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Considerations for Raised Floor Installation?
shanm asks: "I'm wondering if the community would have any recommendations and or cost rules of thumb on a raised floor installation. I'm considering doing that in a basement room (soon to be PC room and office) to make network/power wiring easier, modifiable, and expandable. The biggest constraint is that the basement doesn't have a 9 or 10 foot ceiling. So I don't have an unlimited height on the floor."
It's ok to just say that your dad won't let you put holes in the walls. We'll understand.
What is the ceiling height? Telling us that it is not 9-10 feet doesn't really help a whole lot. Is it 8.5 feet or is it more like 6.5 feet?
basement bad! water, flooding, other things in basement! You definitely don't want to do it in your basement, especially in a normal house.
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She might get upset if you go around raising floors in her basement without her permission.
Ask your local municipal code inspector. You typically need 7 foot + (usually more) clearance from floor to ceiling or else your room won't pass code. Raised floors need to be done professionaly. I wouldn't recommend any other way - everything from electrical outlets to height, fire and safety codes will have to be inspected.. you wouldn't want to tear it out when you sell/move so get inspection on your plans before you start or hire a pro
Byron Miller for Congress.
I have a couple of computer labs (2 x 27 station) were we put in a 3 in gap + 2 inch thick floor. It's nice but a total b**** to work under. My suggestion is a couple of ceiling trays. They make nice one that are about 4 inches thick and have 3 or four inch gap from the ceiling. My google skils are failing me or i'd give a link.
Oh really?
Wires are not thick. If you REALLY need raised flooring, you can get by with 2x4s.
That said, you could easily run conduit along the top of the walls and just drop down wherever you need to. It'll save you from losing ceiling height. It'll also be easier to access when you want to extend things. Of course this only works as long as everything is going to be next to a wall and doesn't account for a receptionist desk in the middle of your basement.
I work for IBM, and as such I work with raised floor environments on a daily basis. In fact, I'm sitting in one right now.
They're not worth it.
First, you can't easily clean under there. Dust will accumulate in quantities you can't begin to imagine, followed by dust mites, mold, and other assorted evil.
Second, raised floors don't make cable management any easier, they just hide the mess. Sure, the server room looks spotless and clean, but under that floor is a nightmarish rat's nest of cables. Wait until you have to move a cable from one location to another, pulling up floor tiles one at a time to untangle the various knots that have formed...
Third, you can't mop the floor anymore. This floor I'm sitting over hasn't been mopped in several decades. These tiles used to be white!
Fourth, the secondary function of a raised floor is to distribute cooling. Typically, you'll have a giant air conditioner that pumps cold air under the floor. You then have special tiles with holes in them under your racks, through which your servers draw in fresh cold air. If you're not going to set something like that up, you're losing one of the primary benefits of a raised floor.
I could go on and on.
Instead of making a raised floor, make a drop ceiling and run the cables in racks through there: simpler, easier, faster, and cheaper. If you're worried about the height of the ceiling, don't bother with the tiles and just run metal racks.
Trust me, you don't want a raised floor in your basement.
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What about installing a hanging ceiling and running the wires overhead? ... You could run the wires inside PVC tubing (or whatever you prefer) that's strapped to the beams of your basement ceiling, then hang the ceiling tiles afterwards, at your leisure.
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
Since that's not likely practical for you, consider the other option that large data centers use: overhead raceways. Run your power and data cables overhead, then down into your racks/shelves.
This will save you the (possibly substantial) cost and hassle of raised flooring that you likely can't put to good use anyway. The cabling is actually more accessible, still out of harms way, and if neatly done it can be nice to look at.
Unless you are in a fairly unusual location, your basement WILL get some water
in it occasionally -- not every year, maybe, but often enough that you need to
take it into consideration. The flooding may not achieve any significant
depth, but even a house on top of a hill can get an inch of water in the
basement on occasion when it rains very hard and fast.
Another thing about basements is that they often have exposed rafters, which
makes overhead wiring significantly more convenient than it would be in a
main floor scenerio. Drill a few one-inch holes at intervals along each
rafter, put in a few cross-bars, and overhead wiring is easy to run, easy
to change, easy to manage. If you have exposed rafters, I would suggest
considering maybe taking advantage of that, instead of doing raised flooring
in a basement scenerio.
An upper floor scenerio would of course be a different thing entirely.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I'm assuming that this is a finished basement? If it's just partially finished or unfinished, I'd certainly just go with threading them through the ceiling.
