Hot air extraction for small office

[Bratters]

I work in an office which happens also to be one of the spare bedrooms of my house. It contains a number of computers, all of which starts to get fairly warm at this time of year. I've tried "portable" aircon but found it to be too noisy, expensive to run, and generally inefficient. No way I can afford "proper" fitted aircon.

Simpler approaches all have problems. Opening the office window isn't really practical due to noise outside. Opening the door from the office onto the upstairs landing (which is often 10C cooler) isn't practical due to then heating up the room where the baby sleeps, noise in the rest of the house, etc. In other words, doors and windows really need to stay shut.

So bearing that in mind, I'm thinking about fitting a simple extractor fan in the ceiling, to vent into the loft (and maybe from there out to the outside world via a duct - but even just into the loft would be fine). Air leaving my office would be replaced by natural "seepage" round the bottom the door, etc, with cooler air from the rest of the house. The idea is that this may help keep the office temperature down a bit lower than otherwise.

(a) - is this a mad idea?
(b) - can anyone recommend specific fans, or types of fans, that might be suitable for this purpose? Preferable something I can get from one of the normal hardware shops, online screw-selling catalogues, etc.
(c) - anything else for me to bear in mind?

Thanks.

 

[Ron Gamma]

Hi,

I am looking at this problem from an IT perspective.
You have a problem keeping your home office cool because of the number of PCs and the increased ambient temperature during the middle of the year.

One solution is to resite the PCs away from the office and general household area. (in the garage or loft are possibilities) You then purchase a KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) switch that is capable of being connected via Cat5/Cat6 UTP cabling. Plug the screen adapter into the PC and run a length of patch cord to the office and connect it to the KVM switch. Hook the mouse, monitor and keyboard to the KVM switch and voila - nice cool office again and all the noise of disks and fans elsewhere.

If one of your PCs acts as a print server/scanstation then you'll need to keep this handy or you could fit structured wiring and run them back to the PCs wherever sited. Wireless conversion for printers might work but doesn't favour brick walls that much.

Have a look at these products for some ideas on pricing;
http://www.comms-express.com/pi433328320.htm?categoryId=189

failing that - and this is real budget stuff - make a small corner cupboard and fit an intake grille in the bottom (not too low so that it doesn't suck carpet fibres into the PC) then fit a set of bathroom extraction fans in the ceiling to pull the air through. Try to arrange a set of baffles so that cold air is drawn through the PCs and vented in such a way as to prevent it returning to the front of the cabinet again.
If the temperature outside the office is 10deg lower all the time then either build the cabinet against this wall or pipe the cold air from that source to the cabinet.

 

[Bratters]

Ron,

Thanks for that, that's good advice. I'm vaguely aware of KVM switches, but hadn't realised they worked with Cat5, and therefore could be really remote from the computers - I thought they were limited to normal monitor/keyboard cable length. Now you've pointed out they use Cat5, that certainly opens up the garage/loft option.

Certainly getting anything non-essential out of the house is a simple solution to the problem.

Thanks again.