Any HVAC experts out there?

[highergroove]

Not sure if this is the right forum or not, but here goes:

I just got a permit to do some remodeling that includes a new large living room and a new HVAC Gas Package on the roof. In order to get the permit, we needed to provide the Manual J, Manual S, and Manual D calculations. I had this done for the house, but the guy did not include the heat load from my 300 gallon tank (+100 gallon sump/refugium) or metal halide lights.

Any HVAC experts out there? How many appliances would this equate to (or people?)

[Clamagore]

An aquarium adds energy to the air in your home in two forms, called sensible and latent heat. Sensible heat is associated with an increase in temperature, and latent heat is associated with a phase change of water. As a reference, one adult, seated and performing light tasks generates approximately 250 Btu/hr of both sensible and latent energy.

To calculate the maximum sensible heat gain from your aquarium in Btu/hr, add up the wattage of all the connected equipment that runs at any given time during the cooling season, and multiply by 3.41.

To calculate the maximum latent heat gain, multiply the rate of evaporation during the cooling season (in gal/hr) by 8.3 to get lbs/hr. Next, multiply that number by 970 (call the “latent heat of vaporization” for water) to get Btu/hr.

Hope this helps!

[highergroove]

Yes! That's awesome! Thank you! It may take me a bit to figure those numbers out but that I can do.

Maybe you can answer another question for me. We are thinking of butting up the canopy and the stand against the wall. We want to have fans drawing air from the house into the canopy and then vent to outside (basically drawing in the cool air across the metal halides and then warm air out). Then, we are going to build a small room behind the stand and place a fan in there. The chiller will be hooked up as a box within that box (small room) and vented to the outside as well. We are thinking this well help preven himdity from entering the house (which the AC then needs to eliminate).

Will this eliminate the need for me to calculate everything as most of my heat will be prevented from entering the house (although there will be cooling loss). Good idea? Bad idea?

[Clamagore]

Good idea. It will still radiate energy to the room, but the convective heat from the tank and lights, as well as the latent heat gain, will be almost completely removed from the equation. How that changes the numbers would be complicated to determine, but it would be significant.