I made my own media closet that ventilates into the attic from a simple hole cut in the ceiling with a wire mesh cover. I was hoping that passive cooling would do the trick, but since winter has come along I find that the furnace heating system is not allowing the hot air to rise. So, to that end, I am looking into mounting some 12V PC fans in the hole and have a temperature switch activate them when it gets above a certain temperature. I have found several sites showing how to build one of these switches, but I was hoping that someone could point me into the direction of a cheap already packaged solution for this.

I built my own SageTV media system, so 12V power is not the issue, I just need something to take that power and switch the fans on at a certain temp.

Just yesterday I installed a quiet (0.8 sones) bathroom fan in my equipment closet that is controlled by an attic fan thermostat. I haven't tested it out yet, but that's another possible solution to the problem. I really have no idea how much cooling my closet will need, so I'm hoping the 80 CFM's the fan has will be enough. I am wondering if PC fans will be enough?

Guy

I use these... and boy they move air :)

http://www.farreys.com/ventilation/exhaust_vent_fans/nutone_in_line_fans.html

Thanks for the advice, I found an attic thermostat from home depot that should do the trick and since the media section of the closet is only about 6 - 10 cubic feet, I think a cheap bathroom exhaust fan (50 CFM) will do the trick just fine. Thanks for the help!

Thanks for the advice, I found an attic thermostat from home depot that should do the trick and since the media section of the closet is only about 6 - 10 cubic feet, I think a cheap bathroom exhaust fan (50 CFM) will do the trick just fine. Thanks for the help!

My Home Depot had a display where you could push a button and listen to how noisy each of the bathroom fans were. Hopefully yours has the same. The ones rated with a large number of sones were very noisy. I got the quietest one I could find there which was 0.8 sones, and it is almost silent.

Guy

I bought mine online, a Nutone 0.3 sone. Panasonic makes a "whisper" fan that you might consider. You're going to pay more (~100.00) for a quieter fan, but the last think you want is noise like that interrupting your movie.

http://www.dimmers.net/ventfans/whisper_ceiling.asp

Bud

I have a little bit of the same concern of removing heat from a closet. I am installling my AV(TV) equipment in a spare room with a closet. The built in will enclose the closet opening from the threater viewing area. I was investigating running small ducts from my HVAC system to keep the equipment cool. I like the idea of a bathroom fan. If I vent to the attic, won't this suck out a % of cool air from the HT room. Should cooling this closet even be a concern?

Yes, cooling should be a concern in any enclosed space with equipment that generates heat. The other thing you need to consider is how the cooling works in summer vs winter. In the summer, you could direct A/C to that location (along with using a fan to the attic, though it would definitely need a temperature sensor so the attic heat doesn't attack the closet). In the winter, you'd need to damper the duct so heat doesn't add to it, and rely on the attic fan (or even reverse it if the air is cool enough). Depends what your weather is like where you live..

I have a similar concern with cooling a 3'x3' closet where i will be locating a large amount of heat generating A/V equipment. I will use a louvered door to aid with air circulation but would like to do more to get hot air out of the closet. Construction has just began on the house so the possible solutions are open.

The options I am considering are:

1) install a bathroom-style vent fan in the ceiling and using some type of temperature sensor to trigger its operation. A similar alternative would be to use an in-line fan as the previous post mentioned.

2) tapping into the HVAC return air plenum using a small (6" or so) ducting so air would be pulled out of the closet. this would only pull air when the HVAC system was on.

3) Installing a regular a/c vent in the closet. this would only push in cooler air into the space but would not pull the hot air out and wouldn't be as effective during the winter when the heater would be pushing warmer air in.

Which of these options is the better way to go?

You could try a combination of 2 and 3:

- Run a return to the HVAC system.. this would be active year long
- Run a supply from the HVAC with a damper that you open in the summer and close during the winter. Or even better, a large "Y" duct, with a damper that switches between the two, where one side of the Y is the HVAC supply, and the other is either open air or even connected to the outside (cold air).

