Data centre and comms room cooling

From cupboards to data rooms

Network equipment ends up in all sorts of places: a cupboard under the stairs, a converted store room, a riser on each floor or a dedicated room in the basement. Many were never meant to hold equipment that runs all day, and the temperature creeps up as switches, firewalls, phone systems and storage are added. The first sign is often a switch that keeps rebooting in summer, or a UPS battery that wears out early.

We work on comms rooms, network cupboards and smaller data rooms in offices, schools, surgeries, shops and public buildings across London and the South East. Large purpose-built data centres with raised floors, chilled water and rows of close control units are specialist facilities with their own designers. We are honest about that: our work is the rooms and cupboards most organisations actually have.

What makes comms room cooling different

• It runs all year. The equipment makes heat on the coldest winter night, so the cooling must work at low outdoor temperatures. Not every comfort unit is designed for that, and we check the manufacturer’s data.
• The heat is dry. Electronics give off heat but no moisture, unlike people. Units suited to technical cooling put more of their effort into lowering temperature.
• Airflow matters. Equipment draws air in at the front and exhausts it at the back. Cooling aimed at the intake side, and kept away from the hot exhaust, works far better than a unit blowing across the room.
• Failure costs more than the unit. Lost connections, lost data and lost trade usually dwarf the price of a standby unit.

Sizing and layout

On the survey we ask what the equipment draws. The UPS display, the PDU readings or your IT provider can usually tell us. We add the heat coming in from the building, allow for planned growth, and choose units that can handle the load with one of them out of service.

In rooms with more than a couple of racks, the way they face matters. Lining racks up so the fronts face one aisle and the backs face another keeps cool supply air and hot exhaust apart. Blanking plates in empty rack spaces stop hot air looping back to the front. These are simple changes, and they often matter as much as the cooling itself. We will point out what we see, and work with your IT team on what can change.

Redundancy and changeover

For a room the business relies on, we design to N+1: enough units to cool the room with one out of action. A controller rotates the units so they share the running hours, and switches to the standby automatically if one faults. We test the changeover at handover by switching a unit off and watching the other take the load, and again at every service.

Where a room only has space or budget for one unit, we will say what the risks are and how to reduce them, for example with a temperature alarm and a portable unit on standby for emergencies. Our air conditioning hire service can help in a breakdown.

Alarms and reporting

Most commercial controllers have a fault output or a connection for building management systems. We can link that, and a separate high-temperature alarm, to your BMS, your IT monitoring or an alerting device that sends a message when something is wrong. Then a fault is a ticket, not an outage. Our 24/7 emergency line is there for the calls that cannot wait.

Installing around live equipment

We plan comms room work so the equipment never goes without cooling. Existing units stay on while new ones are fitted, pipe and cable routes avoid the racks, and condensate is kept well away from equipment, with a pump and overflow alarm where needed. Dusty work is done with the room protected, and noisy or risky steps happen in an agreed window. As an NICEIC approved company we fit a dedicated electrical supply to the cooling as part of the job.

Outdoor units for comms rooms are often on a roof, in a yard or in a plant area shared with other tenants. We look at security, airflow and access for servicing, and agree positions with the landlord or building manager. Where the pipe run is long or climbs several floors, we check it against the manufacturer’s limits before we quote.

F-Gas, TM44 and maintenance

Systems running all year collect dust and wear faster than office units, so we suggest servicing at least once a year and often twice. A maintenance contract includes the F-Gas leak checks required by the refrigerant charge and keeps the records up to date. If the air conditioning in the building totals more than 12 kW, it needs a TM44 inspection every five years. Everything is priced after the survey, with a fixed-price quote.