Winters here and the temps are getting low - here's an idea that might reduce 'direct heating' costs while giving your plants some extra light;

I've got six plants on the go at the mo 4 in a Wilma and two in a home made bubbler. Up to this point I've used a 600watt sodium in a Diamond reflector to cover the lot. The two in the bubbler have been a bit light deprived so I bought a Cooltube & used a spare 400watt sodium to give em some extra lumens. The narrowness of the Cooltube suits the geometry of the room (loft grow, slanty ceiling with the Diamond hogging 60% of the available ceiling space over the plants).

Initially I was going to vent the air drawn through the cooltube out of the room through my main extractor then it occurred to me that rather than just throw the heat directly 'out the window' it might be put to better use warming the room up first. To this end, I've attached the cooltube to a second extractor fan (sucking rather than blowing), the exhaust of which is blown into the room through ducting at floor level (but not directly onto the plants).

One effect of this is that a thermostatically controlled electric fan heater in the room is only consuming half the power that it used to (down from about 8 KW/hrs to 4 during 12hour lights on).

Net result is that the extra 400watt sodium is only upping my overall power consumption by approx a Kilowatt/hr per 12hour flowering period.

Couple of caveats here -

1) The dynamics of the new air flow could mean that some air is getting repeatedly recirculated without reaching the main extraction duct. I suspect this won't be the case but will keep an eye on the plants to see if they like the new arrangement.
2) This setup only makes sense if you've got an 'open room' arrangement rather than grow tent/smallish boxed in area.

Apologies if the above is a well known strategy - haven't seen it mentioned here before though.

dmt.

The hot air from one of my flower rooms gets extracted into my dogs kennle keeps him nice an warm through the night plus he got a 4ft tube heater in there he a big soft bastard ya see

Your dog must be nice and snug, while getting the lush smell of the plants

Madness

bloody hope not, that would mean the C F had stopped working.

top idea leepy

e2a , you do know about carbon filters don't you madness ?

My drobe heats my living room at night, makes these cold mornings a bit better when i wander through .