A/C for small server room, no exterior walls

zpm

I'm restructuring my business and moving from a regular office to a home office. I'm enclosing a section of my attached garage, about 70 sq ft, to be a small server room. 3 sides of the room are existing insulated walls with living space on the other side. The 4th wall will be built (with insulation) and will have the garage on the other side.

Since this room will have several servers in it running 24x7, it needs to have adequate cooling independent of the house, maybe even in the winter.

All the equipment will be using 600w continuously.
Is there a sizing calculator that takes watts into account?

Mini-split would be my first choice, but that's out because this situation may only be for a year, and there's not a good place to put the outdoor unit.

A window unit mounted in the garage wall would be cheap and easy. Aside from collecting the condensate (5 gal bucket) and getting rid of it (sump pump), what would be other potential problems with this?

A portable unit in the room has the same issue of having to vent with no window.

Any brilliant ideas?

Thanks.

beenthere

The garage couldl get too hot for the window unit to work.

gena

"Since this room will have several servers in it running 24x7, it needs to have adequate cooling independent of the house, maybe even in the winter."
- why do you want it independent of the house?

zpm

Mainly because I don't want to run the house A/C in the winter to cool the server room.
And, I don't want the servers in the living space. A couple of them are LOUD!

zpm

That's true. I could put some air vents in the side door, and put a powered exhaust vent over the window A/C that will only run when the A/C is running.

gena

I would suggest running a couple of heats and a cold air return to this room. In addition, you can install a fan with a sensor, which will dump hot air into your garage.
In the wintertime shut the heats off, and this room will help to heat your house.
In the summer time, your AC probably will work longer, but if it’s, as you say, only for a year you can afford it. The fan will take care of the excessive heat.

beenthere

Its a code violation to have any vent able to transfer air between a garage and occupied(living)space.

If he ran supplies from the central system and installed a vent into the garage, that would enable fumes from the garage to enter the house through the central system.

Although the server room may only be for a year.

A 9000BTU mini split may be the best thing to use.

See if anyone in your area handles Chiga brand. They are vedry low priced.

gena

“Its a code violation to have any vent able to transfer air between a garage and occupied(living)space.” With all due respect I disagree. In Michigan, for example, it is very common case when they vent a dryer to the garage; of course, it is stupid, but expectable by code!

yuri

Be very careful as the code is for fire separation issues also. May void your house insurance etc if that happens. Where I am the code changed and they want drywall in the garage AND a heat/smoke detector there for new home construction. If you build and wire another room/addition to your house without permits and something goes wrong you may be SOL later. A hard lesson to learn just to save a buck. You may be able to write off some of the minisplit expenses as a business expense if your tax laws allow that.

beenthere

expectable?

Maybe expected.

But, it is a code violation.
Just apparently not enforced by Michigan.

Probably allowed because the vent is suppose to have a one way damper(like they really work).

gena

I am sorry, it's my mistake, I meant "acceptable"!
The fan, of course, will have two dampers, one back draft damper in the adapter and another one in the wall cap.