Cooling your indoor garden or outdoor green house during the summer is crucial to a successful garden. There are different ways to do this with benefits to each method. When plants are at an optimal tempureture their stoma (pores on the surface of their leaves) stay closed and they use less resources to stay healthy. A properly cooled room leads to healthier plants and better yields.

Air conditioning units are a great way to cool a garden, but the waste heat needs to be dealt with properly. An A/C unit can provide cheap directed cooling to your indoor garden.

Splits

Mini splits are easy to install with pre-charged coolant lines and provide very good cooling for small areas. Heat is dealt with outside of the garden area.

Central

Central A/C is difficult to set up and doesn’t provide directed cooling to your garden. They are great for cooling a large area, but if you need to cool a small room to certain temperature ranges central AC is not your best choice.

Standalone

Floor and wall units are easy to install and cool small areas very well. Odor control can be a problem due to the heat being pulled out of the growing area, but this can be dealt with through filtering. Our 12,000 BTU standalone is a great deal.

Evaporative coolers work well certain parts of the year. When the outside humidity raises too high they become less effective. They are very cheap and work best in outdoor greenhouses. Be careful of humidity levels; evaporative cooling can raise the humidity levels quite a bit.

Water chillers provide the best cooling to cost. They are expensive to set up but the most efficient when running. They lower temperatures easily and can cool spots by use of air handlers. They put the least impact on other growing parameters you may have set (such as CO2 and humidity) which make them a great choice for for high quality grow rooms.

When making a choice on your cooling power a good rule of thumb is 6000 BTU per 1000 watt light. BTUs are just a measurement for how much power it takes to cool or heat 1 pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit (but keep your AC unit out of the water).

Whatever you choose to cool your room, be sure to select the power and cooling system that suits your unique growing room. If you need any advice, come into any Sea of Green store, give us a call, or send us an email (insert link to contact page) and our growing experts will gladly help you make the right choice. Happy growing!