Just thought I would throw this out there as a suggestion for a low-cost, quiet, and very effective odor extraction for a closet grow – yes, I'm American so its odor.
I have a very small closet grow (about 2 1/2'x2 1/2'). Like a lot of others, I was really not thrilled about small, expensive fans that don't last long for circulating air. I took an inexpensive gamble on a small but powerful Amazon Basics fan (7", 3 speed), and I am glad I did. It was only $15, and on low speed it is very quiet. I mounted it inside the closet on a board above the closet door and angled it downwards to blow on the quantum board. On low-speed, it moves enough air to keep the leaves moving slightly, and it hardly makes any noise. Like @Monkeydo's approach, it has plenty of horsepower should I ever need to bump the speed up or use it in a larger grow space. It is always better to have more than you need in reserve than to need more and not have it.
Since I have a tiny grow space (for now ), I only have two plants. I have a temperature-controlled fan in the ceiling that vents into the attic, and with only the two girls, was not concerned about the smell, thinking it would diffuse out of the attic through the vents. With plants growing larger, the smell is getting much stronger in the closet, and of course, it bleeds out into the room when I open the closet door. I LOVE the smell, but the missus does not. I also noticed the faintest of smells drifting from my attic vents when I was walking my pup outside, so I figured I better step up my game as I look ahead to the flowering phase... I gotta stick to the three rules, right? Also, happy wife, happy life, right?
Faced with buying yet another fan, carbon filter, and ducting, I thought there has to be a way to filter the air already moving through my sweet, quiet, cheap fan. Here’s what I thought I would try: an easy DIY carbon filter using a universal, cut-to-fit (16”x48”) carbon filter for $12 from Amazon.
I am good at building things, so I found an easy way to mount the filter material to an awkwardly round fan with pivot points (although the photo of the fan does not show it, it has a conical shape to the intake side of the fan). I cut the filter material long enough to wrap around the outer circumference of the fan plus a couple of inches more to overlap. The only other cuts needed were two semi-circles to allow for the fan’s pivot points. I then I used #8 x 1/2 ” self-tapping sheet metal screws with washers (had these on-hand), and using a drill with a clutch, I put the screws through the filter material and into the plastic housing on the intake side of the fan, being careful to not strip the hole. This formed a cylinder of filter material securely screwed around the fan’s housing. To close the end of the cylinder, I simply pressed the sides of the open end together to make a flat seam and used large safety pins to hold the seam shut (I also had the safety pins on-hand). This seals everything up so that all the air the fan pulls must pass through a large amount of carbonized filter material.
Filter material mounted to fan.
I put the fan back up in the closet and turned it on. After 30 minutes of circulating air through the carbon filter, the smell was dramatically reduced, and when I opened the door after an hour, the smell was almost imperceptible. What very little I could barely detect was probably wafting directly from the plants. I have no idea how long the filter will last, but I strongly suspect that my $12 filter has significantly more carbon and surface area than a fancy-shmantzy $40 pleated in-line filter.
So, for less than the cost of only an inexpensive inline filter and less than an hour of work I have a powerful, quiet fan and a very effective odor control. I would not hesitate to use the exact same setup in a 4x4 grow.
The only other advice I can offer is this: use a drop cloth over your work surface when you cut the filter material and fit it to the fan because the filter material will shed a little carbon as you bend and flex it. Also, if you don’t have much experience building things in 3-dimension, then go slowly when it comes to cutting the material to fit your fan (in my case, the semicircles to account for the pivot points). You can always cut more away, but once you remove it, there is no going back.
Hope this helps you stick to the no-smell rule and saves you some cash.
TLDR: make low-cost, DIY odor extraction in an hour by using universal cut-to-fit material and a cheap but quiet fan.
To see a World in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour.
― William Blake
@im_sparky, That's a good DIY project. Saves money and works for small spaces, double win. Cause a small grow space shouldn't have to use a large filter, it not cost effective. Just be careful exhausting into the attic, try and get it outside the house if possible. Nice work man, good job. 👍
@woodi2 This is sure a low-cost and easy way to solve the problem -- surprisingly effective. I now most would rather drop well over $100 on a name-brand filter and fan, but I like problem solving, particularly when its cheap and easy. 🤣 You are always so helpful and supportive. Peace, brother!
To see a World in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour.
― William Blake
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