I am also building a media closet and need to decide whether to install an active cooling system. The closet will contain only a few pieces of heat-generating: receiver, cable box/dvr, an RF receiver, and maybe a PC. The closet is 73 ft3 and will be enclosed with two solid 24-inch bifold doors (48" front opening). For aesthetic reasons, I'd rather not use louvered doors. The closet is not near any HVAC ducts and I have no access to the outdoors or an attic because I'm in a condominum. Will infiltration and natural convection be sufficient to cool this closet? If I need an active cooling system, my only option seems to be a quiet fan on the rear wall which would exhaust to another bedroom. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Is there an opening anywhere else except the doors (since you want to keep them closed)?

As an example, you could open a hole in the wall and put a fan between rooms, moving air from the closet to the other room. The bottom line is it's preferable to move the air out of the closet space.

There are no other openings except around the doors and, you're right, they'll typically be closed. Maybe I could install something like the Panasonic WhisperWall fan. At 70 CFM it would turn the air over every minute.

That would be plenty for the # of components you have. My question is where you would put it... (Where will it vent to?)

I have no choice but to vent to the bedroom on the other side of the wall, right? How many btu/hr would a typical receiver produce? I looked at the manual for my receiver but didn't see anything in the specs?

I just did #2 (from tratliff's post above) and it's worked perfectly. My AV closet backs up to an unfinished part of my basement and is within about 5 feet of one of my main air return plenums. I tapped into this with a 4in piece of dryer vent. I used to leave the door open when using my HT but now have no heat issues from my equipment. I should note that I leave my HVAC blower/fan on full time to keep the air moving.

Good question.. I've never seen that spec published for any component. Just make a best effort to remove heat from the components and you'll be fine. Typically the threshold is the amount of noise you can handle. 70CFM is plenty, especially if it's near your components.

My Home Depot had a display where you could push a button and listen to how noisy each of the bathroom fans were. Hopefully yours has the same. The ones rated with a large number of sones were very noisy. I got the quietest one I could find there which was 0.8 sones, and it is almost silent.

Guy

I think the problem w/that setting is that in the store, you have no idea of how much AMBIENT noise there is.

Ya get home and find out that it's a lot more noisey than it sounded in the Home Depot store!

I just did #2 (from tratliff's post above) and it's worked perfectly. My AV closet backs up to an unfinished part of my basement and is within about 5 feet of one of my main air return plenums. I tapped into this with a 4in piece of dryer vent. I used to leave the door open when using my HT but now have no heat issues from my equipment. I should note that I leave my HVAC blower/fan on full time to keep the air moving.


thanks, uabcar. I will definitly add a return air duct in the equipment closet. The HVAC guy hasn't finished the duct work yet so he shouldn't mind the minor change.

In addition, i may also still add a bathroom vent with thermostat in case the return air solution is not sufficient by itself. The HVAC system won't be running all the time and this will be cheap insurance. I will have a lot of heat generating equipment and most will be high $ stuff.

Lastly, I also plan on using some point-source cooling such as those from Middle Atlantic ( http://www.middleatlantic.com/rackac/cooling/qcool.htm ) or ATM ( http://www.activethermal.com/default.htm )

I won't be done with the house for a few months but I will try to post some results with pics when it is complete.

Here is a link to a good article on cooling i found in another thread:
http://svconline.com/mag/avinstall_hot_stuff/

you need 2 things. a vent from the bottom. this can be as simple as a return plate that will let air come in and a fan in the celiing like a bathroom fan. whats on the other side of the closet?

if say a bedroom is on the other side you could cut the sheetrock and block it in the size of a standard return plate. this will let air in to the closet. then the fan to suck air up and out. but id also do exactly like the bathroom fan and vent it not to just the celing but to outside. you can tee them and use one vent.

thanks. i will be doing a version of what you suggested.

for the air intake (into the closet) i will be using a louvered door.

the HVAC guy has put in the return air vent. he agreed with the idea.
the electrician will be putting in a bathroom fan this week.
the builder still thinks i am nuts.

I am also in the process of moving everything to a closet in the basement and after thinking about it alot, i figured that I would definitly need some kind of cooling system and/or heat evacuation in there (xbox 360 anyone?). The closet is around 4x7sq/f and it is in the corner of my basement. Since we just recently changed our bathroom fan (not enough flow), I thought maybe I could use the old fan for the closet but my girlfriend said it was old and dirty and she got rid of it..on the other hand, it was very loud and I wouldnt want all this noise there anyway.

