Servers, network switches and phone systems turn electricity into heat, all day and all night. A small closet full of equipment can get hot fast, and the building's comfort system usually isn't designed to handle it.
Why the regular system falls short
- It shuts off at night and on weekends, when the office is empty and the thermostat sets back. The equipment keeps making heat.
- It's sized for people, not equipment. A closet with a rack in it can need far more cooling per square foot than the offices around it.
- The closet's thermostat is somewhere else. The office is comfortable while the closet bakes.
- It needs to cool in winter too. A server room may need cooling on a cold day when the rest of the building wants heat.
What overheating costs
Equipment that runs hot slows down, shuts itself off, or fails early. A dead switch or server on a Monday morning can stop a whole office.
Common solutions
- A dedicated ductless system. A ductless unit serving just the room, running around the clock, is a common answer for small server rooms and IT closets. Mitsubishi Electric makes models suited to it.
- Redundancy. For rooms that can't go down, two units, so one can carry the load if the other fails or is being serviced.
- Alarms. A temperature alarm that texts or emails someone before the room gets dangerous.
- Regular maintenance, because a system that runs every hour of the year needs it more than one that rests. See commercial maintenance plans.
If your server room runs warm, call us at 805-965-6326 or send us a message. We'll look at the load and recommend a system.
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