I have a small cabin on my property that i am trying to turn into a recording studio. I'm having a friend build me a smaller one person booth to fit within the recording studio. One of my current issues with the cabin is climate. It seems to really heat up inside of it and i am afraid that this may damage equipment and also make it a very unpleasant recording environment. I don't want any noisy fans (for obvious reasons, and so i am stuck. Not sure what kind of cooling equipment i should get. I don't need anything to heavy duty as the cabin is not very big (see pix bellow).
Another issue is security for the studio, which i am also working on, but would love to hear what other people have done to keep their equipment safe.
Any other tips would be much appreciated. Here are some pix of the space I'm working with.
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Please update your profile to include your location and read this before you post:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231
Any advice you'll get from this forum is specific to your situation, so we need details. The above link will explain everything you need to figure out to get started here.
I added my location (Santa Cruz, Ca). I also added pix of the cabin. It is approximately 10ft wide, 14ft long and 10 ft tall (with slants). This is all the info one would need to answer a question about cooling a studio, I hope.
My overall goal is to make sure that my equipment doesn't get damaged by excess heat. I'd also like to make it somewhat comfortable for performers.
First off, i probably should have mentioned what electronics I'm working with:
-2 KRK VXT8s
-1KRK 10s Sub
-2 HP desktops (one for using REASON & the internet, the other is strictly for Sonar 8 vocal recording).
The main desktop I use for recording has a temp gauge inside of it that i can control. It is usually kept at around 46 degrees i believe.
-1 Edirol UA-25EX interface
-1 M-Audio Profire 610 interface
-1 Tube MP preamp
-1 Blue Bird mic
second, It doesn't get that hot here (average in mid 70s), but that cabin does heat up like a hot box.
Third, It's really not that big a space and i was hoping to avoid doing any kind of construction as i thought t might be able to find some kind of portable AC that is semi quiet.
It does have some kind of big vent if you look at the top of the first picture. I might be able to find an outside fan that would suck out the hot air. I really don't know much about this and still don't know where to start.
The cabin currently has two 20amp circuits running to it. Which is actually kind of a lot when you consider what equipment I'm using.
To be honest: None of the above! Some of them are not even air conditioners: they are evaporative coolers :!::shock: Stay away from those. The rest actually are air conditioners, but none of them is much use in a studio since the are all self-contained units that vent to the outside. That implies two things: 1) Noise. Lots of it. Those things have motors, fans, and compressors. You don't want all of that inside the studio, of you plan to do any serious work in there. 2) A big hole in the wall for the hot exhaust air.
I would seriously consider getting a small split system. Where I live they are cheap: you can get them for a few hundred dollars, and installation costs another couple of hundred. I put two of those in my house a couple of years back (one in the master bedroom, one in the home office), for well under a thousand dollars total, all included. Mine are 9,000 btu, but you can't guess: do the calculations to figure out how much cooling you actually need for YOUR room.
- Stuart -
I would also like to know IF YOU HAD to choose one, which would you choose...Here in california where everything is double the price it seems, Mini splits are no less than 1200 bucks plus 500 for installation....
I am in a simular situation and need a portable solution.
I ended up getting this one:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053&productId=202562960&R=202562960
It was cheap, not very powerful, but definitely close to what I was hoping to spend. As for the hose that is attached, I may release the hot air out of the big vent on the top if the cabin. The cabin also has a strange fire place (mini stove) and I may be able to just shove the hose up that. Sorry if I wasted anyone's time. I just thought I'd get other people's opinion on this. As for noisiness, I'm going to cool the cabin prior to recording and then shut it off only during vocal recording.
I came to this conclusion because:
1) I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars simply on an AC.
2) It really doesn't get super hot where I live (mainly 70°s), as I live only a few miles away from the beach (on the west coast).
3) The cabin I am recording in is quite small and I don't record any live instruments nor do I have more than 2 or 3 people in the studio at a time.
4) Time was of the essence as my equipment is currently in my studio apartment which also contains 2 cats and a somewhat destructive dog. So obtaining the air conditioner ASAP was definitely in my best interest so I could move my equipment to a safer location.
With all of that said, if I had the money I would have definitely gone for one of the split systems.
Thank you again for your help! :D
Please reply back once you have hooked it up.. I would like to know if it actually cooled down your room or not, or how long it took to cool the room.
Thanks!
It works but takes 3 hours to show results. I unscrewed the mini stove's metal vent tubing and then put the air conditioner's hose inside of the tubing. This way it will vent straight out of the mini chimney on the cabin. I would only recommend this unit for places that dont have constant heat. I live in an area of California where it is rare for the temp to get up above 100, even during the summer. It did, however, get up above 100 last summer so I decided to get the air-conditioner.. Especially after customers were complaining of the heat inside the studio/cabin.