In this episode of FAQ with AGIQ, we discuss airflow. High or low CFM? How does that affect your grow room, and what's right for you?
Episode Transcription:
High or low CFM - how does that affect your grow room, and what's right for you? You're going to notice lots of different equipment manufacturers have various airflow ranges, anywhere from 200 to 500 cfm per ton (cubic feet per minute, per ton). It's a measure of the amount of air they move. We, AGIQ, offers between 350 and 400 CFM per ton as a general rule, and we're in that higher range of airflow for a couple of really good reasons.
One, it allows us enough air with proper ductwork or proper air distribution in your room to achieve your canopy velocities with no secondary air removers. Secondary air removers, again, a decent Band-Aid solution if you've got an airflow problem. But they add cost and complexity to your design. They add plug load to the space, a thermal load that we now need to air conditioned. So, a direct expense to you.
And the other part that's often overlooked is they're hard to clean. Many air rotation fans in the space are open pull motors that are vectors for infection. They never get clean. They never get replaced. So you end up with this disease vector that can exist within your rooms that you're probably not thinking about.
By delivering that higher CFM, we've got the capacity to achieve all of your airflow desires. The other big advantage, though, is it means that we can deliver full cooling and full dehumidification to the space without delivering 50-degree air to that room by having a higher airflow and having an evaporator bypass. We're able to cool your process stream down enough to get all the work we need, but then passively reheat backup without using an auxiliary heat source to ensure that we're not shocking your plants with cold or hot air.
Both of those extremes happen when you're at a lower CFM per ton. That's why, generally speaking, more airflow is always better. Units are very efficient at driving good quality airflow, treated airflow, filtered and processed. It's, in my opinion, the right way to do things.
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