I have a captive aire hood system over my dual oven MM ps360’s. Im having an issue with the heat that the makeup air is blowing in from the outside. We are located in south florida where the air coming in is at about 110 degrees most summer days. So its like having a 9 foot heater running all day long. These are my questions, please let me know if anyone has had these issues.
Can i turn off the makeup air and just have the exhaust on?
Can i tie the duct system to my ac unit so it can blow in cold air?
Yes, you can turn off the makeup air, but it will try to suck in air from somewhere else … cracks in windows, open doors, etc. Not exactly how the system is designed. It will make it a lot harder to open door.
I know that these units can be cooled to bring in cool air, but I know it would be an expensive setup. @George Mills does equipment and hoods, I am sure he will chime in on this for you.
Yours is a common problem with make up air systems that do not have a built in cooling coil to cool that inbound air.
Who ever sold you that system, left out the cooling coil in order to keep the price down. They did you no favors.
No you cannot legally operate your hood without running the make up air it is against the code to do so in addition to all the difficulties listed in the above posting.
We never use a makeup air unit in a pizza shop. We use a compensating hood that brings 50% of the makeup air at outside temperature directly into the hood. That air never enters the room. We supply the rest of the make up air through the air conditioning system.
Your best bet is to add a cooling system to your MUA unit. Not an inexpensive project.
If you let me know the manufacturer and serial number of your MUA unit I can give you a price for the equipment to do your Job
I would turn the make up air off and see if you like the results. I have never used makeup air in my 18 years as a pizza shop owner in Florida. My doors are not difficult to open. I have 10 tons of A/C and as long as both units are working I can maintain 75 degrees on all but the hottest of days where I may have a few hours closer to 80.
What you may be able to do, is slow that fan speed down considerably by adjusting the drive pulleys (Think of how a 10-speed bike works) on the motor and fan.
I have the exact opposite happening by me, one of the previous owners of my building had a used hood installed here that is wholly wrong for this building, and not up to code.
When I first turned it on, a window got sucked out of the frame. I had to slow down the exhaust fan, and found my make-up air fan wired backwards so it was also sucking air out of the building.
To the point of pulling sewer gas up through my P-Traps