Indoor Growing Lung Rooms-Expand Your Grow With a Lung
By housing all of these main pieces of growing equipment for CEA cultivation methods indoors into one central room, growers can install ducting to connect the air “manufactured” in the central room to any number of separate grow rooms that return the air, after carbon filtration, with a fan back into the lung room
Expanding the number of grow rooms in your growing area or hydroponics facility doesn’t mean that you have to buy all new hydroponics equipment when you follow the basics set out in this guide on indoor growing lung rooms.
CEA (Controlled Environment Agriculture) is the most productive method of indoor hydroponics environmental control available to the modern mid to large scale indoor grower.
In this method, the environment is manufactured by the grower with monitoring and controls equipment to maintain optimal CO2, humidity, air quality and temperature levels without exhausting air from the grow room to outside or drawing air from outdoors to inside your grow room in an attempt to maintain a healthy growing environment for your valued crop.
To accomplish this an industrial air conditioner, de-humidifier (and/or humidifier), and CO2 generating appliances with controls for cultivation are often required. These can be more costly to buy, and are usually a considerable initial investment, although returns may be quick in some cases. Besides cost, they tend to take up valuable space in the the growing area-cutting into where you should have more plants for the same energy used.
By housing all of these main pieces of growing equipment for CEA cultivation methods indoors into one central room, growers can install ducting to connect the air “manufactured” in the central room to any number of separate grow rooms that return the air, after carbon filtration, with a fan back into the lung room. The ducting acts like arteries for grow room air in environmental control.
Above: An activated carbon filter and fan returns air from each grow room back to the central lung.
The lung room with the AC, CO2 appliance and other equipment will maintain the grower’s set-point. That means that the collective air will be at that set point, using the same equipment for controlling the air, but maintaining multiple grow rooms with independent lighting cycles and crop lighting equipment (or relays).
This is the basic principle-and is a good starting point for growers with some level of experience in advanced hydroponics environmental control, especially in CEA or “Sealed” growing environments. Besides not having to buy all new equipment when you want to add a room or two onto your existing hydroponics facility, it tends to simplify the installation and keep costs down because there is less duplication of services or maintenance required.
Want to use your existing AC and start to add extra rooms from a CEA lung room?
Click HERE for an easy DIY step-by step with photos from scrap materials that will show you how.
Tags: CEA, Hydroponics, indoor growing lung rooms