Frustrating discovery

[Surfer Joe]

After growing in a tent in an unheated garage for a while, I was able to build a grow room by putting up a stud wall in the corner of an unheated garage and creating a 5 x 10 foot enclosed space.

I set up the lights, filters and extractor fans and the intake and exhaust holes so everything was light tight and had two wall plugs installed in the space so everything would be neat and accessible.

It all worked fine for a couple of weeks and then the garage breaker switch started tripping continually.

The circuits were fine but we discovered that the wall plugs mounted on the garage walls of the grow room were collecting condensation from the cold walls and the warm interior of the grow room and that was creating a circuit break.

I had to disconnect the wall plugs and then ran a couple of heavy duty extension cords throughout the grow room walls to plugs in the unheated part of the garage.

Everything is fine again and I made it look fairly neat and tidy, but I had no idea that condensation would be a problem in such a setup.

The growing in a tent, the extension cords in the tent were always plugged into plugs outside the tent so it was never a problem.

 

[MidgeSmith]

Yeah. Despite heft insulation, I am experiencing the same in my shed where there are tiny spots where the insulation isn't 100% and almost freezing air cools down the warmer air inside enough to cause a tiny amount of water to persistently run down.  After the current grow, I will have to take the board off the ceiling and perfect the insulation!  Of course it just happens to be almost above the lung-room light. :/

[ItWasntMeHonestly]

I have a small 3x2 indoor tent with a recently installed humidifer and even that has some condensation low down on the walls!

[badbillybob]

you need some proper extraction for the hot air from your room, can you drill a vent  into the garage wall and install a vent?

 

[Surfer Joe]

1 hour ago, ItWasntMeHonestly said:

I have a small 3x2 indoor tent with a recently installed humidifer and even that has some condensation low down on the walls!

I know, my tent always did too,  but the electric plug was outside the tent so it wasn’t affected by condensation.

Edited 29 minutes ago by Surfer Joe

[Surfer Joe]

48 minutes ago, badbillybob said:

you need some proper extraction for the hot air from your room, can you drill a vent  into the garage wall and install a vent?

 

No, it’s only getting up to 20C in the grow room at the moment, and I will probably need to up the light to 600W or add a small oil heater as it gets colder outside. The problem is that the wall plug is inside the grow space and is mounted on a cold concrete wall of the garage. Even a low temperature difference between the wall and the inside air was creating a problem inside the plug outlet mounted on the wall, but it’s more likely that the radiant heat hitting the plug from the light was also adding to the condensation problem since the plants are small and not transpiring a lot of moisture yet. But the typical humidity in my area is around 70- 80%, so that’s not helpful either.

 

[Twiki]

Hi surfer Joe,

 

Just a thought, but could you not install external sockets instead of the standard?

Would assume they'd be fine in the environment..

Maybe worth a try .

 

Wiki