Re:Blowing Air

[stargrazer]

Re:Blowing Air

I Have a question. What is considered too much blowing air for a Chin? I know that just blowing air on one at room temperature will do nothing for them as they do not sweat, but what about chilled air? We have set up a dedicated A/C for our chin's cage and we have a diffuser on the end of the pipe leading into the cage, but we're having an argument about what is too much air coming out of it. I say we're losing a lot of cooling energy by keeping the wind speed down to almost zero, this is chilled air not room temp air. What's going to happen with getting a little air circulating in the cage? These are cool weather creatures what do they do out in nature when the wind blows as you know it must? Wind blows all the time in the mountains, do they always hide from the wind? Thanks for your help on this.

 

[Spoof]

That's pretty cool!

So long as they have a place to escape the 'wind' (house, shelf, etc) it should be fine.

I've been in some buildings where you could barely hear the owner over the fans. Granted this wasn't cooled air, but it was quite windy. Mine has no still air, I have fans everywhere and now two a/c's in an 11 x 10 room.

You could always try it full blast and watch them during their active time, if they don't like it they'll stay away from it. That's probably a good sign to turn it down a bit. Otherwise no worries. )

 

[Show-MeChins]

i agree with what has been said... as long as the air is not on them constantly...and they can get away they are fine

 

[Dora-Marie]

air? blowing air?
can someone tell me if this is something I should do for my new chin? (and new owner

 

[soqrbrad]

air? blowing air?
can someone tell me if this is something I should do for my new chin? (and new owner

Chins need to stay below 75 degrees in order to avoid heat stroke. You can't just circulate air because chins don't sweat. That is why you need to cool the air. Usually this is done by A/C. If you don't have A/C I would recommend keeping your chin's cage in the basement or in the coolest part of the house.

FYI the average temperature underground is about 53 degrees. Just an interesting fact in my opinion

 

[Dora-Marie]

I don't think blowing air will be necessary
We have an average temp in the house of 18 C
and outside now it is minus 2 C

So, if I understand right, they need to stay in a fresh place, right?

 

[Cuddlebug]

If by "fresh place" you mean they need ventilation, then yes. Chins need ventilation and cool temps to survive.

 

[Dora-Marie]

If by "fresh place" you mean they need ventilation, then yes. Chins need ventilation and cool temps to survive.

You mean that at all time there should be wind blowing toward or in their cage?

 

[Chinniechantel]

You don't need air blowing in or on their cage, but the room needs to be well ventilated and the cages need to have open sides as well.

 

[Spoof]

This definitely isn't necessary for having a pet chin.

I imagine due to the type of cage the OP was worried about keeping it cool enough with air flow, so they did a cool thing; piped the a/c vent right into the cage.

Neat idea when you have one that is 6' + tall like that.

I figured it has a ton of shelves inside, so plenty of room for the chins to get out of the 'wind' so to speak. )

 

[jags]

Well maybe I am missing something here but how does the warm air enter the Ac unit? Without enough airflow to the cooling fins the unit will just freeze up.

 

[stargrazer]

Thanks all for your insight. We are still in learning mode with Remi and I like to experiment with ideas to make his life as best as possible (plus I just love tinkering). I came up with cooling his cage as we are living in 68 in the house which is becoming miserable and very expensive for us. That is why I came up with cooling just his home. It has been and still is a labor of love and a learning experience. I have had to redesign the box surrounding the A/C unit again as it is is shutting off 30 seconds after it starts thus not reallycooling his home. The cover is for trying to control the temperature in his cage alone and that is where I am still fine tuning it.
We started with a mini fridge with a fan inside but that just wasn't cutting it. And with the A/C setup last night it only got 3 degrees below the house's temp of 70 degrees due to premature shutoff.
Hopefully the new box I made will solve this. We shall see.
BTW I have included pics of the house

 

[Spoof]

lol, Randy/Jeri is right, I went back and looked at your box. To work (and I hope your new box does this) it can only cover the top vents where the cold air comes out. Good luck!

 

[Dora-Marie]

You don't need air blowing in or on their cage, but the room needs to be well ventilated and the cages need to have open sides as well.

Thank you for your answers!
I understand now!

 

[stargrazer]

Final setup

OK. I think I have finally set up Remi's personal cooling system.
I had to make the enclosure bigger, separated the incoming from the outgoing air and then circulated the air in and out of his cage. Viola! It works. I have enclosed some pics. The total cost for supplies was somewhat high but I think it will be well worth it in the long run. He can stay cool and we wont have to freeze in the rest of the house.

 

[Essentia]

I love the little vent at the top of his cage. It's literally like a chinnie condo. Now all he needs is a bedroom, living room, a couch, table, ect. Ok, I'm kidding....kinda.

That is seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

How does the thermostat work, or does the AC just run all the time?

 

[stargrazer]

That was the main problem, trying to get the AC thermostat to read the temp inside his house in order to get the desired cooling for his needs. The box on the front accomplished that. Each AC unit has a thermostat inside the intake part on the front behind the filter which tells it when to turn on and off. The box on the front I built has the intake and the outtake separated. The cool air goes to the top of his house where the airflow itself is controlled with the diffuser (that white gizmo). Then the bottom part of the AC unit where it sucks in the air is coming from the other hose which I mounted a ways down inside his cage. I made the box 6" deep so the air could circulate a bit and also drilled extra holes in the output side as was suggested to me (don't think it was really necessary). It has worked! I set the thermostat to 69 degrees on the AC and it has maintained 69.4 in his house while our living quarters have stayed around 73 to 74 degrees. Now when I take Remi out to play I turn the house' AC up so his play area is cool.
I think total cost for this setup was about $185.00. Pretty expensive initially but I think it will keep our electric bill down a bit as we now don't have to cool the whole house.

BTW I had to cover the front of his wire mesh with Plexiglas as too much cool was coming out. I made open areas for him though in his main places of contact with us so we could still talk and nuzzle him at those places. That was a bit of concern to me as I was afraid too much of his airflow would be cutoff but I was wrong. With the AC air going his air is always circulating and fresh especially with the filter in place.

All in all I think it was a nice accomplishment. It will also be good to have when we lose power this summer. That happens a lot in Florida and we have a backup generator to handle that scenario.


Sorry for such a long post, just thought folks would want to know the details. If anyone wants more details please just let me know and I can get more technical.