Working W/O AC...how to position fans?

**BrazenMuse** · 05-27-2010, 06:30 AM

All right...we have a problem here. I work in an old catholic school bldg. There's no AC in my room and the wiring in here won't tolerate adding one in this room bc there are already 15 computers running all day and it would trip breakers on the regular. We are leaving the bldg on June 18, so there's no plan to re-wire.

Students have work to do and I'm in this furnace all day long...trying to think of workable solutions.

My classroom faces East/South East. We have 6 windows...all on the same wall. The ceilings are high. There's one exit door and the hall outside has some windows in it. I usually open the windows early and turn 2 double window fans on exhaust for the first half hour, trying to suck in some cool air from the hall and blow out the hot, stale air from the night before.

The room is a square. There are computers along the north wall (6) and along that east wall (4). The door is in the west wall, in a corner. I'm on the top floor, directly under evil flat roof (black tar).

I have 2 double window fans (they have intake/exhaust setting). I also have a very powerful fan that is like the ones you use to dry wet floors quickly. There's a small table fan also.

Where would you position the fans for maximum effect? Would you open any of the 4 unoccupied windows if it were cool outside? What about if it were really hot outside? Keeping the door open helps bc it creates cross ventilation. The small table top fan and the powerful floor drying fan are aimed upward and positioned well within the room, not near the windows. i want to keep the air moving and the students awake. Buying more fans isn't much of an option, if I do, then I need to keep it to a minimum. I can't position a fan near the door for safety reasons (drat) and there's no way to hang any safely.

Right now, at 7:20am, it's cool outside, so I've moved the non-window fans to draw a little more air from outside, but I know it's going to heat up in a bit. Any suggestions for workable solutions?

**BrazenMuse** · 05-27-2010, 06:41 AM

oh...and I can't leave windows open overnight...

**dag** · 05-27-2010, 08:55 AM

Heat rises, and the sun is stronger from the south.

I would suck in air from the hall, suck air from the room to outside, and put up drapes to reflect sun light from the room. Use the personal fan for yourself.

All that motor whirring is also going to make people sleepy.

Another trick is to fill a bucket with ice and blow a fan over it. However, the water vapor will eventually find its way to the floor.

Turn off any computers not in use.

**panklady** · 05-27-2010, 09:02 AM

Easy, I went to an HBCU when we didn't have A/C in our dorm rooms. Hollar at me.

Take two fans...plug both of them in...point one fan going outward & the other facing inward (towards you). Make sure they're side by side & propped in the windows. For an added blast...have another fan across the room facing the one facing inward. Viola...circular motion.

*window wall*
XX (fan facing outside)

fan facing outside XX------>on the far wall

YY (fan facing inside)
*window wall*

**likewater** · 05-27-2010, 09:08 AM

Hey Brazen.. is there a way you can turn those fans around to exhaust, I keep my home fan on exhaust to take the hot air out and bring cool air in.. if it's those big tall gray joints.. you can spin those around to face a window.. and that would make it cooler for you guys.. Good Luck..

**BrazenMuse** · 05-27-2010, 02:53 PM

Originally Posted by likewater

Hey Brazen.. is there a way you can turn those fans around to exhaust, I keep my home fan on exhaust to take the hot air out and bring cool air in.. if it's those big tall gray joints.. you can spin those around to face a window.. and that would make it cooler for you guys.. Good Luck..

Two double window fans, no floor fans.
Maybe set one side on exhaust and one on intake?

Problem is that it has been hot both outside and inside...

**panklady** · 05-27-2010, 02:56 PM

Originally Posted by BrazenMuse

Two double window fans, no floor fans.
Maybe set one side on exhaust and one on intake?

Problem is that it has been hot both outside and inside...

Try my way...let me know how it works. You have perfect scenario. Crank those pumps to high. Face one fan out & the other in... and then the one across the room facing center of room...

**BrazenMuse** · 05-27-2010, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by panklady

Try my way...let me know how it works. You have perfect scenario. Crank those pumps to high. Face one fan out & the other in... and then the one across the room facing center of room...

That's kinda what I have...

the east wall is the one w windows, and those fans are double fans. I've tried making one fan out and the other in on both fans (they are the double window fans - two sets of blades within one unit). The small personal fan is on the North side and faces center, the airstream is directed upward bc some students can't tolerate having the fan directly on them. I can't shift that to the West side bc that's where the chalkboards are and it's a heavily trafficked area with no tables or desks. My desk is on the South side, and there's no fan blowing toward center from there...

And I'm burning to death!!

**Armento** · 05-27-2010, 03:40 PM

if you put your feet into cold water you cool off pretty quickly. YW

**BrazenMuse** · 05-27-2010, 03:41 PM

Originally Posted by Armenoid

if you put your feet into cold water you cool off pretty quickly. YW

Can't u see I'm sufferin' here? Fink!

**D J 1 3 8** · 05-27-2010, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by BrazenMuse

My classroom faces East/South East. We have 6 windows...all on the same wall.
The ceilings are high.
There's one exit door and the hall outside has some windows in it.
The room is a square.
There are computers along the north wall (6) and along that east wall (4). The door is in the west wall, in a corner.
I'm on the top floor, directly under evil flat roof (black tar).

This reads like some kind of D&D role-playing game LOL

You're standing in a castle keep dungeon...
there is a long wooden table on your right...

That said, I don't know much about thermodynamics, except you need some cross ventilation, so whatever achieves that...
Small fans can only pull so much air, if any

**likewater** · 05-27-2010, 03:50 PM

Originally Posted by BrazenMuse

Two double window fans, no floor fans.
Maybe set one side on exhaust and one on intake?