But something I noticed in that closet (before deciding to move everything) is that there is insulation at the top of the wall to the outside and I could see that there was a bit of humidity on the plastic (that wasn't sealed properly) and you could feel a little bit of cool air coming in. Now what i was thinking is, maybe I could just open it up completely by removing the insulation there and put a fan with ducting going down and put another fan on the top to evacuate the warm air.

I know that humidity might not be the best thing for electronics but since basements are usually more humid anyway, would this be a problem (depending how much more humid it becomes) or would this be a good solution to keeping the room cooler or at least at a "normal" temp

Berin,

If your equipment is on all the time, I would think the heat generated by it will be enough to "dry" any humidity.

In the new home I'm building I'm putting all A/V, computer equipment, and structured wiring in a closet that's @ 15sf. It's in SW Florida, so instead of factoring this cooling need into my main HVAC system, we've decided on a 1-ton mini split system inside the closet. This will be far more economical to run rather than keeping the large system going just for this closet.

I've had a dedicated wiring closet for a while that wasn't vented because it didn't really need to be. But, I just finished building a media server that I want to put in there. 12 hard drives and a 700w power supply throw off a lot of heat so I'm going to vent it.

In the rest of my house I have panasonic fans and I love them, but for this closet I opted for a nutone because they had a model at Home Depot that is heavy duty and designed for continuous use. It isn't terribly loud, but sound doesn't really matter to me because it's in a closet. I might hook up a thermostat or I might just run it 24/7 since that is what it was designed for.

Here is a link to the fan in case anyone is interested. It was about $80.
http://www.nutone.com/product-detail.asp?ProductID=11206

I've had a dedicated wiring closet for a while that wasn't vented because it didn't really need to be. But, I just finished building a media server that I want to put in there. 12 hard drives and a 700w power supply throw off a lot of heat so I'm going to vent it.

In the rest of my house I have panasonic fans and I love them, but for this closet I opted for a nutone because they had a model at Home Depot that is heavy duty and designed for continuous use. It isn't terribly loud, but sound doesn't really matter to me because it's in a closet. I might hook up a thermostat or I might just run it 24/7 since that is what it was designed for.

Here is a link to the fan in case anyone is interested. It was about $80.
http://www.nutone.com/product-detail.asp?ProductID=11206

I'd love to see how this works out for you? Photos even? I'm in the same boat at the moment and looking for a good solution.

Our bonus room is the theater room. It has a closet with a regular door. The room is on the second floor. I have the following equipment in there: Denon 3803 receiver, 2 Rotel RB-1080 power amps, Xbox360 elite, Denon 3800BDCI dvd player, Comcast cable box.

the rack:

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/3226/dsc01571tv6.th.jpg (http://img389.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc01571tv6.jpg)http://img389.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

I dont know if you can tell from that image, but the closet is fairly big.

After about 2 hours, there's considerable heat build up in there, but it dissipates quickly if i just leave the door open for a while. It would be cool to add some type of active cooling, but I dont have much idea of what type of fan I need, etc. I wired everything in the closet myself, so I'm familiar with the electrical stuff required, I just need to know what kind of cooling I should get.

-I'd ideally like something quiet that I can run while watching movies and not have it distract us.

-I'd dont want to deal with A/C returns/vents stuff like that, just fan cooling, frankly because I wouldn't know how to. Is it possible to meet my needs without having to run an A/C conduit or return into that closet and maintain a homeostatic temperature for my stuff?


What would you all suggest I do?

Try some vents in the walls with fans; but don't vent into the attic, garage, etc. (you will hurt your A/C system as they worked best on a "sealed" system).;)

I made two vents (one high and one low) and pull cool air in from below and out at the top. Works really well...

Some pics are on a another thread. (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16291102#post16291102)


Cheers,
Matt

this is a second floor closet, i cant pull in air from the floor, at least i dont know how...

This might be a bit on the expensive side, but I use the "Cool Cube" by Active Thermal Management to draw the heat out of my AV cabinet up into the attic. The cool cube is four low-flow fans in sequence, and a thermal switch with two speeds. The fan sits up in the attic connected by a duct to the AV cabinet to keep the noise low.

