This makes no sense

[slowfox]

So, it's a bit chilly in our office this fine morn.

The heating engineer's just been round with his snazzy laser-pointer-thermometer thingy, to reassure us that we're all not actually freezing, and in the process, explained the philosophy of the heating installation we're enjoying.

And it goes like this: the panel radiators around the walls, which have just been fitted with thermostatic valves, run off recovered heat from the air-conditioning system. This is considered a supplementary system to the panel-heaters.

What panel heaters, we wondered, in a state of collective perplexity.

The ceiling mounted ones, came the answer.

Huh. OK - that'd be the ceiling mounted panel heaters that we can't see because of the polystyrene-tile-based floating ceiling that we have, then? Thought as much...

Aside from the fact that hot air isn't well known for falling downward, there's also the slightly odd design decision of then placing an insulating barrier of polystyrene betwixt what little gravity afflicted thermal action might be headed our way and us poor code monkeys.

And all this topped off by a radiator system running off the recovered heat from the air-conditioning, such that when the air conditioning is working hard, the radiators are warm (positive feedback loops FTW!), and when the air-conditioning isn't running, said beasties are stone-cold.

Comments

[stripped]

Last building I worked in was brand new when we moved in. We THOUGHT this meant we'd get decent heating. Except, they installed all the duct work before making the floor plans. Then they put the server room DEAD CENTER of the floor I was on. And since everything was linked... (you can see where this is going, I'm sure...) this resulted in cold air blowing constantly out of our vents all winter.

The temperature in the office was technically 69F which ought to've been bearable, but the windchill from the cold air blowing and the fact that all exterior walls were floor to ceiling windows... and it was an open floor plan except for the server room... yeah, we wore sweaters and fingerless gloves.

Now I work in a basement, and every time my hands warm up I go check to see if they turned off the A/C to my server room. Pesky A/C setups from the 70s are really not meant to handle basement server rooms!

[slowfox]

I think we're a couple of decades behind you people in the colonies in terms of the sophistication of A/C in the workplace... I've worked in a fair few buildings - most of them don't have A/C (we don't in this office - the residual heat that we get through the radiators is courtesy of an installation for elsewhere), and those that did never really had it working properly.

Our old server room was this big, airy monstrosisity of a converted attic, and the A/C was always fighting a losing battle to begin with, but we nontheless kept on adding server after server, and calling out engineer after engineer to try and wring out some final scrap of power from the dilithium crystals until they cannae take no more, Cap'n.