Air conditioning

[Angusdevil]

I've recently moved to a new place and am working on what is to be my control room. The only problem is that the A/C can be heard but with it off, it gets very uncomfortable. Is there anything that I can do to still keep my room cool while cutting down on the noise? Also, the vent is located at the top of the wall (about 8' up)

Craig

 

[Rod Gervais]

You will have to describe your setup in detail............

Ducting - Air handler - distance of runs........... etc. etc.........

Also - is this accessible for you to work on or would you have to rip things apart
ROd

 

[Angusdevil]

Oops, my bad. It's ducting with the actual unit being down the hall in a seperate, non-ajoining room. I would say its approx. 20-25 feet down the hall so about 40 feet of duct to get from point A to B. As for me working on it, from what it looks like, that will be near to impossible because the duct is between two walls so that doesn't leave lots, if any, space to work with in the walls but I can build on all I want. Be cosmetically pleasing is not a priority but would be nice.

Also, my room is 14'x14' so with 2 computers, 2 racks of gear and lights, the place heats up quickly. Is there not a trap that I could build overtop of the ven

 

[brich2929]

:BUMP:

I've got a question as to how one would go about adding AC (quietly) to a basement studio if the ducts (which I guess are intake and output) are already there in existence in my basement ceiling under the floorboards/joists.

My Central AC unit is located on the opposite wall so it is not much of a noise problem, but how can I get A.C downstairs while being quiet also. How is it done in pro studios and what are (if any) the less expensive alternatives for Home Recordists?

Thanks,

Rich

 

[Rod Gervais]

As for me working on it, from what it looks like, that will be near to impossible because the duct is between two walls so that doesn't leave lots, if any, space to work with in the walls but I can build on all I want.

Craig,

This being the case, the only things I can think of (off the top of my head) would be to

"A" - decouple the duct from the air handler unit. By this I mean that typically the galvanized duct is connected directly to the unit - and thus the duct itself will carry noise from the fan. If you cut out a section of duct and install a flexible canvas boot it will decouple the 2 duct sections. Obviously you want to do this as close to the fan unit as you possibly can.

"B" - check to make certain that the fan coil (the air handler unit) is decoupled from the structure itself as well. If the hangers for the duct are not isolation hangers then you can get sound transfered to your space through the building structure.

So if you decouple the duct from the fan coil, and make certain that the unit plus the duct leading up to the canvas boot are decoupled from structure - this should go a long ways towards helping you.

A few other things I want to point out here....... typically for standard installations the velocity of the air in the ducts is higher than we run for studio installations, for those you want low velocity large volume systems. They also use registers that are quite restrictive in nature and cause a lot of air flow noise.

So removing the supply registers should show you whether that will also helo you to quiet things down, if it does you may want to consider spending a few dollars for some high quality low restriction registers.

Let us know how you make out.

Rod