ATM has a variety of cooling solutions.

http://www.activethermal.com/Cool-Cube.htm

I have a closet with my bluray player, fios receiver, directv receiver, onkyo 660, i need to figure out a way to vent out, i like the cool cube idea but since it states email me to buy it i guess its very expensive. I like these fans

http://www.hometheatercooling.com/purchase.html

Anyone have any thoughts? I really would hate to put a vent in this, i believe the closet is over a crawl space, i dont want a bathroom fan as they are loud unless you get very expensive, let me know, thanks in advance

Does the cool cube's design that includes temperature controlled on/off switching make it "ok" to vent directly into an attic?

Yes ... there's a thermal switch that turns the unit on/off, depending on the temp. It even has low/high setting depending on the temperature (high @ 102)

When it came time to ventilate my AV media closet, I had 2 conflicting opinions on how to properly cool my massive rack of components tightly packed in an 8 foot closet. Honestly, I didn't know who had the better argument, but after researching it, I feel that there is a right way and wrong way to properly ventilate a hot av closet in the interest of saving your components.

I said stick a fan in the ceiling and exhaust into adjacent room.

General Contractor said run a supply duct from HVAC to closet (which I did)

HVAC Contractor said run a return duct from closet to HVAC (which I also later did). I went back and forth by installing a supply, then rerouted it to return, then both, and went thru a whole lot of mastik. So, before sheetrock went up, I said screw this, let me research and see who is right!

So let me summarize my take after researching alot of postings as well as other pro-media articles: The most ideal effective way to vent/cool/exhaust an enclosed av media closet is by, first of all, placing a vent at top of closet so that the rising hot air escapes and is then carried away actively or passively. The active removal method can be achieved either by using a bath fan into another room and/or by tapping into your AC return duct/plenum which effectively removes/vaccums the hot air when your HVAC is on or fan is on. The passive removal method, on the other hand, uses natural convection where the hottest components are at the bottom and the coolest components at the top of your rack/shelves which serves to generate a driving gradient of convective currents upwards carrying hot air away from the components up thru the ceiling vent or top of wall vent that is continuous into a cooler adjacent room/space.

Either way, passive convective currents already created by your av components and enhanced by where you place your components aid in the efficient removal and replacement of the hot air. (I read some pretty impressive numbers on just how much damage a hot closet does to your components life expectancy when temp consistently over 85F). A fan and/or AC return augments removal of the already upwardly moving hot air created by convective forces, but if you go passive, a vent hole with COOLER air on the other side is a must, otherwise, the heat aint going anywhere. Hot air rises, heat does not. Heat alone does not go anywhere unless you create or augment the convective wave it rides on, and even then, if the air on the other side is hotter, its not going to want to go there either for you attic venters and outdoor venters, unless of course you force it out with a fan.

I believe having the active dedicated fan is better than the passive convective method alone since relying on passive convection alone depends on your adjacent space always being cooler which might be an issue in winter months when your heater is forcing out scorched air possibly halting or reversing the natural convective currents in your av closet. I also believe the ideal scenario is exhausting your fan to your AC's return for the most efficient least resistant route.

According to what I've read and learned, don't bother piping in an AC supply duct since not only is it AC dependent (inefficient), but also, piping in cool air in hopes of cooling components before it falls to the bottom allowing the hot air to continue collecting at top with no escape creates pockets of cold and hot air which disturbs the convective gradient (hottest at the bottom, coldest at the top) preventing the effective moving and exhausting of the column of rising hot air which is the goal: to move and displace the hot air up and out from all around the components. And, again, venting to the attic or outside is not recommended either since, theoretically, the air removed would be replaced with non-conditioned air from the outside, your call. So, according to above physics lesson, the HVAC guy was right, that is, if you're going for the most efficient system. He wins the argument : REMOVE HOT AIR DONT ADD COLD AIR. Of course, in a sense, my idea was not too far off since there's not much difference in just exhausting the fan to adjacent room, but if you're talking pure efficiency, venting directly to the AC's return keeps that adjacent rooms load untouched.


