[momtothree]

What’s a BLEG?!!

[cuban leaf]

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.

[Boiler Plate]

Do you know what the wet and dry bulb temperatures are?

[Gen.Blather]

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.

[MileHi]

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.

[Hodar]

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.

[JoeProBono]

[hoosierham]

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.

[Dogbert41]

I’d get an air conditioning specialist to take a look at your office to get a professional opinion. Noone can tell you what the reality is concerning your office by just your description.

[cva66snipe]

Get a professional HVAC company to come in and assess your heat load in the rooms you need cooled. They can determine the correct tonnage needed too cool it. It sounds like you are trying to do too much cooling with too small of units. My guess off the top of my head for a couple of smaller electronics rooms is about 5 - 7.5 tons. We had too do this in a couple of vital areas on the ship and used water cooled condensers to take the condenser heat out. The condenser is the outside unit.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

I agree, we should all take our tops off

[MileHi]

BTW, Mitsubishi makes ductless systems that would mount the condenser on the roof (you said you are on the top floor) and the evaporator in the room with only a couple small holes through the roof for copper refrigerant lines.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Agree with some other posts; have a HVAC expert take a look at the building’s requirements. Also, have someone look at the kind of lighting in each office.

[Yo-Yo]

The problem is that any solution to the building cooling problem will cost money, and it is obvious that your building owner is disinclined to spend any.

So for you personally, the only thing you can do is to wear a cool suit, like the NASCAR drivers do.

[ccmay]

“We have two portable air conditioners running, but they’re of limited effectiveness since we don’t have direct access to outside air.”

Turn them off. They’re making things worse.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics