A Brief Guide to Setting Up an Indoor Grow Room Ventilation System(Inline Fan)

 When growing plants in a grow tent or room, you need to provide the plants with good ventilation. Some fans are designed specifically for this purpose. Note down factors such as price, size, CFM, etc. to help choose the right product for your needs. We looked at some very high-spec fans.

What Is CFM And How Do I Calculate It?

One important measurement you’ll see on all fans is CFM, or Cubic Feet per Minute. This number refers to — you guessed it — the cubic feet per minute of air that the inline fan you’re considering is capable of exchanging out of a given area.

For example, imagine you have an 8’ x 4’ x 12’ room. This is 384 cubic feet of space (4 x 4 x 8). Let’s now imagine you wanted to exchange all of the air inside that room with fresh air once per minute. You might think you need a fan rated at 384 CFM, but you’d be wrong.

It’s always a good idea to multiply the cubic feet of your available space by at least 1.33 to account for any airflow drop due to any filters, etc. that are attached to your ventilation system.

Using that 1.33x multiplier, we get a required CFM number of ~510 to exchange the air in our example grow room once per minute.

ECO Farm 8 Inch In-line Fan Exhaust and Intake Fan for Grow Room

Features:

For the combination of power and quiet, ECO Farm inline fan is the perfect choice. Even at the highest power setting, it is very quiet. Due to the use of a pulse width modulation (PWM) controlled DC motor, its quiet noise level is only 37dBA. This motor uses less power than standard AC motors. In addition to a quiet motor, this fan also has an adjustable speed setting. The airflow is 390 CFM, which is very suitable for medium-sized planting rooms. In order to install the fan, the machine and wood mounting screws are included to assist in the installation.

SunStream Inline Duct Fan Vent Blower

Features:

The construction of this fan is quite sturdy and durable. This fan is easy to mount and install because of its high-quality manufacturing. It is designed with the durable ceramic-coated and permanently lubricated bearing that requires Zero maintenance. It gives you a higher output than any other fan. For the price point, it is quieter and more powerful than the others. What else do you need? The speed controller is added to maintain the speed of the fan inside the tent. This inline fan will be worthy of your investment. It is suitable for industrial, household and horticulture ventilation applications for air clean and temperature control.

HURRICANE Inline Duct Fan for Grow Room

Features:

The Hurricane Inline fan is undoubtedly the best inline fan for large grow tents and rooms. For an inline fan that has a CFM rating of about 1060, it’s definitely more than enough for most of the large-sized grow tents on the market. Its build quality is appreciable, no doubt, as it is made with a combination of high-quality materials. The fan is made from steel and dons a finish that looks like a powder-coated finish. This fan is available in different sizes ranging from 4-inches all the way to 12-inches. Similarly, the CFM rating of the respective fans increases from 171 all the way to 1060. This Hurricane inline fan lacks controls of its own — you can’t control the speed and the climate.

Things to consider

Automatic Setup Features
Features like automatic speed control, humidity sensors, and timers are something you want your inline fan for grow tent to have if you’re aiming for a premium pick.

But additional automation capabilities are very convenient and will make your life much easier since you don’t have to set the ideal conditions all the time.

Additionally, some fans offer support for an alarm system as well.

You’ll have peace of mind knowing that you can leave your inline fan for grow tent alone — and not have to worry about your plants dying when you do.

Variable Speed Controller
Speaking of automated features, the most important extra feature you should look out for is if your inline fan has a variable speed controller.

Why? Most inline fans start at 100% or the highest fan speed available to remove the stale air in your grow tent fast.

This is good until all airflow has reached its ideal level, and you no longer need it to work at full blast.

Most tent fans already have this feature (yes, even the budget option ones!), so it should be easy to get the best inline fan equipped with this.

Always working your fan at the highest speed can do more harm than good, such as raising your electricity bills and deteriorating it fast because it’s working extra hard all the time.

This is where the variable speed controller comes in. This feature automatically lowers the fan’s speed as soon as the airflow is ideal.

It will also keep this ideal air intake level by adjusting to your growing tent’s changing conditions.

You also won’t have to check your tent to ensure ideal conditions constantly!

Power
When it comes to inline fans, you want to get the most powerful inline fan you can.

A high-powered fan has better fan speed and moves more fresh air faster, ventilating better for your plants. This is especially useful if your grow tent is quite big.

If you’re aiming for a budget inline fan, you might get stuck with low-powered options, so aim for the highest-powered fan within your budget.

Installation
This is a factor most people overlook when purchasing any inline duct fans and only think about it after they have made their purchase.

So before you buy your inline fan for grow tent, look around your space and start listing your options on where to place it and how to install it.

This way, when you purchase your inline duct fan, you’ll be able to visualize how it will look in your grow tent, and you can pick the best inline fan to match your planned installation.

Cord Length
Lastly, you want the cord length of your inline fan to be enough for installation. You can take care of this while planning your fan installation.

Measure the distance from where you want to install your inline fan to the nearest wall plug and get a fan that has that cord length that you need.

This way, you won’t have to deal with the hassle of extension cords in your grow tent!

Conclusion

That’s all for the best inline fans for grow tents I’ve ever owned!

Hope this article helps you in your decision to buy a grow room! It is important for your grow room to be as functional as possible to minimize damage.