RE: Cooling an understairs cupboard...Node 0!

["Neil Ball" <neilball@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Is your floor a suspended timber floor? If it is then I would be
tempted to
put a couple of floor vents in to allow cool air from the sub floor into
the
cupboard and use the fan to extract warm air from near the ceiling and duct
it back down under the floor using rigid duct to an external wall vent
assuming your sub-floor void is accessible. If it is then I would also look
use an inline unit where both the inlet and outlet are ducted and mount the
fan down there as well. Much more work than the fan you propose but also
much more efficient. Will also be quieter as you will not have any outlets
into your Lounge and you could also use a thermostat to control the fan so
it does not run 24/7.



If the sub-floor is not accessible but suspended then I would still use
floor vents for the inlet if at all possible, use an inline fan and have
the
inlet duct at high level inside the cupboard and the outlet duct at low
level into the room. You could also box in the fan unit to try and reduce
the fan noise and use pliable mounts to avoid vibration/noise being
transmitted into the wall.



If the floor is concrete then you could simply cut the bottom of the door
back slightly to leave a gap for air to pass into the cupboard rather than
needing to fit a grille. Whatever you do try and keep the inlet and outlet
as far apart as possible to reduce the risk of the airflow short circuiting
(the extract air being pulled straight back into the inlet).



Neil B.



_____

From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
noel_pilot
Sent: 14 July 2007 09:35
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Cooling an understairs cupboard...Node 0!



Hi all,

I've achieved my goal of having all my boxes (not many so far, amp,
xbox, pc, backup NAS, IR control) hidden away in my understairs cupboard.

Cables routed nicely through the wall using brush bristle face plates,
only problem is the temperature/lack of ventilation in there, two
thirds of the way through a film the other night the pc went into a
loop restarting, that was the point I realised having the door shut is
a VERY bad idea!

So.....key item is the pc, it's a bog standard Mesh case from about 5
years ago with an AMD XP 2Ghz processor in, good few years old now,
four sata hard drives and one ide drive in there. Standard fans all
round.

So....whats the best route to go, was intrigued by the look of this
http://tinyurl. <http://tinyurl.com/35t3oq>
com/35t3oq possibly put that
into the wall, outlet
would then be to the left of the sofa, only concern is the 41dba which
is I think louder than my projector so gonna be pretty loud, assuming
I need an in and an out so was thinking of some kind of louvred grille
in the door to the cupboard and then an extractor fan out of the side,
want all ins and outs to be near floor level for aesthetic reasons.

Ideal solution is I'd move to a proper NAS for all storage to remove
the issue but thats not an option on cost grounds for the moment.

So....any other advice, would a fan like this do the job? or is it
silly to think I can leave the door shut at any point in the future?

Thanks

noel





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