Legit Reviews

I am a video editor and reciently closed my studio, moving my business to our home. I squeezed into our family room, which is a wood-floored, big windowed room added onto the house in the 70s. Long story short, it gets really hot in there with all my drives spinnin'. I freeze out the rest of the house (and the kids are all home for summer vacation) trying to keep that room cool but it stll gets uncomfortable, at least when a client is with me.
A window unit really isn't an option.
I'm tinting the windows but in addition,
I have a PC and a stack of storage drives I'd like to enclose and port outside.I don't mind cutting a hole in the wall for this. I could even add some cool LEDs and such.
Just wondering if you guys think I can find two enclosures for these that I can mod into what I want (just add a port tube, ideally)
or if I shoud just build his from scratch.
I turn off the pc at night but the media drives stay running all the time.

Avid Adrenaline HD, Sapphire effects, After Effects, Photoshop, 2gig of RAM, 1 terabyte of storage

Since it wouldn't be feasiable to add a window next to your computer, what about a ceiling fan?

I know my Raptor drive gets very hot but I am next to a window on cool days and under a ceiling fan with central air on warm ones and that seems to do the trick.

Well first thing you should do is turn off your lava lamp

personally i find if i am stressing my PC it gets pretty warm in my room.. generally i have a window open at all times.. other then that I'm not really sure what else you can do.. the heat has to go somewhere...

Nice setup dude, almost as nice as that video of you racing

Dan

grinner wrote:I freeze out the rest of the house (and the kids are all home for summer vacation) trying to keep that room cool but it stll gets uncomfortable, at least when a client is with me.

so, does that mean you have an AC for the rest of the house or for the room, and if you dont have one for the room... why not put one in

There is one vent for the AC in that room and the cieling fa stays on. I also have a fan blowing cold air rom the next room into this room. Helps alot, really.
I don't see a way around venting this hot air outside. I could even go through the floor. There is a crawl space under that room.

any kind of exhaust would do...what is directly above this room? if it is attic space, or anything other than someone else's room, you could add a bathroom exhaust fan and exhaust it into a crawl space or out the roof. Any form of exhaust near the top of the room would probably do wonders.

Maybe you should buy one of those infrared thermometers? Find the major sources of heat. You might be surprised.

What about one of those Mr. Slim A/C units... i saw a commercial for that the other day

http://www.mrslim.com

Here are some options to explore...
1. Solar screens.
2. Retractable blinds for the windows.
3. Portable A/C
4. Setup a NAS and store it in a closet or somewhere you can keep cool.

yeah i was going to say a spot cooler (portable AC) is probably going to be your easiest and best bet for cooling.

I just hope that the protable AC unit isn't a swamp cooler. Those things will NOT be ideal for your problem. Sure it will cool, but it will load the room with moisture.

I do like the idea of a ceiling exhaust fan. The only issue is noise unless the blower is located further up into the actic or roof enclosure. Then all that will be near the room is the vent cover. This way as heat rises, it has a place to travel out of the room.

A friend of mine whose wife is a professional cook has a kitchen that gets really hot during the summer. So, he installed a huge blower up in the roof rafters to pull the hot air out of that kitchen. The ceiling vent looks something like this:

Pesto wrote:What about one of those Mr. Slim A/C units... i saw a commercial for that the other day

http://www.mrslim.com

I think Pesto has the right idea.
Called a split system a/c, and has an inside and outside unit connected by a couple small tubes and a few wires.
This allows the outside unit to be placed further away from windows, or exposed walls and the inside unit can be mounted for best airflow/convienice etc.
I would be a good investment in your home office and you would save alot on the power bill not having to overcool the rest of the house to keep the studio cool.
Mr slim is just 1 brand.
It would (most likely) need a professional install. but could include a very quiet indoor unit.
some model are actually heat pumps and can provide heat in winter (though you may not need it)
Other choices are a sleeve unit (like a window A/C but goes through and opening in an outside wall, no window required)
a third choice is to see if your current house A/C system can rebalanced to deal with the heat load in that room. this may require booster fans, motorized dampers or some new ductwork and probably would be as/more expensive to achive year round comfort as a good split system.

i guess an AC will solve a lot of your problems,but i do not think that this is a 100% good solution for your health