Cooling the Media Closet

                  Over the last few years the home media center has taken on a dramatic new look but not in the way that you might think. The once small and unobtrusive space just below the television set has somehow grown into a pile of assorted game consoles, audio equipment, network devices, cabling, and more.

With this abundance of electronic devices a troubling consequence has also managed to make its presence known, and that is the accumulation of heat.

Heat, has long been the primary factor when it comes to premature failure in any type of electronics. The amount of heat that is emitted from just one continually running device is enough to warm the space around it, but compound that with multiple running devices and you actually raise the temperature in the room.

There are a number of solutions to help counter this problem, but in a recent project of mine we had to take a completely different approach in resolving this issue.

I was tasked with providing a method that would prevent a trove of electronic equipment from overheating and allow for additional devices that would be arriving once this project was completed.

Rather than trying to solve the problem in its existing cabinet the homeowner agreed that his media cabinet should be moved to a central location where the equipment could be better accessed, maintained, and expanded. For this project it would mean sacrificing the entryway closet.

Speeding through the construction details the new media closet was modified to fit a sliding rack, overhead light, dedicated circuit, and lots of wires.

To deal with our primary issue, the door of the new media closet was removed so that access holes could be cut for the intake/exhaust fans. The Middle Atlantic CLS-COOL2 Closet Cooler was an easy choice, the fans covered up to 50CFM, turned on/off automatically, and were very quiet.

Once the intake/exhaust fan openings were cut out, the intake was installed at the bottom cutout and the exhaust was installed at the top. Rather than securing the fan wires with the zip tie adhesive mounts that came with the kit, we decided to use split wire tubing and secured it with screw hole zip ties.

Now although this required making holes in the door we felt in the long term it would be the better choice.

The inline fan controller was installed in the center of the door as this was the highest it could be placed given the length of the cord and the wall plug.

Once the closet cooler was installed the door was rehung and the unit tested. The closet cooler fans worked perfectly, although some time was needed to reach the temperature needed to before they would automatically turn on.

Even with the additional equipment was installed the cooling fans worked quite well and continue to do so.

I hope you've enjoyed this article and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them down below. Until next time.

M. Hernandez Sr.