Home Entertainment Steps
STEP NINE: VENTILATION DESIGN
Your cabinet must be designed to remove the heat that is generated by components. This is achieved by a combination of (a) enabling hot air to exhaust; and (b) enabling cool replacement air to enter the cabinet.
Our cabinets are designed with “virtual” chimneys” (in the rear) that generate convection currents that carry hot air up and out, simultaneously drawing cool air in at the bottom, so that your components are constantly flushed with cool air. Without this ventilation planning, your components will overheat, causing interruptions in operation and/or damage, shortening their life spans. In some cases, where needed, we provide ventilation fans to increase the flow of exhausted hot air.
Our shelves are shaped to create a virtual chimney in the rear (sketch). This also provides room for cable interconnections. For air exhaust, in built-in cabinets, we provide louvered outlets in the cabinet tops. For cool air intake, we provide hidden slots in the baseboard or decorative openings in the baseboard. For freestanding cabinets (with a gap between the house wall and the cabinet back, we provide air exhaust and intake ports in the backs of the cabinets.