Venstar® recently announced that its ColorTouch® connected Wi-Fi® thermostats, Wi-Fi Temperature Sensors and Skyport® Cloud Services are being used to remotely control temperatures and humidity at a Southern Calif.-based cannabis growing facility. By providing the optimum environment, Authorized Venstar Dealer Chaffin Air Conditioning has helped the grower double crop production and increase profits. Based in Cathedral City, Calif., Chaffin Air is a family-operated heating and air conditioning company.

“Using Venstar’s Skyport, we remotely control ColorTouch thermostats to maintain proper temperature and humidity to guard the health of the cannabis crop,” said Patrick Chaffin, owner of Chaffin Air Conditioning. “By ensuring the perfect environment, we’ve helped the cannabis grower double the crop production and increase profits.”

Challenge: Maintain Temperatures and Humidity in Cannabis Grow Rooms

Environmental controls are essential to ensuring successful cannabis crops. CBD production requires a very expensive and complex growing process. The plants need specific daytime and nighttime temperatures as well as consistent humidity to maintain the balance needed for a quality product. One environmental deviation could potentially lose the entire crop.

The grower was looking for an HVAC energy management system that would:

• Enable remote monitoring of HVAC equipment
• Control humidity and temperatures in the grow rooms
• Enable remote control of thermostats using a single mobile app
• Provide an affordable solution to solve the energy management challenges
• Have one brand of thermostat to control all types of HVAC systems
  

Solution: Venstar ColorTouch Thermostats and Remote Sensors

Chaffin recommended Venstar’s ColorTouch Wi-Fi thermostats (model T8900) and Remote Temperature Sensors (model ACC-TSENWIFIPRO), which are remotely monitored by Venstar’s free Skyport Mobile App.

Chaffin Air installed more than 100 ColorTouch thermostats at the grower’s facility, which encompasses dozens of growing rooms ranging from 900 to 1,200 square feet.  Each grow room has six ColorTouch thermostats: three thermostats control the air conditioning units with steam humidifiers while the other three thermostats control the de-humidification units. In addition, Venstar’s remote temperature sensors were installed in the grow rooms to monitor and ensure exact temperatures.

The grow rooms operate on 12-hour cycles: 12 hours dark and 12 hours light. During the dark hours, the temperature is maintained at 75–78 degrees. Within 30 seconds of the lights coming on, the temperature can reach 99 degrees.

Results: Controlling the Environment Doubles Production, Increases Profits

Using Venstar’s solution to control the temperature and humidity in its grow rooms, the grower is able to produce a crop in half the time as a non-controlled growing environment. This faster production time as well as the reduction in lost crops helps the grower increase profits.

Benefits of the Venstar energy management solution include:

• An affordable alternative to an expensive HVAC energy management system
• Remote monitoring and control of temperatures and humidity
• Reliability to ensure the proper environmental conditions
• Ability to remotely view the system and energy usage

About Venstar Inc.

Venstar Inc. is a leading thermostat and energy management system (EMS) manufacturer, known for providing value to its customers via ease of use and installation, proven cost savings, improved energy efficiency, quality and reliability. Founded in 1992, Venstar is one of the largest thermostat suppliers in the world and designs and produces Venstar-branded products, as well as OEM thermostat products for the biggest names in HVAC.  Venstar’s Surveyor is a leading energy management system, typically saving small-box retailers 20–35 percent of their energy costs, which translates to tens of millions of dollars in savings each year and dramatic reductions in CO₂ emissions. Surveyor currently controls the energy usage of 30,000+ retail locations across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico.