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Basement grow

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pantherbrew

New member
My grow tent is located in my basement (concrete floor and walls) I live in the north east and don’t want to wait until spring and summer to start my first grow. Any suggestions for insulating tent from cold? Not sure if it would be safe for heater inside tent. Tent is AC infinity 3x3 with 250 watt led.
 
Welcome aboard. How cold does your basement get? I would not put a heater inside the tent. I don’t have any experience with insulating a grow tent. With that said, I think you could wrap your tent in fiberglass insulation, but that might be a PITA. Maybe 4x8 foam insulation boards. I’m thinking you could use the foam boards to build a small lung room for your tent. Keep that warm with a small heater. You could also wrap the tent with the foam boards.
 
I have two tents in a basement, 400w LED lighting and drivers, a small dehumidifier and during winter I need to run a small heater on occasion to bring the basement up to about 20⁰C so I can keep a happy 23 or so in the tents with lights on. Lights of the tent just drops back to basement temps. The dehumidifier keeps the basement around 60% RH.
 
I just started experimenting with an auto grow in a cold (7 degree c, 45 degree f) garage. I bought a Digital Temperature Controller 110-220V/220V Thermostat Control Switch off eBay ​for £4.66 that turns my exhaust fan on at 26 degree and off at 20 degree c. The HPS light is 600w and is an open hood so it doesn't depend on the exhaust fan for cooling it. The exhaust fan discharges right out the tent. The tent is insulated with blankets, although proper insulation would be better. The tent is also being kept from direct contact with the floor through the use of about 5 layers of cardboard. Since my 250w HPS wasn't hot enough to keep the tent temperature in range, I don't think your LED will work with this set up unfortunately. That said, I don't need to run a heater. Gator's suggestion above is a good one, set the pots on heating pads.
 
A heater is perfectly safe to run in a tent, i've been doing that for years. You can set the heater to come on and off at certain temps, using one of any million types of controllers out there. You have to be careful when you water, and little heaters will only last a few seasons before needing to be replaced, but running a 200W heater in a tent is no more dangerous then running 500W of light. In most scenarios, the light itself will keep the tent more than warm enough during the light cycle, to where you will actually need to exhaust warm air out to avoid cooking the plants. But during the night cycle, your plants will get cold and will need some additional heat if your basement drops much below 70F.

If you are really nervous about adding a heater to your tent, then the next best move is to setup 2 tents, side by side, and alternate the 12-12 light schedule so that one tent is always on. Then pump the air from top of one tent to the other and back again, creating a loop of air going between both tents. That way, the tent that is on, will keep the tent that is off nice and warm, back and forth.

i've used both heaters, and recirculating air from tent to tent, to grow in some real cold areas, with very little added energy, and had great results. If you ask me, i'd rather put my tents in a cold area and heat them up in this manner, then growing in a hot area. its much easier to keep the tents at a proper temperature, if their surroundings are colder then what you want inside the tent.
 
Brilliant,I live in upstate NY and I know how hard it is to grow in a basement here, how would you manage rh ???
 
If its too low, thats easy, add a humidifier. If its too high, thats tougher. If its cold and dry outside, the best thing to do is find a way to duct in some outside air. If its otherwise hot and humid outside, the only thing left to do is to add an ac to the tent, or a dehumidifier to the surrounding area where the tent sucks air in. ac infinity is finally taking orders on their tent AC unit, which is the only unit I see on the market where you can duct in and duct out of it, making it perfectly designed for grow tents. I have one on order, which will get here in march...

My grow tents are literally in an outdoor workshop 10x20 shed. I added insulation to the inside walls to seal it up. I run (3) 4x4 tents inside. When the tents heat up, they suck in cool air from the bottom of the shed. Each tent has a 700W LED light, and about 500W of little heaters in it, and nothing else in the shed. It gets to about 10F in the winter outside sometimes to zero. The tents run on alternating schedules, and are ducted to one another for one big loop. One or 2 tents are always on at any given point in time. With just the heat coming off the lights, and the little electric heaters which only come on maybe 20% of the time in the most frigid days, I can keep those tents at 75F all winter long, with very little extra heat needed other than what is coming off the lights. The little heaters only come on in the most frigid days and they really dont stay on long. In the summers, I can keep my shed as cool as the air in the shade under the shed gets, which can be about 10 degrees cooler than the outside air temp. It gets in the 90's down here, do I have issues in the summer. I think the new ac unit will help with that.
 
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