Additionally, from what I've gathered, in designing your ventilation system avoid the short circuiting of air flow...meaning try to keep your closet door air intake from being too close to your in ceiling (or in-wall)exhaust fan, otherwise, the intake air makes a direct bee-line towards the exhaust fan bypassing your component rack or shelves, and out it goes doing very little to drive the convection needed to move heat upwards. I would think this means you probably want your closet door's entry-vent hole at the bottom of the door where it is closer to the lowest component on your rack or shelves. Based on this, depending on how hardcore you are, it seems that if you used full up and down louvered closet doors with slit-openings from bottom to top of door, you might be short-circuiting the beneficial airflow created by your in-ceiling exhaust fan or AC return duct, since most of your airflow will be flowing thru the highest louver opening closest to fan (path of least resistance) bypassing the hottest components at bottom of closet. So if I went with louvered doors, I might put hottest components in upper third of rack since thats where more airflow will be.


So, as for my little scenario, what I ended up doing is I bought the quietest strongest bath fan at home depot, installed it into the ceiling of closet, then ducted the fan's exhaust outlet into a long tube of 3'' flexiduct which runs to my HVAC return plenum. Called HVAC guy to connect this flexiduct to my AC's return plenum. For thermostat control, I bought a Johnson Controls thermostat A419 which is a digital thermostat that has its own 6ft long extendable thermometer-style metal tip probe that I tape to hottest component. The Johnson thermostat basically is a simple extremely accurate relay switch that when my preset of 85F is reached, the thermostat's internal relay switches power to the home depot fan (NuTone?) and clicks on the fan till closet temp is less than 85. I've placed the hotter components like amps and Satellite box at bottom of rack to establish efficient gradient of convective upward hot air flow. Since I don't want short circuiting of air, and I don't care for full louvered doors anyway, I'm going to buy doors with louvered or grilled openings located at lower half of door for the sole purpose of routing airflow intake from the bottom up.

Nice first post, reanime! Thanks for that great analysis. My thought is that the "ideal" is a small room A/C unit with essentially no venting, and you can keep it at whatever temp you want by adjusting it. Since that's not likely to be very efficient, I like the alternative of exhausting to the HVAC return. My HVAC does more heating than cooling, but even in that case, the heat is helping the rest of the house, and if the HVAC is off but the thermostatically-controlled fan is on, it's pushing it out.

One adjustment I would make on that exhaust fan, though.. I'd make the fan as large as possible to get maximum airflow with minimal noise. Those 4" fans are pretty noisy if they're going to move any amount of air.

Bumped into this thread while searching for a better cooling/vent system as well.

Good tip on the in-line exhaust...

I might try an Iwata, but not sure how much they cost. Hopefully it wont sink my budget for the week.

reanime

great post and information

Nice post! Thanks for the info.

Thanks for comments. I just wanted to add that regardless of your setup (or predicament as the case may be) by respecting the Hvac 101 basics above & respecting the way heat & hot air think, you can take what you got & at least satisfy some of the heat transfer basics. For example, I've got 2 other component closets that are finished out unfortunately but do get substantial hot air accumulation at ceiling because solid doors with gap at bottom. They will do just fine with the passive method of venting since they only contain 3 components each. I won't have luxury of tapping into AC return or even place a fan in ceiing but I will cut a hole in ceiling of closet (or upper closet wall) and snake a mini duct over to adjacent room wall rather than just putting a louvered door to closet and expect the hot air to move laterally out the door on it's own. It's the best I can do under circumstances. But the point is respect the hot air. Also, I wish I had an inline 6" fan for my bigger rack closet but the 3" bathfan I got at HD was the quietest of the bunch , although not cheap either $$$. Those inline fans pull some serious air. I use them as bath fans. When they exhaust only one vent/register, they aren't much quieter unless remotely placed. I guess maybe they make quIet ones too?

I read through this post and there is a lot of great information, especially the bits by reanime....

Here's my situation... my electronics closet is going basically right next to the cool side of the furnace... I had reservations about that, but it's the best place in the house...

The return air duct is right above my electronics closet, which would be awesome going with the specifics posted by reanime. The problem is, upon house inspection a few years back, the inspector said you can't have return air ducts on the return air line in the same room as the furnace due to a combustion risk, assumedly from gas/flame/extremely hot air getting sucked back in to the return so close to the manifold.

