Think this heat exchange idea would work?

Red Squirrel

I am planning out my server room which I want to build in the next year or so.

Considering I need to heat the house about 10 months out of 12, figured it is more logical to move this heat towards an area that needs to be heated, and "absorb" rather then have AC or other form of cooling running all the time. I'd only have AC running in summer. Probably set it up on a thermostat where if the room gets above 25 the pump stops and the AC kicks on.

Here's what I'm thinking:

I would have a vent at the ceiling where most of the server heat will gather, air would get sucked in through this vent, go downwards through ductwork, pass through a filter (to help keep the server room air clean) and then pass through a pipe coil of some sort, then back into the server room.

possibility 1:This coil of pipe would then go to a series of pipes that run the span of the entire crawlspace floor, like radiant heating. Will I notice a small difference in floor temperature, and will this actually help cool the server room? Let's assume the server room temp is around +25 without the system and the crawlspace is +15. Of course, the heat generation rate of the server room plays a big role as well, but either way, that room has heat gain, the other side has heat loss assuming no heat sources are there.

possibility 2: Instead of radiating this small amount of heat through the whole living space floor, I could just have the pipes go to the mini crawlspace I have under my garage. I'd insulate the pipes all the way there, then just let the piping coiled up loosely around the perimeter a couple times on the ground. It gets rather cold in there in winter. Probably near, if at, freezing.

I'm leaning more towards possibility 2, will be more practical and actually an easier job. What do you think?

I'd use pex for the piping, but for the coil where the hot air passes by, I'd use copper.

beenthere

Take a lot of copper pipe to absorb the heat the servers will produce.

Look at copper fin baseboard. At 180°F water temp, it puts off 600BTUs of heat per foot. If you remove the fins. It puts off very little heat.

If the server room is at 90°F, and the water in the copper pipe is returning at 50°F, it will only absorb 22 BTUs per foot.

So you would need a hydro coil. Or make your own hydro coil out of baseboard element to get any real heat transfer.

How many watts or VA will your serves be?

Red Squirrel

At this point I only have a few 100w worth of equipment going in there, but I will expand over time. At some point I may have 1000w or so of equipment.

For the coil, I'm thinking of using flexible copper tubing. I was also thinking of just getting an old evap coil (not sure how well it would do with water though) or car radiator. A car radiator is a nice shape for what I want to do, and I was checking ebay and they are fairly cheap. Just need to read up more on how to hook it up properly, whatever method I go with.

Now from my understanding, the fins in a heat rad are to help the heat escape better, thus, producing more heat, but do they also work the other way around, to absorb heat?

beenthere

They work both ways.