White Paint vs Mylar : Which reflects better in the grow room
Reflecting the light in a grow room is one of the cheapest and easiest things to do. Running lights is the most expensive part of a grow due to the amount of electricity it uses so it makes sense to reflect this light as best as possible so that the plants can use every bit of it.
There are a number of different options when it comes to reflecting light with both advantages and disadvantages. Below we will dive deeper into these.
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Which reflects better, white paint or mylar?
Using white paint or reflective silver mylar is very easy and it will create drastic improvements to a plant’s growth and wellbeing.
Whilst white paint is much easier to set up compared to hanging mylar in a grow room, it does not reflect quite as well as properly installed mylar. It is predicted that mylar sheeting can reflect an extra 5% – 10% of light compared to matt white paint. However, this is only true when the mylar is 100& flat and smooth without any creases, etc.
Problems with using mylar
For some grow rooms it can be really quite awkward to get mylar perfect, especially if there are plants and equipment already in the room that need to be worked around. Mylar can also be easily damaged or torn. Another issue with mylar is that it can not be cleaned properly and over time it can fade a little reducing the light reflection to less than white paint.
So as mentioned above, mylar does reflect better than standard white paint by an average of 5% – 10%. Although there have been some major advances in white paint that gives much more reflection than normal, so when this becomes more available white paint could be an obvious winner in the future.
Can you use foil to reflect light in a grow room?
No one should ever use foil to reflect light in a grow room for cannabis plants. It creates serious heat spots which can burn and damage plants.
Panda Film (black and white plastic)
One other option is reflective panda film which is plastic sheeting with white on one side and black on the other. The quality of panda film seriously varies with some even being slightly transparent. Most people would agree to use white paint instead – but panda film is still useful for going over windows but be sure to double or triple it up.
