Suggestions for small ducted aircon unit for our plant room?

[MirandaPoth]

The 12.5m3 plant room containing our servers, switches, hubs etc in our passivhaus-standard home gets too hot (28-30 deg C). We want to install a small, efficient, ducted aircon unit to cool it down to around 20 deg C. Heating, air purification, dehumidification are not required as the MVHR takes care of those. Our water storage tank, boiler and MVHR unit are all in the same room (which probably accounts for the temperature lol).

 

We built the house ourselves 5 years ago so would like to install it ourselves. It's an MBC timberframe with wide insulated walls, cladded/rendered on the outside. We can handle making the necessary holes in the walls.

 

Is this doable, or should we get it professionally installed? Any suggestions as to type/make/model to choose? What else should we consider?

[Nickfromwales]

19 minutes ago, MirandaPoth said:

The 12.5m3 plant room containing our servers, switches, hubs etc in our passivhaus-standard home gets too hot (28-30 deg C). We want to install a small, efficient, ducted aircon unit to cool it down to around 20 deg C. Heating, air purification, dehumidification are not required as the MVHR takes care of those. Our water storage tank, boiler and MVHR unit are all in the same room (which probably accounts for the temperature lol).

 

We built the house ourselves 5 years ago so would like to install it ourselves. It's an MBC timberframe with wide insulated walls, cladded/rendered on the outside. We can handle making the necessary holes in the walls.

 

Is this doable, or should we get it professionally installed? Any suggestions as to type/make/model to choose? What else should we consider?

Do you have an MVHR extract in the plant room? I always fit one for customers where there’s a lot of kit in the same space, and that goes towards efficiency during the winter. 
 

Not so sure I’d be punching holes in an airtight PH spec build as that will be pulling a lot of air from the room and dumping it to atmosphere, which needs to get back into the building by knocking your MVHR airflow / balance way off.

 

You’d need a small “split” AC system, which seems massively overkill here. 

[MirandaPoth]

4 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Do you have an MVHR extract in the plant room? I always fit one for customers where there’s a lot of kit in the same space, and that goes towards efficiency during the winter. 
 

Not so sure I’d be punching holes in an airtight PH spec build as that will be pulling a lot of air from the room and dumping it to atmosphere, which needs to get back into the building by knocking your MVHR airflow / balance way off.

 

You’d need a small “split” AC system, which seems massively overkill here. 

Thanks very much for your reply. Yes we do have an MVHR extract in the room, but it doesn't help with the heat buildup in summer. We're hoping it won't pull too much air from the room but I take your point about knocking off the MVHR airflow balance. 

 

Yes it does seem like overkill, especially as the smallest split units I've found so far are about twice the size we need. Although it would be nice to have a cool room in the house, as we are lacking one at the moment!

 

Not sure what other solutions to look at. Any ideas?

[JohnMo]

26 minutes ago, MirandaPoth said:

gets too hot (28-30 deg C).

Why is that too hot? Our is at the same temperature all summer without issues.

 

Do you have equipment failing if it hasn't failed in 3 years it's unlikely too now. 

[MirandaPoth]

Just now, JohnMo said:

Why is that too hot? Our is at the same temperature all summer without issues.

 

Do you have equipment failing if it hasn't failed in 3 years it's unlikely too now. 

Hmm I see what you mean. However hubbie is an electronics engineer and is unhappy about it running that hot all the time. Plus we have to leave the plant room door ajar all the time otherwise it gets much hotter, which isn't ideal ...

[MirandaPoth]

33 minutes ago, MirandaPoth said:

Hmm I see what you mean. However hubbie is an electronics engineer and is unhappy about it running that hot all the time. Plus we have to leave the plant room door ajar all the time otherwise it gets much hotter, which isn't ideal ...

I've just checked the running temperature of the UDMPRO. It's running at 46 deg C, which is about 6 above spec 

[garrymartin]

I'm with @JohnMo - how hot does it get when the door is shut?

 

Two things to consider...

 

1) most electronic equipment is certified to run between particular temperatures (upper, lower), and it's usually a lot hotter than you would think (we run a lot of datacenters much hotter than we did 10 years ago)

2) it may be more cost-effective to replace the equipment that is pumping out lots of heat with something more efficient that runs cooler

 

My comms cupboard at home runs above 30 degrees in the summer heat, and the equipment has no issues with that.

[garrymartin]

1 minute ago, MirandaPoth said:

I've just checked the running temperature of the UDMPRO. It's running at 46 deg C, which is about 6 above spec

OK, so that's modern equipment running above maximum specified temperature, so not great.

 

What else do you have in there that's generating that level of heat though?

[MirandaPoth]

1 minute ago, garrymartin said:

What else do you have in there that's generating that level of heat though?

Boiler, hot water storage tank, selection of HP switches, CCTV system, several servers, many small hubs for the smart home stuff, and the MVHR units itself. Hot water pipes are all lagged already, although there might be a few bits that aren't (valves, joints)

[elite]

At work we target 24 degrees for our onprem server room which has been calculated (not by me), to be the most efficient temp to run at, so I wouldn't be too concerned at 27 to 30 in a home environment, though not being able to shut the door would be an issue for me. What temp does it get to with the door shut?

 

Is there any scope to increase extract or even partition between boiler etc and tech?

 

I think 40 degrees is the max ambient temp for the UDM Pro, I expect the internal temp to maybe hit 60-70 deg under load

[JohnMo]

13 minutes ago, MirandaPoth said:

Boiler, hot water storage tank

So what temperature is cylinder kept at? That could be your biggest heat source. How well is it insulated?

[ProDave]

I would expect a modern 5 year old HW cylinder to be well insulated.  I would be looking at the pipework to make sure that is also well insulated.  Pictures?

 

Our airing cupboard is perhaps 2 or 3 degrees above the room it is partitioned from, not much at all.

[JohnMo]

8 hours ago, ProDave said:

Our airing cupboard is perhaps 2 or 3 degrees above the room it is partitioned from, not much

But you store water at circa 45, does the OP?

[S2D2]

Can you move your "several servers" to offsite hosting? These are likely the culprit and if they're doing serious work a minisplit starts to become inevitable.