Posted on 09/13/2011 8:24:53 AM PDT by dangus
I work on the top floor of an old, poorly-constructed office building. Heat rises up the elevator shafts from the lower floors to mine. Even on the coldest of winter days, it's uncomfortably hot inside (80 degrees plus). We have two portable air conditioners running, but they're of limited effectiveness since we don't have direct access to outside air. Although our city is very humid, the air inside the office is very dry, year-round.
Would anyone know this?:
Would this be a good use for a small, personal evaporative air cooler? Would it just cancel out the effect of the portable, air-drying air conditioners? Or would they each make the other more effective? Would the more humid air generated be harmful to electronics? (Another reason we have a heat problem is that we have several servers.)
What’s a BLEG?!!
I’d move.
I’m not joking and I am not making light of this. Everything else is in the vein of “bailing wire and chewing gum solution.”
You need to move.
Do you know what the wet and dry bulb temperatures are?
Blog beg. IWO, using a blog to ask for something, commonly information.
To bleg is to write a blog entry or comment for the sole purpose of asking for something.
It's personal.
Thanks! I seriously didn’t know the answer. Now I do...
I would think that if it’s a closed system that the air would saturate with moisture and evaporation would stop. It would also make the standard air conditioner run harder. Your best bet is a fan. You sweat, the fan evaporates the sweat, you get cooler.
Drink ice water and (if you admire the coworkers) get the company to institute thong Friday.
Not my call to make, except for leaving my job. And I otherwise like my job a lot.
All I know is that it is raining in Las Vegas now (rare) and it is weird to feel humidity inside and out.
Dry bulb temperature can reach the 80s. I’m presuming wet-bulb temperatures would be much lower because it’s so dry... but I’ve never measured them.
Either way you need outside air. Any AC needs to eject heat somewhere and the evap needs new air supply or it will be 90% humidity in no time.
Hey, I live in the south. People used to work in the offices here in full suits and NO air conditioning. So, if you like your job...
You state that your air is dry; this *may* be because you are getting warmed up Air Conditioned air. AC units tend to dry out air as part of the cooling cycle (cold air holds less water than hot air, so it condenses).
Will a portable swamp cooler work? Short term - absolutely. Expect about a 15 degree drop, measuring incoming air to outgoing air.
Will it keep on working? That depends upon the airflow. If you have a steady stream of dry air coming in, and can vent the moist air out - you may have a great solution.
However - if the moist air cannot be vented out, and/or the dry air coming in is not meeting the output of your swamp cooler - you will wind up with a humid heat, which is even more miserable than what you currently have. In extreme cases, you can get moisture condensing on walls and windows - and add mold to your problems.
I’m presuming the moisture could dissipate downwards; the reason its so hot is that the air rises from the lower floors, where it can be like a meat locker.
Is there a pump in the cooler to make the water circulate?
Evidently the air conditioning is doing the best it can since you say the air is very dry but still too warm.Humid 80+ would be even more uncomfortable than dry 80+ temperatures.Some fans for air movement and cool drinks are probably the easiest short-term solution.
Portable air conditions only add to the overall enviroment’s heat if they can’t exhaust the heat outside.
Twice I have had portable units rented by an employer because the main air conditioning was broken;and I thought those portables worthless:made a lot of noise and darn little comfort.WE ended up with a pedestal fan and drinking lots of ice-cooled water until the permanent unit was replaced.
Do you have static electricity problems? That could be very bad for the servers.Seriously.And could be a lever to have building management seek solutions.
I know of past workplaces where the air conditioning was only installed after computerization! Before computers the workers just had to sweat.
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