If the basement is finished, there are a heck of a lot of questions that need to be answered first:
1. What kind of ceiling do you have?
2. Is it an old house? (leaky?)
3. Exactly how tall are the ceilings?
4. Wouldn't it be easier/better to just re-wall the downstairs as opposed to doing raised floor installation?
...has ever flooded, or even smells damp, Don't do it!!! Use overhead cable trays or even run the wires up between floor joists. You don't want to ever mix wires and water, even if they're low voltage. It makes an unholy mess. I wouldn't have anything within 3 feet of the floor, if possible. Mount your rack servers on the walls, not sitting on the floor. Ditto for monitors, etc and especially UPS's! Speaking of UPS's, give your sump pump priority over keeping your servers running.
Good luck - my installation barely survived the floods caused by Hurricane Gaston (the stupid slideshow says Frances, but it was Gaston.)
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
They were invented not because of any type of ceiling height excess, but because the distance from the walls were too far to channel and cable around lots of annoying things.
You basement, forget the ceiling height, that is oh so redundant.
Are you going to have more than 10 PC towers plugged in at seatable desks? (and that is still a low return on investment).
If you room isn't being planned to fit 5/6 desks and some central desks that do not have easy wall access, then I think the idea of a floor installation is laughable.
Once again: unless you *need*, and by need I mean you understand the reasoning behind raised floor 'stalls, them for a purpose, why bother?
Also there is a new technology just around the corner, I mean, like maybe in 20-50 years, called WiFi, I think that is what it is called, i am sure I was googling for something unrelated and an engadget page with info on it popped up (WHATEVER I search for on google I end up with an FUCKING engadget page showing in the results, weblogs inc shoudl be sued for aggressively poisoning google. fucktards).
Shit, I lost track of parenthesis, this started out as an insightful post, I don't know where it ended up.
fucking weblogs inc.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Not to mock you, but as others here have pointed out, the flooding issue alone makes a raised floor in a basement a bad idea. Stick with a ceiling drop, or a cable run along ceilings and walls with some vinyl covers to make it look more attractive. If you're going to have some pc servers, I'd suggest a rackmount or an inexpensive industrial storage rack.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
For a fraction of the cost you can build a wireless network. I'd go with wireless-G if I were you.
Sounds like the poster has the case of server room envy, so bad to the point he is willing to build the experience right into his own home. Sadly this is probably because he cannot find a job where he is access to a raised floor area, and he is jealous. No telling why he is acting this way, but we could guess it because his own incompetence in finding these kind of jobs, or a lack of them in his local. Whatever the case maybe, had he actually worked in a place that has raised floors, especially for any prolonged amount of time, would cause you to associate them to *AHEM* work, and not the sort of thing you want around the home. I recommend spending the money on more schooling which is a better use of the huge amount of cash that it costs to have raised floors, UPS systems, diesel generator, or whatever else it will take to get this guys expanding inferiority complext smothered. I bet anything the poster is a short fellow too! ;)
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
Go with a false ceiling with moveable drop columns instead for 110volts (network cables could be hung freely, but of course this would not look as nice). Much cheaper, as the ceiling is lightweight tiles (they don't have to support your weight and the furniture), and it's easy to pull the wires around as you don't have to move the furniture about.
It's hard to believe someone with your skill in deductive psychology hasn't applied it to himself, but surely if you had you would have figured out the answer to "How can I resist the temptation to be an asshole?" by now.
We turned an office into a server room and needed a raised floor. Since we couldn't exactly raise the ceiling we used floor panels that were about 3 inches deep, they snapped together and had troughs with covers for the cable runs. They were easy to use, fairly cheap and fit our requirements for a SMALL computer room. The tiles were sturdy (we had 19in full height racks stuffed full sitting on them). Unfortunately, I no longer work there and do not remember who manufactured them. Do a google search.
I'm considering doing that in a basement room (soon to be PC room and office) to make network/power wiring easier, modifiable, and expandable.
How many computers and how much equipment are you going to have down there? How much do you expect your setup to change? Isn't a raised floor a little overkill for a basement? An efficient wiring scheme is all you need. I once lived beside a guy who was a ham radio operator. He had a lot of stuff and was constantly buying new gadgets and gizmos. He has his computers and radio equipment in a basement room, but you didn't even notice all the cabling because he planned out where all the wires went before putting things together or changing something. Most people will organize their computers and electronics and then just throw the wires in to connect everything. Just plan out the wiring at the same time when you plan the rest of the layout.
only three things matter:
1) number of bodies that fit
2) inability to removal tiles from below the floor
3) proper ventilation
now (1) you can stretch with a wood chipper, (2) can be safely taken care of with enough heavy equipment, but I can't stress the importance of number (3) enough....
First off, I do not know HOW to do that.
But secondly, I'm interested in knowing WHY would you want to have a raised floor. How big is your datacenter seriously?
