High Loft Temperatures - water chillers

[Tictok]

The one thing that has made a real difference this year in my loft is insulation.

To combat the cold this winter I put Kingspan foam in the walls (bought a couple but a local builder let me have some he was ripping out a house. I also bought a few rolls of silver bubble wrap from the DIY store and pinned it up across the eaves.

I covered the tent in an old duvet and sleeping bag also.

Come summer now and the insulation is protecting the tent from getting too hot. Max temp I've hit is 30.

[Minty]

The one thing that has made a real difference this year in my loft is insulation.

Good idea. Kinda strange to think covering it up with a duvet actually helps keep it cool.

down grade to just a tent which is now in the bedroom

That sucks but at least they are still alive. Just checked on mine and the heat is definitely getting to them.

[Minty]

Random question do you have your fans above your plants aimed down towards them? Only reason I ask is that could be blowing hotter air on them? I'm not pro but I never have a fan above my plants I have one underneath blowing up the cold air and co2 that falls as we know it's heavier, just an idea or maybe read up on it more, but yeah me personally I don't have them above because I'm my head it's blowng hot air down onto the plants
Probably talking BS but you never know

I have one fan blowing through the air gap between the plant and the light and another pointing down towards the plants. The lights are not actually giving off any heat in comparison to the general high environment temps.

I'm hoping we get the shit weather back soon ;o) especially as we can't really even enjoy the sun at the moment.

[MrNice]

Last resort hose pipe on the roof na

only joking but have done that tho to some AC roof condensers before as they kept cutting out due to the heat as they couldnt dump the heat

had 600 peeps busting my balls saying their to hot so spent the day watering the condensers and getting a tan was a nice day

mind you your neighbours might think its a bit weid you watering your roof....

[Minty]

The plants are really starting to show the signs of heat stress:-



I think this is mostly due to the water temperature and it is so annoying having the chiller but missing parts.

Seeing we only have these high temps for short periods, and getting full on air con fitted in the loft is not really justifiable, I have decided to go for a portable air conditioning solution. I have ordered a Zero Breeze Mark II portable air conditioner as in theory it should be perfect. It has an fresh air intake, hot air extract and cold air feed directly into the tent and is advertised as being able to drop the ambient temp by 30℃. It's small enough to possibly even be mounted in the tent but comes with 3x pipes so could also sit above the tent. It's portable but I didn't need the battery and watching a couple of videos seems to show that it is not that loud.







Personally I think it looks the ideal solution as it is infrared controllable (I will need to add support for IR to my HydroBox) so can be automated along with everything else. Cost wise I paid £768 ($949 USD including the $80 shipping)

What do you guys think? Anyone seen these devices before or have one?

[MrNice]

What size ac do you need

Calculate Size

To calculate the size, simply multiply the length times the width of the room or area to be cooled. Then, as a practical number, multiply that total times 25 BTU. This allows ample cooling, whether it is a rainy, moist day or a hot, sunny, humid day. Let’s say the room is 12 feet wide by 15 feet long. That means 12x15=180 square feet. Take the 180 sq. ft. times 25 BTU per square foot and you get the minimum BTU air conditioner you should buy. That means 180x25=4500 BTU cooling capacity is needed.


Zero Breeze runs on a 1,100 BTU cooling power.


https://campinghabits.com/zero-breeze/

[Minty]

To calculate the size, simply multiply the length times the width of the room or area to be cooled. Then, as a practical number, multiply that total times 25 BTU. This allows ample cooling, whether it is a rainy, moist day or a hot, sunny, humid day. Let’s say the room is 12 feet wide by 15 feet long. That means 12x15=180 square feet. Take the 180 sq. ft. times 25 BTU per square foot and you get the minimum BTU air conditioner you should buy. That means 180x25=4500 BTU cooling capacity is needed.

Zero Breeze runs on a 1,100 BTU cooling power.

Hey mate, as it is just going to be for the tent and based on your calculations that would make it

3.4 x 3.4 = 11.56 x 25 = 289 BTU and the mark II Zero Breeze is 2,300 BTU so should hopefully be within spec. Only way to really know if it will be up for the job is to try it I guess.

[Minty]

Apparently the mark two has a dehumidifier mode as well which will definitely be handy down the line once I need to dehumidify rather than currently still struggling to humidify ;o) Gotta love this growing cycle ;o)

Additional benefits are that it shouldn't be that loud and the original problem I had with Air Con was with the 'getting it fitted' scenario. I am hoping this will be perfect as I can hook the air intake pipe into my incoming feed and divert some air into the cooler then back into the feed so cool air goes through the Presh Filter along with the normal air flow. Cooling the feed should allow me to dump the hot exhaust into the extract pipe as it goes out of the roof without needing another Carbon Filter.

To be honest I have looked at every way at DIYing a cooler and if I was to do it myself the Zero Breeze would be what I would make so actually really excited to see how well it works. It ticks all the boxes for my use case and if it can lower the temps 10℃ and sound levels are reasonable I will be a happy bunny.

I think the biggest issue at the moment is actually getting one with all the Covid delays in production, shipping, etc.

[Tentlover87]

Ice packs non stop lol

[Tentlover87]

I made a wrap from bubble insulation for over the tent.but I always used 100mm celotex during the loft conversion.loft got up to max 35 during the heatwave but tent only got up to max 31 .running 8 and 6@ ec silenced revolutions