Please set me straight on Exchange Chiller Room Questions

I’ve been hammering away on converting a 25x11 one car garage into a 2 room studio (control/iso). General layout here: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... highlight= I’m about to the point of dealing with the HVAC. I’ve read Rod’s Book and the DIY HVAC, Shed to Studio threads and a thread by another bay area guy that couldn’t get his exchange room performing that well, although he was able to improve it. If I missed a particularly important thread, please guide me there. I’m in Los Angeles, heating is not a concern, but cooling and ventalation certainly are. I plan on building a small shed on the side of the building to function as an AC chiller room and also a machine room for noisy/hot computers. My main 3 questions are: 1. How do I route the ducting to cool and ventilate the 2 rooms in the studio? 2. What ducting do I use and where do I buy it? (Size, Shape, Material?) 3. I was thinking of building a 4x8x8 or so chiller room to use as storage too. Could someone put me in the ballpark on useable/desirable dimensions for this?

can you use regular AC air handler with an external condenser unit? use regular duct and air exchanger? if you take into account all the bits (like window AC unit, a blower fan powerful enough, a frame, ducting, etc) you'll need for proper cooling and air exchange, you might be able to just use regular AC supplies, install the parts, and have a pro do the final steps (connect it and charge the system).

Thanks for the reply Glenn. You're probably right about the price all adding up, but the advantage of the chiller room in my situation is the added storage space and cool running isolated computers. Anything to clear up the limited space in the main room would really help. Do you see a challenge getting the chiller room to work with a dual room studio? I really would like to get to the bottom of this, as I don't have the budget to do a blind experiment. Thanks again for your help.

delusion wrote:

Thanks for the reply Glenn. You're probably right about the price all adding up, but the advantage of the chiller room in my situation is the added storage space and cool running isolated computers. Anything to clear up the limited space in the main room would really help. Do you see a challenge getting the chiller room to work with a dual room studio? I really would like to get to the bottom of this, as I don't have the budget to do a blind experiment. Thanks again for your help.

I see a possible code violation with your approach if you also plan on the chiller room for providing (and thus tempering) your fresh air supply to the room. If that is your fresh air source - then the room has to become (for all intent and purpose) a part of the HVAC system - and not just another room in the building - it MUST be dedicated to the HVAC alone - the placement of anything else within is verboden. Rod

rod gervais wrote:

delusion wrote:

Thanks for the reply Glenn. You're probably right about the price all adding up, but the advantage of the chiller room in my situation is the added storage space and cool running isolated computers. Anything to clear up the limited space in the main room would really help. Do you see a challenge getting the chiller room to work with a dual room studio? I really would like to get to the bottom of this, as I don't have the budget to do a blind experiment. Thanks again for your help.

I see a possible code violation with your approach if you also plan on the chiller room for providing (and thus tempering) your fresh air supply to the room. If that is your fresh air source - then the room has to become (for all intent and purpose) a part of the HVAC system - and not just another room in the building - it MUST be dedicated to the HVAC alone - the placement of anything else within is verboden. Rod

Even just 2 or 3 Computers!?!?

Rod, considering I don't use it for storage as originally planned (and therefore code compliant), could you shed some light on questions 1&2? 1. How do I route the ducting to cool and ventilate the 2 rooms in the studio? 2. What ducting do I use and where do I buy it? (Size, Shape, Material?)

first you would need to show us what you're workng with - a floor plan - a couple of sections through the building.......... (at least one in each direction for each room) Rod

Floor plan was in the first post, minus the yet to be built external chiller room...which is what I'm trying to figure out. http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... highlight= The chiller room would be built on the outside of the building along the wall with the main door (to the left of the mix position). This wall is practically a must due to where the building is sitting on the property line. The building has no attic, and there is no room to run ducting over head inside the ceiling. dropping it below and building a soffit is a possibility if need be. If you need more info, tell me what and I'll try my best to get it for you. I appreciate your sharing your expertise!

