Question about media closet cooling

[lucasbuck]

Wanted to see if I could get an opinions. In my new house build I will have a media closet in the basement. I designed it to be 4x4, a door on either side. It will have a lot of equipment, probably too much. 3 desktops (HTPC, mine and my wife's which are set up as stations in areas of the house), Xbox as an extender, receiver, router, modem, probably another couple odds and ends.

Asking around and reading other posts I've gotten 2 ideas, but am not sure which is the best way to go. I want to do it right since it's so much easier in a new build, but both opinions I've gotten seem way off. One suggestions is a regular sized vent (like a floor vent but mounted in the wall) with 2 silent PC fans controlled by a PC thermostat. The other is to run something like a Panasonic Whisperline fan and feed it into the homes return air with an attic thermostat. Seems like a major difference to me so I don't know what's too small, or too much.

Since it's in the basement it will be sitting under the main floor of the house. I don't know how quiet the Whisperlines are, but I wouldn't want to hear the thing kicking on and off. Any suggestions or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

[barnabas1969]

It depends on the ambient air temperature in the basement during the summer months, but a little air flow goes a long way.

Consider this... if the closet is 4x4x8 (feet), that's 128 cubic feet. Two 120mm fans, placed near the ceiling, exhausting air from the closet, running slowly, will move about 50cfm. That will replace all of the air in the closet more than twice a minute. That's more than enough, unless you have a LOT of equipment in that closet.

If you can keep that closet under 85-90 degrees F, you're probably OK.

[lucasbuck]

I'm just thinking if I go with the computer fans, I'm going to have to have to build a unit to mount them, which normally I wouldn't mind but it's going to be hectic as the house goes up anyway. But if I go with some kind of commercial fan, I'm not sure how quiet those things are (but I can just have the builder do it). Plus that one I could feed into the return air rather than pump the hot air into another room with computer fans. So kind of stuck and don't want to go redo it down the road.

[Venom51]

I've got 4 machines, 2 switches,2 routers and a couple cable modems in a room that's 10x8x10 if requires it's own air conditioner to keep the temps down below the 80's. That includes the help of a 120 cfm bathroom fan mounted in the top of the cabinet to extract hot air.

[lucasbuck]

How are you running AC into it? I had thought about running the homes AC in there, and then just shutting the vent in the winter. I didn't know if that would help though since even if a vent it closed, it tends to generate heat. The Panasonic fans are bathroom ones, just made to be as quiet as possible.

[Venom51]

I used a portable A/C that will cool a larger room. In the winter I have a screened insert I put into a window in the room and just use the cold outside air to cool it.

[lucasbuck]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing.