Re: Rép. : Too hot because it was too cold! -- MIDRANGE-L

OK Why don't more people do this:

One of my customers set the computer room air conditioning unit insidetheir warehouse next to an exterior wall. They built an insulated boxover the unit with about three feet on all sides and top. They set thething up so that there was always one side of the box missing. In thesummer the missing side was the exterior of the building so basically itworked just like normal. It was however out of the rain and the sun.Since the hot air ejects out the top of the unit a 'deflector' wasinstalled to direct the hot air out the open side. In the winter themovable side was moved to the outside of the building exposing the unitto the warehouse. The deflector was flipped as well to direct the airinto the warehouse. Thus the heat from the computer room was dumped intothe warehouse all winter. Of course this could be done with the unitoutside the building as well whichever works best in your setting.

This has at least three advantages that I can see. 1) The unit doesn'tsee rain and sun and rusty sprinkler water. 2) The unit never getsfrozen to the point where it can't work. 3) All the heat from thecomputer room is utilized to heat the warehouse rather than attemptingto heat the great outdoors (which several of us have noticed recentlydoesn't work!) They did the math and figured something like $5,000 peryear was saved in heating expense for the warehouse. Of coursemaintenance to the unit is easier too because it's readily accessiblefrom ground level and isn't surrounded by bushes or up on a 130 degreeroof in the summer. The A/C guys loved it.

I guess it baffles me that good HVAC guys haven't figured out how todump computer room heat into the building's heating system at times whenthe building can use the heat. With the heat many of these roomsgenerate you'd think it a no brainer. I do know that Steelcase, theworld's largest office furniture company, uses the heat from theircomputer room and other building heat to heat their corporate offices.In the summer they dump the heat into huge water tanks under the frontlawn during the day and then chill those back down at night when the airis cooler and the electricity is cheaper. This of course is the'advanced course' in energy management and they did it way back in theearly 80s.


- Larry

Denis Robitaille wrote:

Here in Canada, we are currently facing this situation. The computer
room is open and we have fan in it. Strange to explain to my boss that

it is too cold outside to be able to cool inside.

Denis Robitaille
Directeur services technique TI
819 363 6130