Loft too hot

Ok so it's been particularly hot in the UK for the last week which is compounding my problem. I put my computer in the loft last autumn and it's been running fine until recently when things started to get hotter, causing one of the hard drives to fail. Looking at my logs it died when the HD, CPU and case temperatures were all between 50-55 DegC. For the CPU this is ok, but the drives have a max operating temperature of 50 degrees. So I guess I was pushing my luck, even with the fans all on full I think the loft temp must have been close to 50 so was just blowing hot air over it.

The house was built 25 years ago, it's a timber framed house with brick exterior walls. The loft is insulted between the joists and isn't boarded. There's no obvious signs of any ventilation for the loft space, no soffit or tile/roof vents.

Even with the computer off it's still hot in the loft, so what should I do to reduce the temperatures? I was thinking:
a) Install Celotex or similar between the rafters to try to prevent the roof absorbing the heat in the loft space.
b) Installing circular soffit vents, but not sure if on their own would create any real airflow across the loft space?
c) I had considered using a shower inline fan to draw air from soffit to the fans on the front of the computer, using a fine mesh over the inlet to filter some contaminates. However after reading other posts I don’t think this is the right solution.

I was thinking that the a) would create a warmer loft in winter too, but I wasn't sure if there were any negatives with either approach.

Thanks
Martin

shortbloke said:

I put my computer in the loft last autumn and it's been running fine until recently when things started to get hotter, causing one of the hard drives to fail.

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Not sure when you mean a computer in the loft, just the computer up there or do you mean in a loft conversion room

masona said:

computer up there or do you mean in a loft conversion room

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Sorry, to clarify I don't mean a loft conversion. I just have a regular loft space, part boarded, with simple lighting and power installed.

The computer is my media server, serving other computers in the house via CAT5. All the CAT5 in the house is also routed into the loft into a network patch panel next to the computer.

I had to move my computer out of the spare bedroom to allow my Son to have a bigger room and create a space for a nursery, hence no where else for it to go.

I'm not very knowledgeable in loft insulation, but I would imagine even if you had excellent loft insulation and also roof insulation, it would still get very hot in your loft. I think you're either looking at relocating the pc tower, or maybe you could build a small cupboard in which to house the tower unit in the loft. It would have to be well ventilated to the outside though. This does however introduce increase problems with damp inside the case.
Personally, I'd relocate it.

I don't think the majority of the heat is being created by the PC, instead it's the heat of the sun on the roof warming the air. i'd thought about building an enclosure and drawing in air from outside, but as you say I could be introducing further problems. I had considered building a control system for the fan so that it only switched on when the loft became hot, hopefully that would reduce the problem of drawing in moist air all the time.

shortbloke said:

I don't think the majority of the heat is being created by the PC

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No it won't be.
It'd be very simple to rig up a control system - you'd only really need a room thermostat and an extractor fan. Something like this should do.



Of course you could always run a hose from the fan back to the outside if you didn't want the cold air blowing into the loft.

I hadn't thought of using anything as simple as a room thermostat. Excellent idea! I was over complicating the cooling control solution to compensate for the cool air coming in, to try and prevent it constantly switching, but this would be more easily solved my re-locating the thermostat.

Now if only it wasn't so hot in the loft right now I'd be up there building this. Thanks for your help, I'll give this ago and post an update when it's done.

Don't forget, you'll need a pretty well sealed door so that the fan doesn't suck hot air from the loft through the gaps at the side of the door. If you were really clever you could make a solid access panel (therefore no door and no gaps) and re-wire the PC's "on" and "reset" buttons to push buttons on the outside of the box.
Also, make sure that the air inlet is a bit bigger than the air outlet or the fan will be working harder than it needs to.

Buy a small air con unit for cooling

Having just had my 2 year old portable air con unit pack (compressor by the sounds of it), I doubt the air con unit would work with the loft temperature being so high (50 degC).

Static said:

Buy a small air con unit for cooling

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You've no bl**dy chance! It'd cost you at least £200 and would reduce the temp by around 5-7°C. That's not the way to go.

Actually you only want to reduce the temp around the computer, so directing the air flow works. They do it where i work on 2 large servers and a switch board placed in a loft. Or even go for an air cooler.

All of which costs major bucks compared with a room thermo and an extraction fan. Not to mention that the box around the pc will be about 3 times as big as it needs to be to house the air con unit.