Anyone Else Switch Off The Ac Last Night?

[GreatLakesMeds]

Last night at about 10:00, two hours after the sun rises in my flower room, I decided to shut down the AC in my flower room - that thing costs $150/month to run. Much to my delight, my temps stayed under 80 degress with the only cooling being the outside air drawn through the light reflectors. Optimistically, I put my CO2 burner on a cycle of 15 min on and 45 off. Temps stayed around 88 deg F and co2 between 900 and 1150 ppm. I find that if I have good air movement and lots of air pumping in my DWC, 90+ degrees with co2 is no problem. Those of you who have used co2 properly will know what I mean when I say I saw results overnight.

 

I know a lot of people who slow things down in the summer due to heat and the pests. This is an exciting time of year....ramping up for the new season....9 months of easy growing ahead.

 

For those of you considering a CO2 burner - I like mine. When I first set it up, I let the heat get out of control. I found I could push the high 90s but there was no room for error at that temp. Running a hydro system, I didn't keep a close enough eye on my dissolved o2 in the water...and as the water temps rose o2 levels drop quickly and you can begin to lose plants......which is what happened to me.

 

Many people like bottled CO2 due to the heat issues with a burner. I like things simple. I don't want to make special trips to a welding shop to get refills. I figured that since you need a lot of light to get the real benefit of CO2, then it might be tough to cool a room enough in the summer to be able to run the watts/sq foot necessary to benefit from added CO2....so I figured using any CO2 in the summer was unlikely and there were only a few weeks where I felt that one could use bottled co2 but not a burner...so I decided just to not run co2 in the hot season. We growers need a break anyway, right? Don't farmers take long vacations in the summer? Still there are times in the summer when I'd flip it on while I was working in the room.

 

You really do need a lot of light to get the benefit of the co2, in my experience. I'm running 4,000 watts in an 8x8 area right now. I use regular strength nutes. Some people say to use stronger nutes to get the benefit of the co2, but I try to watch my humidity with about 55% RH as a target. If my RH is lower than 55%, I use regular strength nutes since my plants go through more water. When RH levels are higher, I up my nutes 10-20%.

 

Lows in the 40s tonight. I may be able to switch my light hood exhaust from the outdoor vent to my indoor carbon scrubber and start heating the house. You'd be surprised how much you can lower your heat bill if you run HID lamps in your basement and recover the heat.

 

And maybe run my co2 30 min on and 30 off....Fun!