I'm studying for my CCIE and have 26 machines in the house to build multiple networks. Theres even an arcnet network, ethernet, atm (copper,fiber) and now soon, FDDI. I've piled them as towers and lined the towers on a bench. All machines are facing the wall, so like a 50s telephone operator, I just plug in the cables at the back. I have a long spool of ethernet that I cut and crimp when I need a connection.
since all machines are next to one wall, the remaining room is clean, albeit warm. Everything is accessible and cleanable. Replacing machines is a pain since if its at the bottom of a pile, lots of movement and rewiring....
I dont know how many machines you might have, but lining them by a wall, and working on cleaning up the cables should pay. If you want to see no wires, ceiling tiles might be better to avoid floods, and to an extent, dust. Even better have a cabinet on casters with cables in PVC pipes if you do not have 26 computers.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Before you go turning your home into a datacenter, call your city's building department and insurance company first or you might void your policy and/or break some laws.
beams, not rafters.
I used to keep my PCs on top of milk crates and the surge protector, hub, etc. on top of the PCs. I did my best to contain the whole mess of wires with zip ties or velcro straps.
With the space under the crates and some space on the sides and behind, I got pretty good air flow. One of my machines was overclocked so it needed it. The whole setup worked pretty well and wasn't too unsightly.
Lots of other people hit most of the points I would have made (and I have primary responsibility for a server room with a raised floor).
Consider just raising the computers, not the whole floor! You could use shelving (you could have some great, custom shelving made for your room much cheaper than you could buy the cheapest raised floor), or milk cartes as another did (as I do this with guitar amps), or anything else. Just run the cables under these. If you do the custom shelving, you can get a front panel. It could be like a 3" to 6" high shelf with cabinet doors in front. It can be painted, stained, carpeted, covered in red velvet, sprayed with truckbed liner, covered with beaten copper, layered in kevlar, or covered any way you like.
Or you could make some sort of custom gutter around the floor/wall junction, instead of hanging gutters. You can get these with a strip that closes them up.
You could use the little gutters that look sort of like skinny chair rails, at chair rail height. These are made for wiring added after the fact.
You have lots of options, all cheaper, easier, and safer than a raised floor.
I used to design labs and data centers for Cisco. IMO, the best reason for raised floor is to provide controlled, high volume HVAC directly to racks as needed. If you don't require additional cooling, then a wire-only raised floor is less useful (besides more expensive) than simply running overhead cable trays.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
It might represent increased value for you but not to most people. It certainly won't increase your home's value.
It's easy to say you'll never want to sell, but things change...
Thanks for the chuckle! I almost did a spit take on my monitor!
"Yeah well
This question has been asked, and answered, before. See my post Under the floor? Reconsider! (Sunday January 02, @11:02PM) (3, Informative) attached to the article Supercomputers - Does the Cabling Matter?
Who the hell tells the county about improvements to their house?
You have to understand; this person probably doesn't know anything about carpentry, probably doesn't know anybody that knows anything about carpentry, and has probably never met five people in his life that could nail two boards together squarely. It's a sad fact that too many people associate ``civilisation'' with losing valuable knowledge. Why bother learning how to put down a floor when you can hire someone to do it? In fact, make it mandatory to hire someone, and you've created a propped-up market for carpentry. Create disincentives for the do-it-yourselfer, and you create (artificial) jobs. (Never mind the fact that if the shit ever hits the fan, those artificial jobs will be the first to go.)
Would you like to hear a joke? It's cheaper to go to school to learn how to survey for a septic tank than it is to hire a guy to come do it once. It's startling how averse to manual labor some people are, and it's a bit worrysome, too. I've read the following on Slashdot a dozen times maybe: ``It's free if your time is worth nothing,'' and always associated with why some people buy Apple computers (talking about BSD/Linux). The problem is that you can make that argument for almost anything, and it's a problem because it leads to nobody ever doing anything for themselves. The people are becoming frighteningly weak.
I can understand the existance of some codes. Aluminum wires are bad for the same reason that not putting a good foundation under a house is bad, but it's obscene how far building codes (and land zoning, for that matter) have been carried. It's doubly offensive when you realize that those sorts of things did in fact start in the overpopulated, citified Blue states and have infected the rest of the country.
It seems every reponse that has been modded up are people who are pointing out things you likely have already thought of. Today's slashdot: Ask for suggestions, get flamed. Nice.
.I just used them to bolt that extra 4x4 post come up off the floor.).
Once you have the base frame (think 'cornerlines in a cube' to visualize) you will want to place support beams through the middle parallel to the short side to support the plywood top you'll be putting on. Use 2x4 hangers screwed into the 2x6 sides and place them approximately every 14-18 inches giving you 2x4 cross beams. This will help support the plywood top and give you a firm surface.
