Hey folks,

Do to some poor planning on my part (mostly related to hvac stuff), the ceiling height in my equipment room is about 10" lower than I had planned. It's still about 7'4, but it means that things are a bit cramped.

I want the rack up off the floor, so I built a platform for it. This provides some level of protection against minor flooding, but also allows me to dress up things a tad with some baseboard and moulding.

The result, however, is that I only have 2-3 inches of clearance above my MA Slim5 43u rack. Directly above the rack is a 22" x 6" custom vent boot which is connected to an inline Fantech exhaust fan which resides in another portion of the basement. The fan is controlled via a Cool Components thermostat with remote sensor which will sit near the top of the rack.

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My question is, given the less than ideal circumstances -- what would be the best way to deal with cooling of the rack itself?

1. Close it in as much as possible (both side panels, rear door and panels on the front) and force ventilate it using the MA Fan kit at the top?

2. Leave the panels off all together and use some strategically placed rackmount cooling to push warmer air out into the room where it would then get picked up by the exhaust fan?

3. Try to McGuyver the top panel -- cutting in a larger opening to perhaps match the size of the vent above?

4. Some other solution I haven't yet thought of?

I already have purchased all of the Middle Atlantic racking -- Slim5 43u rack, matching middle rail kit, vertical cable lace bars, vertical power strip, side panels etc so I want to try and make this work (rather than going to a smaller rack).

As a measure of backup, I did rough-in for a dedicated split should I need one in the future. I'm hoping to avoid the expense now however.

Thoughts?