This obviously concerns me if I were to tap in to the return duct. Any experiences with this or does someone have HVAC experience to say if that is indeed true?

sspeed, are you saying there would be an actual closet for your gear, completely separate from the furnace room? If so, then the combustion air issue isn't a problem.

I would also argue that it's a solution in search of a problem, as there should be enough "make up" (fresh) air coming in as is required for the BTU output of the combustion appliances in the house in the first place.

Sort of, it will be a "nook" right beside the furnace, in the same room, with a built wall to separate it. I haven't decided on a door for it yet or not.

I think the original home inspector might have been referring to a vent someone had cut in the HVAC return right next to where it travels past the burners, I guess I could see the reasoning there. Our house is weird though, we have a pipe from the outside going to the furnace, but then also just a vent right in the outside wall for that room. He claimed the vent was needed, but I don't remember why, it lets A LOT of cold air in to the room in the winter.

Also, we have no AC, so the HVAC only runs in the winter. If I plumb in to the return, will that help at all in the summer? The other option is just a passive vent to the next room for exhaust. The crawlspace is right behind the proposed "closet", so I thought about the intake vent bringing air from the crawlspace.

Realistically I'm just going to have a laptop, UPS, 8-port switch, Synology NAS, and cable modem in this space anyway. Maybe an old PC if I can justify power usage vs need, I don't know how much heat I'll really have.

Your configuration is actually quite standard. The duct from outside directly to the return is for fresh air - often it is insulated, at least in the northern/cold climates.

The other large vent that goes straight into the room is what I was referring to as "make up" air. Think of all of the appliances that push air out of the house: clothes dryer, range hood, bathroom fan, gas water heater, gas furnace, etc. When those are going, there's a negative static pressure build-up in the house that essentially is sucking in air from the outside. It will generally "suck" from the path of least resistance. If you didn't have that "make up air" (makes up the difference of what's getting pushed out) vent, it may suck the air down through the furnace/water heater chimney! Not a problem unless your furnace/water heater is running, where the carbon monoxide then stays in your room and even worse, will get distributed through your home via a nearby cold air return (if you have one). Thus getting back to my point... if you have the make up air vent from outside (and you do), then the cold air return in the same return is generally irrelevant.

Without running the HVAC in the summer, the cold air return will do almost nothing for the closet space. However, even without A/C, you should put your HVAC system on "circulate" mode, which typically runs the fan 30% of the time, which will circulate the air in the house, preventing it from becoming stale (especially since you have a fresh air vent straight into the return duct).

What you're describing for gear in that room is almost negligible, from a heat generation standpoint, though. Two things would change my opinion, though: if you installed a door and enclosed the closet, it will still eventually build up, and if you do add a PC or two, that would likely raise it enough in itself as well.

If it were me, I would put a "tee" near the "make up air" vent with a directional damper that you have pushing out (warm) air where it currently is (away from gear) during the summer, but then during the winter you have the damper redirect the (cold) air to a duct that you run directly next to/over your gear. If that seems like too much work, a cold air return just above your gear would help pull warm air into the HVAC system and away from your gear.

I hope that helps..

Thank you Tim, those are all very good suggestions. The make up air vent is quite far away from the proposed closet, so I think I may just plumb in to the return as you suggest. Interesting, the wife had plugged the make-up air vent with a towel since it's so cold, but the other day I noticed tons of cold air coming down our fireplace chimney even though the damper was closed, makes sense now.

If I don't have a door on the closet, is it even worth it to vent in from the crawlspace? The chimney effect won't be as pronounced with the front wide open, although it is cooler and smellier in the crawlspace. :)

With running the furnace fan in the summer, I'm sure the wife will question that on the electrical bill, but it can't be much more than the 4 ceiling fans that run all summer anyway.

Yes, the idea is to put the make up air vent as near to the combustible appliances (furnace/hot water heater) as possible. Also, to have it be near the furnace so it will naturally go through the furnace (heating it) before distributing throughout the house.

The chimney effect without a door necessitates the vent being very close to the gear so it will at least pass the air across it. But if the crawlspace is truly that much smellier, I don't think it would be worth it to introduce that in the main living space for the marginal benefit.