Can anyone just answer my main question: 1. Will the chiller room concept work the same way when cooling/ventilating 2 separate rooms as it would with just a single room? Connecting both rooms to the exchange chamber with separate supply and return ducts to each room?

hi what i think you need is the chiller room to be big enougth to contain the through the wall ac unit and a seperate circulation fan. the unit is what will determin the space it will condition and ventilate. and the fan you choose will deermin the rate at which it circulates. then you have your ducts to size to determin flow rate and silencers to keep the fan noise down. hope this helps however i am not qualified with hvac and this is only my undersanding of your system. good luck joey

delusion wrote:

I’ve been hammering away on converting a 25x11 one car garage into a 2 room studio (control/iso). General layout here: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... highlight= I’m about to the point of dealing with the HVAC. I’ve read Rod’s Book and the DIY HVAC, Shed to Studio threads and a thread by another bay area guy that couldn’t get his exchange room performing that well, although he was able to improve it. If I missed a particularly important thread, please guide me there. I’m in Los Angeles, heating is not a concern, but cooling and ventalation certainly are. I plan on building a small shed on the side of the building to function as an AC chiller room and also a machine room for noisy/hot computers. My main 3 questions are: 1. How do I route the ducting to cool and ventilate the 2 rooms in the studio? 2. What ducting do I use and where do I buy it? (Size, Shape, Material?) 3. I was thinking of building a 4x8x8 or so chiller room to use as storage too. Could someone put me in the ballpark on useable/desirable dimensions for this?

I think I was the "bay area guy" you quoted, and I did get my chiller room chillin finally, mostly by brute force. My workroom is a simple freestanding (insulated) plywood building 10' by 12', and we added a lean-to structure to one side 4 x 12. A normal, cheap window AC unit is installed there, venting to the outside. On the floor in front of it is a 400 CFM squirrel cage fan, which pulls air from the AC and pushes it into the workroom. There is a return vent that allows air to be pushed out of the workroom back into the chill room. I also have a smaller squirrel cage fan that can suck air out of the work room to the outside via the same vent. Usage of this rig is as follows: hot days in the summer: AC on w/ 400 CFM fan pushing cool air into the workroom and the passive return bringing air back; cool fall days: AC off (vent open) w/ 400 cfm fan pushing outside cool air into the workroom w/the passive vent open. Cold days (now): both AC and 400 CFM fan off, passive return routed to the smaller fan pulling warm air out of the room (and cool air in thru the other fan and its duct from the chill room). I do have a few things stored in the chill room, but no active computers. This is working quite well for me--thanks to Rod et al. A key to this is having the room pretty well sealed up when the AC/big fan are operating. Philip Perkins

delusion wrote:

I’ve been hammering away on converting a 25x11 one car garage into a 2 room studio (control/iso). General layout here: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... highlight= I’m about to the point of dealing with the HVAC. I’ve read Rod’s Book and the DIY HVAC, Shed to Studio threads and a thread by another bay area guy that couldn’t get his exchange room performing that well, although he was able to improve it. If I missed a particularly important thread, please guide me there. I’m in Los Angeles, heating is not a concern, but cooling and ventalation certainly are. I plan on building a small shed on the side of the building to function as an AC chiller room and also a machine room for noisy/hot computers. My main 3 questions are: 1. How do I route the ducting to cool and ventilate the 2 rooms in the studio? 2. What ducting do I use and where do I buy it? (Size, Shape, Material?) 3. I was thinking of building a 4x8x8 or so chiller room to use as storage too. Could someone put me in the ballpark on useable/desirable dimensions for this?

