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Tiling The Linux Benchmarking Server Room For Lower Temperatures

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  • #11
    Ceramic tiling won't keep the room colder. You need dissipation to the "outside" of the server room.
    The server room is a closed system so far and, with ceramic tiling it gets just "closer".
    Michael needs effective "heat exchanger" to move the heat from the server room to "somewhere else" (that's the outside of the server room).
    A refrigerator-like room would do: move the heath from inside to the outside.
    The ceramic tiling wouldn't do a better job than concrete to insulate the server room. And surely it won't make the room cooler.
    At best will add insulation that, as far as I've seen from pictures, is already done by the concrete floor, walls and ceiling.
    Insulation with these materials is a two-way insulation: no thermal exchange from inside out and none the other way around.

    Well, if Michael chose a very nice and classy tiling, the server room would become cooler.
    But just in the "fashion" sense, not the thermal one! :-)

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    • #12
      Agreed, ceramic tiling itself won't keep the room colder. The point is that the ground below the floor is at a lower temperature (typically 50-60 degrees) and the tiles will pass heat much more readily than the previous carpet & insulated underlayment. What nobody knows is how efficiently the soil below the floor will absorb heat - if it's dry sand then not very much, ie the concrete slab will just come up to room temperature fairly quickly, but if it's damp clay then it'll be a good heat sink, with reality probably somewhere in between.

      AFAIK the idea behind the space shuttle tiles is that they heat up quickly to a high temperature which causes them to radiate energy back into space. The equilibrium temperature is pretty high (that whole glowing thing) but the tiles handle the temperature and insulation below protects the lander.

      In Michael's case the goal is not glowing & radiating, just conducting heat down to the concrete. Bare concrete would be cooler in a thermal sense, but as you say the tiles are cooler in a fashion sense and only have a tiny effect on the thermals.
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      • #13
        Uqbar is exactly right. The difference in r-value between the original vinyl plus underlayment and the new porcelain tiles is negligible - both have r-values less than 1.0 while, code for floor insulation r-value is at least 13 and up to 30 depending on where you live. Removing the underlayment may also be problematic since it was your moisture barrier. You may find the room is just as hot as before and now more humid, so even less pleasant for a human.

        In your original article you said a "a split cooling system not being suitable due to the basement layout" without elaborating. As someone who installed a mini-split in my finished basement, that seems extremely unlikely to me. Mini-splits use thin lines for refrigerant that are relatively easy to route as compared to ductwork.

        In the previous discussion, someone calculated you are doing about 14K BTU/hr. In your situation I would seriously consider an ~18K BTU/hr mini-split -- unlike with other forms of HVAC it is OK to mildly over-size mini-splits since they use variable speed inverters to efficiently match load requirements and 18K would give you some head-room for expansion.

        Equipment cost would be in the $1.5K-2.5K range (depending on the brand) and it sounds like you could do most of the install yourself since you have some construction experience, only paying ~$200 for an HVAC guy to pressurize the lines.

        Mini-splits have pretty high efficiency, you should be able to find one with a 19+ SEER and cooling COP of 3.5+ (1 watt to move 3.5 watts of heat).


        FWIW, walking on tile feels colder than walking on carpet because your bare feet make full contact while carpet has a lot of air spaces in it so heat transfer from your skin is less because there is less area of contact, not because carpet is a better insulator.
        Last edited by Flan Solo; 01 February 2016, 09:09 AM.

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        • #14
          Originally posted by bridgman View Post
          In Michael's case the goal is not glowing & radiating, just conducting heat down to the concrete.
          Conducting heat to concrete won't help either. Concrete is not a good heat conductor at all. In fact, it's a very good heat insulator.
          Bare concrete would not be any better than tiled concrete, once you reach the thermal equilibrium.
          If it's a "vibrated concrete", then insulation would be even greater also for humidity, so there would be almost none transmitted from the underlying soil.
          Moreover, soil temperature a few feet in depth tend to be really stable and higher than expected.
          Thousands of server rooms all follows the same rules:
          1. Cooling the air in the room with air conditioning;
          2. Making the lower temperature as uniform as possible all over the room with ventilation;
          3. Dissipate the heat from the hot side of the "heat exchanger" as far as possible from the room.

          There are also other technologies, but the margin of this post is too small to fit the discussion.
          I could be wrong, but Michael just wasted a rather large amount of money: Marazzi is very expensive. Yet really COOL! :-)

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          • #15
            Originally posted by Flan Solo View Post
            Uqbar is exactly right. The difference in r-value between the original vinyl plus underlayment and the new porcelain tiles is negligible - both have r-values less than 1.0 while, code for floor insulation r-value is at least 13 and up to 30 depending on where you live. Removing the underlayment may also be problematic since it was your moisture barrier. You may find the room is just as hot as before and now more humid, so even less pleasant for a human.
            I run a dehumidifer all summer.
            Michael Larabel
            https://www.michaellarabel.com/

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            • #16
              Originally posted by Michael View Post

              I run a dehumidifer all summer.
              Humidity rises the thermal capacity of the hair. Effective dehumidifiers are just "light air conditioners" as they cool the air in order to let humidity condense in droplets that got dained away.
              Why not using an air conditioner plus a tilting fan ventilator? Maybe two of them in different corners of the room. AC alone won't help as heat bubbles will form.

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              • #17
                Seeing your other post on water cooling for some of your systems, would it make sense to use water cooling on your systems? Put some copped pipe out back in the ground below the frost line and just run the heat out there, ala heat pump style. I do suspect that as others have said, the tiles will make it feel cooler down there, but might just shift the load so that you have a slightly offset peak heat effect.

                Maybe you need to move further north? :-)

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                • #18
                  Originally posted by l8gravely View Post
                  Maybe you need to move further north? :-)
                  All the way up north east!

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                  • #19
                    Originally posted by l8gravely View Post
                    Seeing your other post on water cooling for some of your systems, would it make sense to use water cooling on your systems? Put some copped pipe out back in the ground below the frost line and just run the heat out there, ala heat pump style. I do suspect that as others have said, the tiles will make it feel cooler down there, but might just shift the load so that you have a slightly offset peak heat effect.

                    Maybe you need to move further north? :-)
                    Too expensive for water cooling all the systems, plus a big pain to maintain and install.
                    Michael Larabel
                    https://www.michaellarabel.com/

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                    • #20
                      Originally posted by Herem View Post

                      That's odd the article only had text the first time I viewed it.

                      The reason I mentioned using black or a dark color tile is just because darker tiles would absorb heat more efficiently.
                      Because black absorbs more sun light? How does color impact how much heat it transfers?

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