Heat and humity issues with door closed Options

[wolvenstien]

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this or if it should be in the "Cultivation > Problem Solver > General Growing Questions" section, but I am gonna post here.

My grow box, posted here: http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=155204
I took a little while about 3 weeks to get the door onto it, and while I was waiting for the door, i had the door way covered with a thermal blanket which essentially was a blue tarp with a mylar reflective material on the other side. I had 2x4s weighting down the bottom of the tarp to hold it in place.
Now that I have the door in place, I took the tarp and stapled it to the inside of the door with the mylar side out toward the plants. I folded the edges inward to help provide a light tight seal. But now I am experiencing much higher heat and higher humidity than before the door was installed.
Before the highest temp and humidity was 75 degrees F and around 55 humidity. Now the heat is in the low 90's F and humidity is in the 70s. I opened her up the other day and I had dew standing on the entire mylar surface. I would see where the wood was wet on the inside of the box too.
I do not have a way to get a dehumidifier into the box, so i am left with the only other option of venting it.
If I vent it, I am going to need to vent through a home made carbon filter.
But I dont know where to start on this. Because of the way the box is built with the household heating and air conditioning ducts and being against the wall, I am not able to cross vent from one side to the opposite. I and stuck with venting from below the thermometer display which is mounted above the light switch as an in, and out through the back high up.
Right now I am left with having to leave the door open about 10 inches.
What suggestions can you folks provide me as to how to go about venting this box? From What I can think of, I need to add an 8 inch hole below the temp display low down, add a hose to it to prevent light from coming in through it. Add an 8 inch hole on the upper back side and add hose going to a home made canister carbon filter, going to a fan that would pull the air out. How does this sound so far?

Below is a pic of what I am talking about.... you think it will help?

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[KC]

Hello wolf

So you were running your grow cab with no air exchange???

The key to growing indoors is trying to replicate outside as close as possible. The air doesn't contain much co2 so it must be exchanged many times to supply the plant enough carbon for good growth.

You need to find someway of extracting the air to a separate place which in the basement might be awkward. Either that or find somewhere to bring air in and then just extract into the basement where the cab is. I hope you see what i mean, its so you're not recycling stale air.

Looks like you got some work to do

[leroy]

you def need ventilation, your idea looks ok, intake at the bottom and out at the top

[wolvenstien]

I understand completely. I didnt even think of co2. There is a vent to the outside behind the box, so I can vent directly outside after going through the carbon filter.
The main thing I am stuck on is I have no knowledge of HVAC. I did go ahead and cut an 8 inch hole into the back of the box last night to allow some ventilation because of the humidity.
I have a completely separate issue I have to contend with now. I noticed that there was a small spring coming into the earth side of the basement back behind the grow box when it rains. Well, last night, I got to digging and I thought I would be able to dig it out and discover where the water was coming from and stop it. All I was able to do was cause the water to flow much faster. It is coming in and flowing along the wall behind the box and working around the box and coming infront of the box. Now that it is flowing allot faster, it is flooding. Good thing I laid brick and plastic down under the box before I built it huh? I dug out a rather large hole going under the foundation, and cannot figure out where the water is coming from so I have decided to dig it out a bit more in depth, put in some gravel, and put in a sump pump to keep it from flooding the area. I will have to wait until it gets into the dry season before trying to figure out why and where it is coming from but the area inside the basement is about 3 feet deeper than the outside surface level (which slopes down). But as long as it still comes in, there is going to be a humidity issue I think.
Anyways... back to the HVAC questions... should I use the same size hose for input and output? I figured that instead of cutting a hole on the side under the light switch, I would go ahead and cut one low center on the door, add a hose and curl it and mount the hose to the door allowing the door to still open freely, and then the one in the back go through the canister, to the wall vent.
I originally thought I might use the house HVAC system and tap into it to circulate the air in the box, but the home hvac system doesnt run all the time and it is an enclosed system, recirculating the air from within the home.... Come summer, I might need to tap in to use the cool air, but still vent it outdoors.

[Tremont-Salby]

Howdo , i saw your very stealthy basement area
& it led me here
i'm sorry to hear of your troubles with the spring

regarding the sump idea, is the water clean enough to use for your plants?
you could run it into a barrel if it passes ph tests etc
i'm guessing you're not in the uk, and using the hvac system to get air in/out of your growspace sounds like a winner,i'm sure that you could pick up enough basic knowledge with a bit of research if you've managed to make that door .
if hvac / warm air recycling was more commonplace over here then it'd make many diy'ers happy, well me for one.

[wolvenstien]

, I had not thought about recycling the water.... and thats a good idea... Was on the phone when I was reading this and they PH'd the water to about 6.5-7.0. So it would be fine to recycle.... It is muddy right now, but once I get it all cleaned up and get the gravel in there, i do not see why it would not be nice and clear.

As for my location... no, I am not in the UK... I am in the states... and in the area I am in 98% of all structures have heat and air conditioning system installed. The only drawback to integrating the HVAC system into the box is that the HVAC system does not run all the time. If I could find someone who knows HVAC and is 420 friendly... then the knowledge would flow so to speak....

[wolvenstien]

Here are a couple picture of the water issue I am battling
I have decided to go with a 6 inch input and a 6 inch output.
I am looking at making a carbon filter and adding an inline fan to the output after the carbon filter, and venting it straight out of the basement to the outdoors.
Here is the inline fan I am looking at using, it is a 250cfm fan which I think would be perfect for teh box as the box is one 4foot by 4 foot by 6.5 foot.
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores...uctId=100396559
And having it controlled by this:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores...uctId=100028788

I am looking to get a 6 inch duct about a foot long to go inline before the fan and turn it into the carbon filter.....

Anyone here know about making carbon filters? Is there a specific ratio per cfm or anything I need to go by? or is it just something that works regardless?

, Looking at the pix right now as I am about to resize them.... I promise the pipes are not leaking, and there is no poo in the water... the water is clean....
The one where you see the sump pump, was were the original spring was coming out from under the foundation. I dug it out and made it worse... so I figures i would vacuum out all the water and fill it with rock and then put in a sump. I did this last night, the sump sucked up a rock and busted the casing.... go figure huh? .... well, after this happened, I noticed water coming in from another direction; up towards the corner... so I started to dig out up above the pipes and sure enough... there is a spring up there and me digging it out caused it to be worse too.... Atleast it has stopped raining today....
I am going to need to get on a DIY site to try to find someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to foundations and see what the possibilities are of me digging out the exterior and repairing it and preventing this from happening in the future.....

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[wolvenstien]

I have since added a vent system and it is helping with both heat and humidity.....
http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?show...p;#entry1600949