Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here is the situation. We are redoing our attic into a new larger herp room.. No we just us the central AC/Heat to control temps. The attic has no way of doing so due to the layout of the hvac system and attic. I will be using radiant oil heaters for the winter, but the cooling is the issue. I cannot use a standard window air conditioner because the windows are too small. Only 10"x10" when open. Any ideas. I don't think fans will do the job, no matter how much insulation I put in the walls and ceiling. The room is around 15'x13' with a peaked ceiling at 10 1/2'. Any ideas. I though I have seen a stand alone air unit with a dryer vent type pipe that can be routed to a small window or vent, but have not been able to find it, maybe I was dreaming it. this will be a project happening very soon, and need to figure out the cooling situation before I start only to find the room gets too hot.

TIA joe

They make portable AC units which is likely what you saw.

I think some of them come with two lines, one to draw air and one to vent air. I believe these are considered much better. You should double check this. I read about them on a home improvement forum and I think this was mentioned.

Another idea is to just cut a hole for a window AC.
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Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

0.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Malaysian locale (green)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java local (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)

1.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Celebes locale (Black & Tan)

Thanks Chris. I will look into them.

I have thought about cutting a hole for a window unit, but this house is very old, and is a chinking (sp?) style (thick logs and concrete type material) I want that to be a last resort as it will be a huge pain in the butt. If it was a normal stick built house that would have been my first idea, or make the window bigger.
Thanks for the input.

Are you thinking of the R2D2 style ones? They work pretty well. I have a 2 bedroom apt. and it cools it all down pretty well, even in the hottest days of summer. Not cheap though, you're looking at probably a good $500 or so at one of those home improvement stores. But they do work really well, and you can vent them to a 5 inch holes. Have fun.

I saw units similar to what Chris is talking about at the Henry Doorly Zoo amphibian quarantine facilities. They were pricey - about $700 - but they heated in addition to cooling and only required an exhaust hose - dryer vent type - for blowing the warm air out when cooling. I'm not sure how they worked in warming mode unless they just recirculated and warmed air in the room but they had different rooms set up for different species so I got to experience both the heating and cooling. Nice slick units, but pricey. I did see a similar unit although I think it was cooling only at Home Depot the other day. They were selling for around $500 I think. If that's too pricey an option, I'd consider doing what another poster mentioned and try to figure out a way to adapt a standard a/c unit to your room. Either build some sort of box outside to contain the unit [make it water tight], or figure out some way to place the unit inside the room but so that it can still exhaust it's warm air outside the room. Oh yeah - one final option. You can get some really high tech units that act as a slave off of your central a/c unit. All you have is a blower unit in your attic with a coolant line and your power lines running out. These might even be more expensive than the stand alone units. I've seen them on home improvement shows and the zoo I work at uses one to cool a room where we keep leaf cutter ants. They're very efficient and they usually mount up at the ceiling so that their output cools the warmer air in the room before settling to the floor.
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Matt Campbell

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." John Muir

Home depot has them imagine most places do they do work well. We had one till put reg window ac but you only need a small hose that extended out of window to pump out water and warm air.

Works same as ac no different but for large room reg window ac is best but even in large room it will work but reg window ac works better in large area.

I worked in Aircraft for awhile, the hanger we worked in would get in the 110-115 range regularly and the inside of the aircraft would get terribly warm. What we did was took a window unit, made a tube that ran in through one of the windows and cooled us off while the window unit remained outside and clear of the aircraft. You could always look at some ac duct and mount a window unit outside of the small window and allow it to blow in to cool off the room. That is if you don't find one of the smaller units mentioned in the other posts.

Good luck.
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.

Check out this portable unit:
This is a 14,000BTU Air Conditioner & Heater, Self-Evaporating system, Re-start IC (unit restarts when power resumes after a power failure)... Max. Room Size: 500 sq.ft.

$539.99 plus $48.82 shipping/handling = $588.81

Portable A/C & Heat

They've got some cheaper models, too.

Here's a link to all the portable A/C this company has: More portable A/Cs

I can vouch for this company since I've ordered all my PC parts from them for the last 4 years without the first bit of problems.

I've found that even if I were to find the same part locally, Newegg is usually still cheaper or the same price, including shipping.

Have a good one!
HH
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It is said that 1 out of every 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends, if they're normal, then it's you.

I don’t want to rain on your parade but I would be worried about what would happen if the power went out and you weren’t home. I don’t know what part of the country you live in but without properly insulating and putting some sort of ceiling in so you have an air gap that you can vent, and IF the power went out you could literally cook your herps! I’m only saying this because a few years back, my brothers friend lost two Green Trees, a all his fish in California’s rolling blackouts. They were in a large attic conversion that the ceiling was not vented to help dissipate the hot air. If you do it right it should pay for it self in utilities in no time.

I saw this on TV last night. It looks spendy but pretty cool.

http://www.ductlessac.com

I wish you the best of luck in your project!

Thanks for the link Hillbilly. I should have thought about server room coolers, its not like I didn't work with that stuff for seven years.

By the way, the attic is insulated and vented. Thanks for the input though. BTW, I live in South Central PA, average summer highs in high 80's, low 90's, but does get hotter on occasion.

Don't tell me you got smart & got out of it. I'm teeterin' on the edge of it now. I've got 3 more classes to get my AA in Network Administration & Support but I've been building/repairing PC's part time for the last few years.

I don't care a whole lot about networking, much rather be building/repairing servers/PCs. And CISCO? You can have it!

You're welcome for the link. I might be in the market for one in a months or so, myself, so it gave me a chance to peek ahead.

Take care!
HH
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It is said that 1 out of every 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends, if they're normal, then it's you.

Yup. After 7 years being a novell networks bottom of the barrel grunt, I decided to do my dream job, work at a zoo. Good luck on the AA, I know it can be tough.

I'm not sure what it would cost (probably much more than the portable AC units), why don't you look into a package unit. It sits outside your house on the ground and the ductwork is run up the side of your house and into the attic through a hole cut into the wall. Or it might be able to be mounted on a platform that is the height of the side wall, or on your roof. I don't know if they make units small enough to heat/cool 200 sq ft.

They make a stand alone heat/ ac unit that can hang from the ceiling. The only thing that you would need to do is to run a drain line and have an outlet for it to plug into. I have installed about 3 of these things several years ago into small 3 room apts. They worked really well heating and cooling the probably 700sq ft apts. If you were to create an 8ft ceiling in the room, they could even sit on the ceiling. A vent hole would be needed to be cut into the ceiling so you could get to the filter to change it. I'm not sure, but I think that the units I'm talking about are only available at A/C supply places. Sorry, but I don't recall what they are called.
Rob
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"I reject your reality and substitute my own" Adam Savage
0.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boa-Ziggy
1.0 Creamscicle motley corn--Cozmo
0.1 Creamscicle corn--Wanda
0.0.1 Normal corn
0.1 Black Pine - Spazz
1.0 Bearded Dragon - Gomer

I tip my hat to you for pursuing your dreams. Keep going till you get as far as you want to go. Other people have made, you can, too.

Catch ya later!
HH
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It is said that 1 out of every 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends, if they're normal, then it's you.