Server room cooling in Croydon
Is the comms room in your Croydon office the warmest room in the building? We fit dedicated cooling for server rooms, racks and comms cupboards. It is sized from what your equipment actually draws, runs on its own controller and keeps going at the weekend when the office system is off.
Price a server room unit
Name, number and postcode. We ring you to go through it.
- Sized from real power readings
- Independent of the office system
- Runs nights and weekends
How warm is too warm for a server room?
Server Room Environments recommends 18°C to 27°C for computer rooms, ideally 18°C to 25°C, with UPS batteries kept between 20°C and 25°C and relative humidity at 45% to 50%. Check your own manufacturers' limits as well, since some storage and network kit is stricter. A cupboard that sits at 30°C all summer is shortening the life of everything in it. Source: Server Room Environments.
How much cooling does a rack need?
Work from the electricity, because nearly all of it becomes heat: a server drawing 900W is a 900W heater. Add the servers, switches, storage and UPS, multiply by 1.5 to leave room for growth, then add the lights, the people who work in there and any sun through a window. One kilowatt of cooling is 3,412 BTU an hour. Bring your power readings to the survey and we will do the sum with you. Source: Server Room Environments.
Why not let the office air conditioning handle it?
Because it keeps office hours. It is off at night and on Sundays, and it responds to the thermostat in the open-plan area, not to the cupboard with the door shut. Your servers do not clock off. A dedicated unit with its own controller means the rack is no longer at the mercy of whoever last adjusted the office setting.
What if the cooling fails?
Plan for it now. The minimum is a temperature alarm that reaches a person by text or email. Where downtime is expensive, a second unit on standby, set to take over when the first stops, is the next step. A two-person firm with one switch and a NAS has a different problem from a company with build servers and client data, and we match the design to what an outage would cost you.
Does a server unit count towards TM44?
It can. The guidance treats all units controlled by one person in a building as one system and says comfort cooling is not exempt, while process-only cooling is handled differently. If your total is close to 12kW, check how the server unit is classed before assuming you are under the line. Source: GOV.UK guidance.
Questions people ask
The room has no outside wall. Can it still be done?
Often, with a longer pipe run through the ceiling void to an outdoor unit on the roof or at the rear. The route and the drain decide it.
Do we need to shut down during the install?
Normally not. The work is around your kit, not on it, and anything with risk is agreed with your IT people first.
We only have one rack. Is this overkill?
Send us its power draw and the room size. One busy rack in a closed cupboard can need cooling; a quiet one in a ventilated room may not.
Where these facts come from
Useful to have ready
With these we can give you a straight answer on the first call.
- Your postcode
- Flat, house or business premises
- Who owns the outside wall, if you lease or rent
- Which room, roughly how big, and which way the window faces
- Any conservation area or listing you know of
Server room cooling beyond Croydon
After server room cooling somewhere nearby? We cover the towns below, and each page explains its own planning position. The full picture is on our air conditioning in Croydon page.
Before you decide
Which size of air conditioner is right for the room?
A room size table, the adjustments that matter, and why bigger is not better.
Checking an installer on the F-gas register
Company certificates, personal qualifications, and who issues them.
How much does air conditioning cost?
Unit prices, labour, electrics, running costs and the extras flats add.
Related work
Office air conditioning
For offices where people, screens and south-facing glass make the heat.
Commercial air conditioning
Shops, cafés, salons, bars and restaurants, with the flats upstairs in mind.
Elsewhere on this site
Air conditioning installation
A survey, a written price, then units, pipework and electrics fitted properly.
Home air conditioning
Bedrooms, top-floor flats and loft rooms, with heating thrown in.
Air-to-air heat pumps
Cheaper warmth than a plug-in heater, and cooling from the same box.
Multi-split air conditioning
Two to four rooms from one outdoor unit, each on its own controller.
Conservatory air conditioning
Turns a glass room you use in May into one you use in August and January.
Air conditioning servicing
A yearly check on any make, with the legal leak test where it applies.
Air conditioning repairs
Stopped cooling, dripping, iced up or flashing a code: diagnosed first.
Prefer a call back?
Leave your postcode and a line about the room, and we ring you. Or ring 020 8194 3009.