Problem is that it has been hot both outside and inside...

I know.. but that should help a little.. take that hot air out the room and it will feel cooler..

**Armento** · 05-27-2010, 04:11 PM

i haven't actually read your essay above but a big window fan blowing air IN usually works best.. as long as it's cooler outside haha. or cold foot water

**panklady** · 05-27-2010, 04:38 PM

Bray, I really feel for you & your students. I know what it's like to be "want to strip down hot". LOL *sorry for the visual* I am sitting on a call & have been surfing like a champ for various ways to cool down. I'd try a few of these just to see...along with fans blowing like a cyclone.

Turn off the lights.

Unplug unused electrical equipment.

Observe Key Notes
Let your computer take a nap. Set it to go into low-power "sleep" mode if you are away from it for more than 10 minutes and it will give off less heat. When you're finished for the day, shut the machine down completely. Despite what some IT guy may have told you years ago, properly shutting down and restarting modern-day computers won't put undue strain on the hardware. And forget about working with a computer on your lap―it's too darn hot. "That's why they changed the name from laptop to notebook," says Justin M. Solomon, a 19-year-old undergraduate at Stanford University who took first place in computer science at the 2005 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

You might even try this: Ice bucket from your freezer (or, ideally, frozen 3-liter bottles) in front of the fan. Works like a charm.
posted by Who_Am_I at 2:13 PM on June 21, 2005

Put a freeze on things. Get a 1 or more 3 liter bottles, fill them mostly full of water, freeze them, then place them in a large bowl (to catch dripping water). Position a fan to blow on them. As the ice in the bottles melts, the air cools around them. The fan will blow that air at you. The water in the bottles can be frozen overnight and used again, repeatedly. This will supplement your AC if you have it, and will serve as a ad hoc AC until you can get a decent AC system. Note that this is not any more efficient that A/C, as energy goes into freezing the ice.

See about having windows covered.

http://lifehacker.com/5313401/hang-a...ol-a-hot-house

I found this too...and I'm not trying to be funny...but you might get your students to think & work on projects that cold-inspired. (ex. being caught in a snow drift)

Think Cool

Escape. Relax with A Winter's Tale, The Call of the Wild, Doctor Zhivago, or Smilla's Sense of Snow. "Reading about cold can take your mind off the thermometer, evoking one's own experience of ice and snow," says Walter A. Brown, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the medical schools of Brown and Tufts Universities and an expert in the placebo effect. "It's also a bit of self-hypnosis. Sometimes when I shower and the water is cold, I tell myself it's hot and I can make myself believe it." You can save that last insight for another season entirely.

**TAD** · 05-27-2010, 04:40 PM

all fans do is circulate hot air. essentially you r fucked.

the only solution imo is to invest in white drapes to cover all the windows as dag suggested.

another thing you may consider doing is investigating what breakers are assigned to what outlests, try and locate a breaker that has minimal usage and the outlet is nearby where you can run a proper ac certified extension cord.

what amperage r the breakers. you may be able to get away with connecting a 6 or 8000 btu at a medium setting. i have 1 10,000 btu ac connected to a breaker with 4 computers, 4 amps, processing gear, mixer, a pin spot and a halogen lamp. never a problem and im in an 80 year old building.

r the computers equipped with flatscreen or tube monitors. although it is recommended to connect an ac to a separate breaker, i donèt think 10 computers draw enough current. the worst thing that could happen is the breaker trips.

an 8000 btu may not fully cool the room but it will get rid of that nasty humidity.

**mhd** · 05-27-2010, 04:47 PM

try a portable ac unit

**travy** · 05-27-2010, 04:48 PM

sheeeeit, make the students fan you!

**mhd** · 05-27-2010, 04:58 PM

Originally Posted by dag

Another trick is to fill a bucket with ice and blow a fan over it. .

like the flintstones...

**BrazenMuse** · 05-27-2010, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by D J 1 3 8

This reads like some kind of D&D role-playing game LOL

You're standing in a castle keep dungeon...
there is a long wooden table on your right...

That said, I don't know much about thermodynamics, except you need some cross ventilation, so whatever achieves that...
Small fans can only pull so much air, if any

It does sound like D&D, doesn't it? LOL SMH

Originally Posted by TAD

all fans do is circulate hot air. essentially you r fucked.

the only solution imo is to invest in white drapes to cover all the windows as dag suggested.

another thing you may consider doing is investigating what breakers are assigned to what outlests, try and locate a breaker that has minimal usage and the outlet is nearby where you can run a proper ac certified extension cord.

what amperage r the breakers. you may be able to get away with connecting a 6 or 8000 btu at a medium setting. i have 1 10,000 btu ac connected to a breaker with 4 computers, 4 amps, processing gear, mixer, a pin spot and a halogen lamp. never a problem and im in an 80 year old building.

r the computers equipped with flatscreen or tube monitors. although it is recommended to connect an ac to a separate breaker, i donèt think 10 computers draw enough current. the worst thing that could happen is the breaker trips.

an 8000 btu may not fully cool the room but it will get rid of that nasty humidity.

Yeah. The windows are covered, I do keep the flourescents to a minimum, ditto w computers...I really wish I could do the AC, but the comps are all daisychained to insufficient outlets at this point...and the admin simply will do nothing about the situation with the electric in the room bc the location is not going to be ours after June 30th.

Hmmm...Pank, thank you for the research...I'm seriously considering the icewater bottles, but it's a 3 story walk up and I ain't carrying all that up from basement daily.
I suppose I'll just burn. Gonna get an ice hanky thing!

Originally Posted by travy

sheeeeit, make the students fan you!

I like this idea, but they whine enough as it is...