rad, you have space for a small forced ventilation heater which you only have to have blowing "down the side" of the tent to be able to keep temperatures stable without cooking the pots and roots whilst keeping them warm without a heating pad.

You're problem isn't like with many others where they have lower temperature swings, your basement is much colder than you want your tent to be so you will need to jack things up a bit, minimum 1kw for forced heating, 1.5-2kw for pure convection heating in a space where you're not only forcibly circulating air but also bringing in much colder air whilst forcibly expelling warmer air, as pure convection sends the heat upwards where it will get sucked out by your extract before it has the chance to be circulated around the tent.

That makes sense, oil rads do take a while to get going, and with a thermostat they’d probably be in a perpetual battle of keeping the temp stable.
I like the idea of the panel convection heaters as your not focusing heat at any certain point. I have two clip fans in there which really help circulate the air around, so I’m sure the heat will be distributed evenly through the tent, especially if one is blowing directly over the top.

Thanks for all the help bud, really appreciated


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