Join office and warehouse

[aloreep]

I am a partner in a 2000 sq ft rental photo studio in Virginia and the building we lease is split 1/3 office and 2/3 warehouse- that's the studio part. There's a separate gas heater in the studio, but there's no air conditioner so in the summer it gets to the upper 80's inside. The office part stays easily as cool as we want (usually between 72 and 76) and I'd like to harness some of the cold into the warehouse. The air conditioner for the office is a big unit in the ceiling with 6 registers and 1 return. I understand that the unit probably wasn't meant to cool such a large area, but mostly I just want to take the edge off. I want to tap two new registers onto the air conditioner through the wall. Will this help at all? Will it help to tap a return in through the wall too? We don't want to get a huge new air conditioner because we're only renting. Any advice?

[Joewf]

Tapping two supply registers into the warehouse section might help take the edge off but if you put in a return like a transfer grill then your pulling warm/hot warehouse air into the office which means your office A/C will work harder and cost more to run. As long as your just dumping cool air into the warehouse as opposed to dumping and returning (Recirculating) its probably not a big deal.

[aloreep]

Thank you that makes sense, but it raises another question. If we do put a couple supply registers through the wall, will it hurt anything to put a fan in the top of the wall that will blow the hot air into the ceiling on the office side?So the air will be around the air conditioner, but not actually in it. We'd have to put it on a switch so we could turn it off in the cold season, but it seems like the hot air is just pooling up there and I want to get the air circulating. Does that make sense?

[Joewf]

I don't really understand what your saying, you have 1/3 office space with A/C, and 2/3 warehouse (studio) with only heat. You want to tap two supply registers and bring them into the warehouse to take the edge off the heat in the hot months. You want to put two wall fans to blow the hot upper air down to the two newly tapped supply registers to mix and circulate the air? Your better off installing a couple roof ventilaters to rid the upper hot air. Since your not returning hot warehouse air to the A/C it won't affect the run time of the A/C. Remember hot air rises and cold air falls. and it will also cause a natural convection, The hot air rising will move the cooler air upward. If this advise helped at all, my rates are $200.00 HR, it took me 3 hours to type this. If no help, you owe nothing!

[bodeen]

The air that you will be putting into the warehouse from the office is not just extra air generated from some unknown source. It is going to reduce the total cfm in the office by however much you dump in the warehouse. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. The warehouse is still going to be hot and the office is going to suffer too! Ventilate the warehouse with fans or put in A/C. Thats my .02 and its free!

Bodeen

[aloreep]

Thanks, I'm just not sure how to ventilate the studio. I thought of the office's air conditioner because it is usually more than easy to get the office more than cool and we end up trying to move air by putting a box fan in the doorway between the spaces. It seemed to me that it would be just as well to tap a couple supplies through the wall, it'd be quieter and more out of the way, not to mention more effective. We're shying away from getting a new a/c unit cause if we get something big enough to really cool the space, it'll be pretty expensive and it'll basically end up as free money to the landlords. That's why I was trying to find an easier cheaper solution...

[aloreep]

Is there a way to make the current air conditioner into a dual-zone conditioner so it would automatically transfer the air into the area that needed it? I mean, we'd have to get a second thermostat, but do they have automatic air switches like that? And we can shut the second zone off during the winter because we have separate heaters. Does that make sense?