Let us assume that you have considered the possibility of flooding, you understand you *could* put in a ceiling, and you really are looking at making it look nice. You said the constraint is the ceiling, but the fact of your asking makes me think the constraint is the pocket book. I'm assuming this isn't a server room since you did say 'pc room'.
I had a similar issue with space. I wanted to house 8-14 machines at any one point running off up to 3-4 monitors with an 'L' shaped desk that covered about 7x5 feet. No amount of ceiling is going to help me find room for my legs when some of them are consumer towers, some are 4U rackmounts on their sides, and some are cute little systems. I knew I'd be moving systems in and out on occasion. I wanted a raised floor to put them all under so the machines were close enough to be hooked to my monitors and switch boxes without extensions, yet still be out of the way, accessible enough, and more importantly quiet (without spending gobs of money every time I brought a new system in to add to the bunch every couple weeks just to make it quiet). My solution was a raised floor for my desk (and only my desk). To do something like this economically (though not necessarily prettily) can be accomplished for under 200 bucks.
Picture of mine
Building a free standing platform that will hold a good half ton (put down the fritos if this isn't enough) for you, your desk, rolly chair, and 2 or three others isn't too difficult and all you need is a workbench to do some sawing and drilling.
You can build a platform that has 18" of clearance (enough space that a mid tower can slide under) that stands 24" tall (you can get a full tower in tilted and lean it upwards between crossbeams) with a single 4x4x8', two 2x6x12', eight or so 2x4x8', a couple sheets of 1/2" plywood (preferably higher quality so you dont have to sand) and a plethora of bolts, braces, joist hangers. If you check out the first link there, you can see the mid towers that just fit under the floor, and a full tower showing it being the same height as the floor.. Build the base of the frame by attaching 2x6 pieces to the 4x4 legs with a pair of bolts at each juncture (so each 4x4 would have 4 bolts running through, 2 per side in that corner). When drilling the holes (a drill press helps here), make sure to offset one side by 1/2" up or down (you dont want the bolts meeting each other in the middle of the 4x4). Picture of a corner (with braces leading up to an extra post I was using to let a cockatoo visit, dont ask. You can use similar big corner braces like those if you want, but they arent necessary .
Once you have your crossbeams in place and everything bolted in, this platform should be rock solid before you put your plywood top on. The plywood you can cut however is most convenient for you. I didn't need a traditional raised floor where you could pull up a 'tile' at any 2 foot interval. I was happy enough to crawl under for the few times I'd need to get under there for initial setups. You may want to work in some access panels or make the top modular. It is really up to you (though you'll need to figure out the way to make it stable and size your crossbeams appropriately). You may also need to deal
I have added this to my google search shortcut, however it doesn't allow you to do an auto search for '+' (and see a smaller reduced screen.)
g et.com -site:primidi.com -Piquepaille -weblogs.com
:-) (wildcard *blogads*)
:-) hurrah!
I went from a button link on firefox (force english, show minimal page):
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+
To (force english, show minimal page, stop engadget google-bombs, and killfile piquappaillepique...iqpa...(and weblogs!)):
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+-site:engad
kinda works I get a 'no news articles' found footer, but hey, google ain't perfect, still lets me have more fun when I search.
Also adblocked blogads.com
Now, I have an itch, I want to configure my google search plugin - I know there is the website that has a list of these search plugins, I am sure that I can scratch this fairly easily and post up an update when you can download a google killfile that operates from your firefox/kmeleon/mozilla search toolbar.
Luckily my browser is OPEN SOURCE!!!!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Why not use wiremold along the walls or cable tray along the ceiling perimeter. It'll be cheaper; and, easier to work with. There are lots of options in either case and you should be able to find something that'll both pass code and look halfway decent.
And welcome to "-1 Flamebait" purgatory.
I hate false floors ;) I prefer the "false ceiling" -- those foam ceiling tiles that can be suspended from the rafters.
A lot less expensive, easier to install, hides annoying infrastructure, dampens noise, and (IMO) easier to access than a false floor (getting up on a ladder and mucking with cables is better on my back than kneeling and trying to access stuff in a false floor).
a polar bear is a rectangular bear after a coordinate change.
Yes, well, I've lived in eight homes (not counting college dorms) in three
states since I was old enough to remember, and four of them had occasional
water in the basement. Two of the others had *frequent* water in the
basement, and one didn't *have* a basement. The other one was an appartment
building, and I don't know whether the basement had flooding or not.
One person's experience can be skewed. My point is that it's an issue that
needs to be considered -- which is what the OP asked for.
The age of the home does make a significant difference as to the likelihood
of water. If some of the wiring has cloth insulation, it's a good bet there
will be water in the basement occasionally.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.