I think I was the "bay area guy" you quoted, and I did get my chiller room chillin finally, mostly by brute force. My workroom is a simple freestanding (insulated) plywood building 10' by 12', and we added a lean-to structure to one side 4 x 12. A normal, cheap window AC unit is installed there, venting to the outside. On the floor in front of it is a 400 CFM squirrel cage fan, which pulls air from the AC and pushes it into the workroom. There is a return vent that allows air to be pushed out of the workroom back into the chill room. I also have a smaller squirrel cage fan that can suck air out of the work room to the outside via the same vent. Usage of this rig is as follows: hot days in the summer: AC on w/ 400 CFM fan pushing cool air into the workroom and the passive return bringing air back; cool fall days: AC off (vent open) w/ 400 cfm fan pushing outside cool air into the workroom w/the passive vent open. Cold days (now): both AC and 400 CFM fan off, passive return routed to the smaller fan pulling warm air out of the room (and cool air in thru the other fan and its duct from the chill room). I do have a few things stored in the chill room, but no active computers. This isn't the most elegant, correct or ecological way to go, but for a construction bone-head like me it has worked out quite well--thanks to Rod et al. A key to this is having the room pretty well sealed up when the AC/big fan are operating. Philip Perkins

Thanks everyone for your input....and yes, Phillip, you were indeed the one I was referring to. I've still not made it to the bottom of this. Phillip, I was considering something very similar to your setup with a 4' wide side building that would be sealed etc. It appears that you are not utilizing silencers. Could you comment on the AC noise level that gets into the studio, and also, the amount of sound that escapes from the studio to the outside world through the chiller room? The place I'm working on already has an ancient loud and sonically LEAKY AC through the side wall that I was going to get rid of and close off the hole and replace with the chiller room. Now I'm considering just building a sealed higher mass door that I can open when needed over the existing through-the-wall AC unit....which is also outlined in Rod's book. I could open it up to exchange the air in the room with fresh air when needed, and use an additional quiet mini-split to handle the cooling while recording and mixing. But it seems like it may be getting convoluted. I believe I also remember a post where you were considering a mini-split as an addition or replacement for the chiller room. I'm assuming by your response here, that you didn't end up going that route, but please share your experience if you did. Again thanks to everyone, and happy holidays.

delusion wrote:

Thanks everyone for your input....and yes, Phillip, you were indeed the one I was referring to. I've still not made it to the bottom of this. Phillip, I was considering something very similar to your setup with a 4' wide side building that would be sealed etc. It appears that you are not utilizing silencers. Could you comment on the AC noise level that gets into the studio, and also, the amount of sound that escapes from the studio to the outside world through the chiller room? The place I'm working on already has an ancient loud and sonically LEAKY AC through the side wall that I was going to get rid of and close off the hole and replace with the chiller room. Now I'm considering just building a sealed higher mass door that I can open when needed over the existing through-the-wall AC unit....which is also outlined in Rod's book. I could open it up to exchange the air in the room with fresh air when needed, and use an additional quiet mini-split to handle the cooling while recording and mixing. But it seems like it may be getting convoluted. I believe I also remember a post where you were considering a mini-split as an addition or replacement for the chiller room. I'm assuming by your response here, that you didn't end up going that route, but please share your experience if you did. Again thanks to everyone, and happy holidays.

If what you want to do is record in the room you are making I don't recommend my approach. I do sound editing for film and video, and can live with a certain amount of baseline noise, and I record in another room I have which is differently ventilated and much quieter. As has been pointed out many places--having a big fan pushing air into a space requires a lot of tricks and good design to make it quiet. What I have is certainly quieter than having that equipment in the same room, but not quiet by real studio standards. Now, I think that you COULD make it quiet enough to record in if you made sure to isolate the equipment from the structure, used silencers and/or the right sort of bends in the airways etc.. When work slows a bit I'm going to reasses my system and see what I can do to quiet it down a bit. That said, I spent a blissfully cool summer working in my shack with the current system, where in the past I would have to periodically run out of the room gasping for breath and pouring sweat. (I have computers in here too.) On my list is reducing noise in here by moving more gear OUT before I hassle w/ the AC some more. The Minisplit idea is very attractive, but Rod has made it very clear that it isn't really a solution by itself since it exchanges no air w/ the outside. I also happen to live in an area where they aren't popular, and couldn't find any place where I could go and actually hear how noisy the fan units were. I like the idea of the fans, whatever type they are, not being in the room. good luck Philip Perkins

Thanks Phillip. That was some great feedback.