A furnace fan doesn't take much electricity at all, especially newer multi-stage systems. 30% all the time may be a bit overkill (though probably ideal), so you could alternate it on and off every once in a while, but I would run it on circulate for at least half a day once a week (guessing off the top of my head).

If that seems like too much work, a cold air return just above your gear would help pull warm air into the HVAC system and away from your gear.

+1 on this solution. It won't just help. It will work. With the fan running on the HVAC system it will pull cooler air into the closet, past the AV gear and exhaust the warmer air from the top of the closet. In summer, it will add slightly to your AC load because the heat from the AV gear has to be removed by the AC. In winter it will reduce heating fuel consumption by the amount of heat generated by the AV components.

As far as the vent in the return air duct goes, it will be a local state or municipal code. Generally they say that you can't have an inlet into the return air duct from the furnace room or within 6 ft of the furnace or something similar.

BB

Just looked up the code...

Colorado requires the return air to be at least 10 ft away from the unit in an open basement. If the furnace is in its own room you can not have a return in it. This is regardless of sufficient combustion air.. Looks like I can't tap in to the return....

Colorado requires the return air to be at least 10 ft away from the unit in an open basement. If the furnace is in its own room you can not have a return in it. So if you put a door on the "closet" then it is a separate room and therefore not in the same room. And it isn't in an open basement so you can have a vent in the closet and still meet code. :)

BB

Ha ha, I thought of that as well.... good in theory until a kid opens the door and leaves it or I need to work on it... I guess since it's a safety hazard I'll just passively vent to the next room, better than nothing for the little equipment I have...

coolerguys.com

Instead of starting a new tread, I'm just going to ask my question here. My AV rack is going to be located below the stairs. Would this heat removal system be effective:
Vent placed behind the rack at the top pushing air into the stairwell right above it. And a vent in the bottom of the door to the closet. I think it should work fairly well.

I think that's likely against code - there needs to be at least 1/2" drywall under the stairs to slow down a fire, as the stairs are obviously an important part of the structure for exit/maneuverability. Opening that up with a wide open air hole would not be good in that case. I'd find some other adjacent space to vent from/to, and put an inline thermostatically-controlled fan near the vent, if necessary.

O.K. I have a question for all those who are tapping into the return duct, especially reanime who tapped in with a b/r exhaust fan. What about filters? All of the return grilles in my house need filters changed every 3 months. Are you not worried about it because the space is so small?

There is some great info on these pages, hopefully you guys and gals can lend me some advice too.

I am about to start finishing our basement and of course I would like to add some kind of theater and a closet for my gear.

The best location for the closet is under a staircase that backs up to the unfinished utility area. This would give me full access to the back of the cabinet from the utility room and also provide all the cooling / ventilation as well as electricity which is already there. The spot is perfect, except its located on the other side of the room and I would need a 75+ foot run of hdmi to my screen. I think the max length of high speed hdmi which supports 1080p / 3D is much shorter. Moving the screen is not an option. So I need another spot for the closet.

The second best spot is a recessed area directly below the fireplace from the family room above. This spot is much smaller and will not provide a lot of access behind my gear but it is about 20 feet from my screen so I can run high speed hdmi. I will also need to install an outlet in there for electric. One concern is the fireplace above. I need to build a fire and see if that area gets hot - i dont think it will since there is a firewall, concrete, etc between the areas. Assuming the fireplace does not add to the heat, do you think I need to vent at all since I dont have a lot of gear. AV receiver, cable box, PC, blue ray, popcorn hour, modem, router, hub, moca adapter...

I need to go home and look at the closet again to see if there is room on either side of the door for vents on the top and bottom. I could install a 24" door. Then I could install a fan. It would just vent to the main part of the basement as I have no access to the outside or another floor.

So what is everyones thoughts? Should I stick to the orig location and maybe get hdmi over cat 6 ethernet or move the closet.

Thanks in advance,
Rich

You might consider keeping your closet in the original location you wanted (under the stairs) and trying cat6 baluns to carry the 3D signal over that length. More info at this thread (first that came up on search, may be more):

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1255286

Seems like support for 3d through baluns is pretty new and spotty right now, but worth checking into if the spot for your closet is ideal. What about re-orienting the room to shorten the distance?