Background:

we have an office location that has a server rack with 3 or 4 servers plus network gear in a finished furnace room (15x10, 8’ ceilings). The building construction is standard office construction with a drop ceiling and plenum return system. There is one small return vent and one small closeable output on the furnace itself to handle that room (the output is closed now)

Due to poor planning by management, there is no cooling in that room to speak of. They assumed the regular furnace would cool it just fine, even though it was driven by a thermo in another room (and myself and another manager who coincidentally has HVAC experience cried foul). Now that the AC isn't running, the room is getting above 90F on a daily basis. That’s not good for servers. Now they are looking for a solution.

My first thought was to just install a dedicated AC unit and cancel out the waste heat. But then I got to thinking. Why fight it? Why spend even more good $ on electricity when we can “recycle” that waste heat in the winter. Why not duct the heat out into either the living space in the main cube area, or even up into the plenum so that it helps to heat the rest of the office in the winter, and the regular building AC will take care of it the rest of the year.

Ideally, cooled (65F) air would be best for a server room situation, but with as low of a density as we have in this rack regular “shirtsleeve” conditions (75F) are more than acceptable.

Also, leaving the door open results in acceptable temps, but not an acceptable security situation, so we obviously aren't dealing with an outrageous heat situation.

My solution:

-Install a 10" vent fan in the ceiling grid behind the servers (where the heat is exhausted) that pulls approx 800CFM out of the room.
- install a cold air return vent at the floor level in front of the servers (where they intake fresh air) to allow fresh cool air flow from the conditioned space into the room, replacing the hot air.


Yes, I know the traditional answer would be "just cool the room" but that seems wasteful and not too “green”.

OK, OK, I’m not green. Just cheap. It just seems silly for us to pay for the electricity to run the servers, only to have to spend more $$ for electricity to remove heat that is VERY useful more than half the year here in Indiana.


The $64K question:


Since we are dealing with a relatively small amount of heat (less than an estimated 8,000btu/hr) would this even work? If not, why? If so, where would we be best to dump the waste heat; in the conditioned space, or in the plenum across the building from the room (to prevent recirculation)?

Have you considered a heat pump system to move the heat energy from the 'puter room to another area where it might be useful in Winter?

Absolutely nothing wrong with your solutions. But can you recycle that warm air to the rest of the office during heating season? You can't really exhaust air from that room without supply air without pulling combustion gasses from the flue. (assuming your furnace is gas fired) It's something that probably needs to be checked out by a technician before you poison the entire office.

Absolutely nothing wrong with your solutions. But can you recycle that warm air to the rest of the office during heating season? You can't really exhaust air from that room without supply air without pulling combustion gasses from the flue. (assuming your furnace is gas fired) It's something that probably needs to be checked out by a technician before you poison the entire office.


On your first question, using traditional methods, we are ALWAYS attempting to cancel out the waste heat by pouring more cooling dollars at it. With this method, we only have to cancel it out when we are on a whole building cooling cycle.

Second point is exactly why I asked. I KNEW There was something I would miss. Although some days that doomsday scenario doesn't seem like that bad of an idea ;).

Two more questions.

1. is there a difference or preference to where the air ends up, either in the plenum or in the living space?

2. could we achieve the same goal safely by making it a positive pressure system and push the cooled air into the room and making the output duct passive? Based on your concern that would actually send some of the air up the flue instead of pulling fresh air (and CO) down the flue?

Have you considered a heat pump system to move the heat energy from the 'puter room to another area where it might be useful in Winter?


Assuming the simple approach of exchanging the heated living space air of the server room with cooler office area living space air doesn't work due to CO safety issues, that could be an option.

Is there a small wall mounted coil/compressor system that could do it without costing an arm and a leg or taking up tons of space?


Part of why I chose a simple air exchange system is due to cost. Its silly to spend tons of $$ on a complex system when the payoff is less than the cost to implement or the ROI is too far out to make a difference.

It may be best to add on the HP like other said. Fire code may not let you move the air freely between fire rated partitions, if your server room has a fire suppresion system; you don't want to do that .

Go to mrslim.com, you may find some ideas there.

Sometimes just adding a grill in the door or wall also works as long as your security and fire walls are not compromised.

Hello,
I am sarthak sethi. I have innovated a Technology through which we can recycle processor heat. I am a student and I have posted this project on Google Science Fair.

https://www.googlesciencefair.com/projects/en/2014/c07ceb4e9c653d6ef9399103803153df7d2fd26142ce67c966 70e654e6ce9461

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Location- New Delhi, India
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