Urban Farms HVAC units are AAON RN Series packaged rooftop units for grow rooms. Urth & Fyre specifies and supplies them inside its facility designs.
Urban Farms HVAC units are AAON RN Series packaged rooftop units, sold under the Urban Farms name through Tobey Karg Sales Agency in a limited territory. The manufacturer, AAON, Inc., was founded in 1988, is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and trades on NASDAQ under the symbol AAON.
Urth & Fyre specifies and supplies Urban Farms HVAC units inside the cultivation facilities it designs. Few buyers search the Urban Farms name itself, so this page covers what operators actually need to decide: how a packaged rooftop unit handles grow room HVAC, how to size one, and how it compares with other ways to cool and dehumidify a flower room.
AAON lists the RN Series at 6 to 140 tons across five cabinet sizes, from the A cabinet at 6 to 10 tons up to the E cabinet at 75 to 140 tons. Air handling configurations run from roughly 900 to 42,000 cfm. Current units use R-454B refrigerant, which AAON lists with a global warming potential of 466.
The options that matter in a grow room are the ones that control moisture. AAON offers variable capacity compressors with 10 to 100 percent capacity control, variable speed compressors, modulating hot gas reheat, six row high capacity coils and return air bypass. On its grow units page, AAON lists room control modes of Off, Grow, Dry, Fan, Cool, Heat and Purge, plus low ambient controls for cooling and humidity control through the year.
Grow room HVAC sizing starts with two loads. The sensible load comes from lights, fixtures, pumps and the building envelope. The latent load comes from the irrigation water plants transpire back into the air, and in flower it can drive the design more than temperature does.
For each room, settle the tonnage, the design airflow, the need for reheat during lights off, your outdoor design conditions and the electrical service available. AAON notes that design cfm can run 30 to 50 percent above or below nominal cfm, so size from the room calculation rather than the cabinet label. The Cannabis HVAC Design Guide walks through the load math, and the grow room layout and airflow guide covers supply and return placement.
This is the AAON RN approach: one unit handles cooling, reheat and humidity control on one control sequence. AAON states that standalone dehumidifiers in grow houses "do not necessarily achieve the desired goal and can actually make the HVAC perform poorly," and recommends that dehumidification be handled by the rooftop or split system.
Many smaller facilities run ductless or ducted splits for temperature and add grow dehumidifiers inside the room. The equipment is easier to stage and replace one piece at a time, but two systems with separate controls must be tuned so they do not work against each other.
Large multi room facilities often move to central plants with air handlers in each zone. AAON also builds air handling units, chillers and water source heat pumps, so the choice is usually about facility scale and redundancy rather than brand.
Urth & Fyre specifies and supplies Urban Farms HVAC units as part of a facility design, so the unit is sized from the room loads and lighting plan instead of picked from a catalog. Elsewhere, AAON equipment is sold through local AAON representative firms, and Urth & Fyre can still scope the loads and configuration before you go to quote.
Urth & Fyre reports more than 1 million square feet of cultivation space designed, and clients report 23 to 80 pounds per room in its room recovery case study. Full RN specifications are in the AAON RN Series brochure.
To get an Urban Farms HVAC unit sized and quoted for your rooms, start with a cannabis facility design consult and send your room dimensions and lighting plan.
What is an Urban Farms HVAC unit?
An Urban Farms HVAC unit is an AAON RN Series packaged rooftop unit sold under the Urban Farms name through Tobey Karg Sales Agency in a limited territory. AAON designs and manufactures the unit. Urth & Fyre specifies and supplies these units for grow rooms as part of its facility designs.
How many tons of HVAC does a grow room need?
Grow room tonnage depends on the lighting wattage, plant water use, envelope and outdoor climate, so there is no reliable per square foot rule. An engineer adds the sensible load from lights and equipment to the latent load from transpiration, then selects a unit with enough moisture removal for peak flower.
Can a rooftop unit dehumidify a grow room?
Yes, when it is configured for it. AAON offers RN units with modulating hot gas reheat, six row high capacity coils and return air bypass for humidity control. AAON recommends handling grow room dehumidification in the rooftop or split system rather than with standalone dehumidifiers that can work against the HVAC.
What is modulating hot gas reheat?
Modulating hot gas reheat uses hot refrigerant gas to warm air after the cooling coil has pulled moisture out of it. The room gets dry air without being overcooled, which matters at lights off when the sensible load drops but plants keep releasing water. Modulating control adjusts the reheat to hold the setpoint.
What size range does the AAON RN Series cover?
The AAON RN Series covers 6 to 140 tons in five cabinet sizes, labeled A through E. Air handling configurations run from about 900 to 42,000 cfm. That range spans a single small flower room up to a large multi room facility served by several units.
What refrigerant do AAON RN units use?
Current AAON RN units use R-454B refrigerant, which AAON lists with a global warming potential of 466. AAON says it chose R-454B because its capacity and properties are similar to R-410A. Check the nameplate on any used unit, since older units may use a different refrigerant.
Where can I buy Urban Farms HVAC units?
Urban Farms HVAC units are sold through Tobey Karg Sales Agency in a limited territory. Urth & Fyre specifies and supplies them inside its cultivation facility designs and can size and quote a unit for your rooms. Outside that territory, AAON equipment is sold through local AAON representative firms.