removing hot air

[wpgsteve]

We have a very small mom and pop ice cream place. Cant really afford to pay tons of money to have someone come in to do the work. We are retired so we have little money and lots of time.
We have a soft ice cream machine, and 2 door cola fridge and a 12 tub hard ice cream freezer. They are mostly older units which throw lots of heat (air cooled), which makes it hard to keep the ice cream hard. It is run out of a place with a storage basement, so all the ducts run under the floor, just like a house.
I was thinking of installing some cieling vents every 4-5 feet and then draw the hot air outside, hoping this will also help pull the cool air from the floor.
The wife thinks we should blow cold air from the top and draw the hot from the bottom.
What would be the best way to keep the place cool? Draw the heat from the top and blow it outside or blow cold air from the top (since cool air falls) and daw from the floor?
Please help.

[Jay11J]

Is this only going to be just for this room where all the equipments are in?

Not able to see how the room is laid out, This what I would do... Have the cool air come down on the ceiling area, and have the exhaust on the upper side wall. to pull the heat away from the ceiling.

By doing this the cool/cold air will fall on you, and not just Pool up on the floor if you brought the cold air in on floor area.

How big of a fan you planning using? Ducts? T-stat control?

[wpgsteve]

Hi, first off thank you very much for the help, it warms the heart to know people are still willing to help others just for the sake of helping.

The room is a square, 15x15. Looks like a living room in a house really. The air vents are all on the floor.
I was going to blow the cold air with 4 inch ducts.
I was going to draw the air with the same size, also using a fan that can draw 245 cfm.
the system would run via light switch, I can turn it on as needed kind of thing.
Does this sound like it would work?

[Jay11J]

4" seems kinda small.. Are you just planning on using this set up for the winter months or summer?

If this room farily warm, why not put the warmth into the sales/dinning room, unless there's an order that you don't want to carry into that room.

In the summer months, if you do run this set up, you will bring in more humdity that you may want to have, then the freezers will frost/freeze up sooner than you like?

[wpgsteve]

Hi, we are only open in summer. Do you think 6 inch would be better? I am hoping to vent out enough air to keep it fresh i guess. But i am nt sure what do to, try to cool the place, or try to get rid of the hot air.

[Jay11J]

If this only for the summer, I would suggest to put a wall/window A/C in then.. Otherwise, by using the outside air on a hot humid day is not going to help you much in the back room. You are just going to bring in more humdity into the store and then you got condensate building up on your ice cream case.

[wpgsteve]

I have a bathroom that I dont use, the outside wall of it is in the ice cream area. I was thinking of putting a window air in there but I am worried about where the water from the unit will go to. I can open the window (has screen) and it can draw outside air from there, but what about the water?

[Jay11J]

Don't use the A/C in the winter.. Not good for the compressor. Just open the window up in the winter, and have a ceiling fan to help move the air around.

[Ed Imeduc]

If you look around at other stores that the high side of all the units are on the out side of the building. Any of the units you have can have the compressor mover to the out side. I know we have moved a lot of them outside. I dont know why when put in they didnt do it. And yes you can run any AC or icecream compressor in the winter time. You just slip a oil crankcase heat on it. What you will save in electric power on it and the AC will more than pay for this set up.


ED :thinker: