Air Conditioning Guidelines

1. The guidelines shown below, if adhered to, will ensure your air conditioning system runs efficiently during normal and extreme weather conditions.

2. Ensure all doors and windows in close proximity to air conditioned areas are kept closed.

3. For both cooling and heating modes, temperature should be set between 21ºC lowest and 28ºC highest.

4. When outside temperature is high, set to cooling mode/high fan to enable air to circulate throughout the room.  Also, to ensure even cooling, set the louvers on unit to swing to enable air to be directed to all areas of the room.

5. When outside temperature is low, set to heating/high fan to enable warm air to circulate throughout the room.  Again, setting the louvers on the unit to swing will ensure air is directed to all areas of the room.

6. During the winter months it is recommended that systems with heat mode are left on at a low temperature overnight in order to improve the system efficiency when heating is required first thing in the morning.

7. Note:  The auto setting will only achieve 2ºC above or below set room temperature when using auto setting/auto fan.

8. DO NOT, under any circumstances, manually move louvers/flaps on units as this will cause damage to the motor.

9. Pumps are fitted to some units to remove condensation; these pumps may run for up to 15 minutes after the air conditioning unit is switched off to ensure excess moisture is removed.

Cooling demand for different environments

• The heat loading in a Server Room for example is considerably more than in a normal office and more changes of air per hour will be required. Typically an office might need 2 or 3 air changes per hour a Server Room might easily need ten times that amount.

• For people to work comfortably moving air cools better than still air. Air flowing too fast will be felt as draught and you should try to avoid all the heat staying at the top of the room. Slow fans can help push the air around. Pulling hot air up is better than trying to push it down.

• Computers can, and do, operate within a wide humidity range. The key thing is to try and prevent quick humidity changes and wide variations and to avoid environmental conditions where condensation is possible. Humidity that changes from season to season is much easier to handle than that which happens hourly. Bear in mind that air conditioning equipment failures may also involve water leakage, or spills. Maybe positioning that server or comms cabinet underneath the air conditioning unit isn't such a good idea? You will need to monitor temperatures, ideally 24/7, and in different parts of the room, behind racks, and near critical equipment.