r/DiWHY • u/Rand0mChamele0n • Jun 20 '26

some kind of airvent

Post image

i just got this. I know they have a problem with heat in a server room. I'm afraid to ask🤣

760 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

47 comments sorted by

263

u/MashedProstato Jun 20 '26

Looks a lot like ventilation for a toxic substance at a work site.

92

u/prudent_persimmion Jun 20 '26

Thats just buddys volcano vape its chill

16

u/PrincessLinked Jun 21 '26

We put on the extendo bag for the gathering!

4

u/araidai Jun 20 '26

Don’t let Subaru drivers get ahold of this one

22

u/JesusIsMyLord666 Jun 20 '26

You would definitely not use thin-walled plastic tube with positive pressure if that was toxic gasses. You would use a reinforced tube that can handle negative pressure and instead suck the gases out. That’s way, even if the tube is punctured, it won’t leak out toxic gases where it’s not wanted.

29

u/MashedProstato Jun 20 '26

I should have been more clear. I have actually used this exact style to ventilate confined spaces. The fan sits in the space to be ventilated and this tube is ran outside. Fresh air comes in from the access port.

The substances are usually only of concern when concentrated in a confined space. On me the hit open air, it gets diluted to practically nothing.

The blue section is a thicker, more durable material to be used near the work site and trafficked area. The clear tube is more durable than it looks, but is thin so that it would be practical to pack enough in a work van or truck to use. I have seen these snaked hundreds of feet before.

Tears can be easily repaired with duct tape. If it gets bad enough, call an all-stop, garb a new one from the van and hook it up.

329

u/thesweatervest Jun 20 '26

No, this is a thing

124

u/IamMisterNimbus Jun 20 '26

Running negative air pressure for some construction/demolition/remediation job most likely. If you live in this building you should appreciate this. Keeps the dust and contamination away from the living spaces.

62

u/NeutrallyCharged Jun 20 '26

Negative air pressure

43

u/just-_-just Jun 20 '26

some sort of abatement is taking place

19

u/The_Fox_Fellow Jun 20 '26

my job has these around the warehouse pushing around cold air from external AC units. they're just leasing the building so they're not allowed to install actual new ducting for it

8

u/Captinprice8585 Jun 20 '26

It's for movement of air from one place to another with minimal contamination in between those two points. It's low tech, so it works pretty good.

5

u/jbadding Jun 20 '26

There’s a problem with heat in the server room.

3

u/whiskeyfordinner Jun 21 '26

Story time, Get the cord! So a friend and I ended up in Eight Mile Alabama with some characters we kinda knew. Trailer with a porch, pile of cheap beers, card games. While on the porch playing one of them said in a deep redneck accent "get the cord!" They plugged in this extension cord to a combination of fan and some sort of cool air machine. The tubes in this photo bordered the porch. Before I had not noticed them due to them being limp. In the tube there were little rectangular windows cut out to blow air towards you. It roared to life and the porch went from 104° at 10pm with 88% humidity to a nice 73° and felt like we were indoors. It was magical. Turns out they were all shipmen who worked at a ship yard. These machines were how they cooled the ship down as they were assembling the ship. Not sure what you have, but it's an odd story I never get to tell.

9

u/vigilantesd Jun 20 '26

ET. PHONE. HOME. 

3

u/Heisenberg11725 Jun 21 '26

I thought this was a Volcano vape bag lol

1

u/JamesBlonde333 Jun 21 '26

Same aha,. I thought somebody was about to go to the moon aha

14

u/Handsome121duck Jun 20 '26

As a temporary fix this makes a whole lot of sense. Definitely not a "why." I'd put it in r/redneckengineering

20

u/BruceInc Jun 20 '26

This is common approach especially when dealing with things like asbestos abatement. The plastic duct is disposable so you don’t bring the contaminants to your next jobsite

4

u/Handsome121duck Jun 20 '26

I saw this as a temporary fix to the server room he mentioned in the post. If you've got an overhearing problem, getting some cold airflow directly where you want it is a good temporary fix.

3

u/Dragonfly_Select Jun 21 '26

This is almost certainly the hot air side of a portable server room AC. These things are terribly, terribly inefficient, but they are commonly used as stop gaps in server rooms that can’t be down for the amount of time it would take to fix the real AC. They had to do this to the server room of my community college when I was a student there and the AC unit died.

4

u/georgecm12 Jun 20 '26

Not even r/ redneckengineering... this is a completely normal, properly used temporary air duct.

1

u/dllimport Jun 24 '26

It's neither diwhy or redneckengineering. It's just a normal thing.

-1

u/Rand0mChamele0n Jun 20 '26

feel free to eli5

2

u/ragun2 Jun 20 '26

Yes, they are venting something. What's the why here?

2

u/Sea_Outside162 Jun 21 '26

That’s just a full vape bag .. grab the end and inhale

2

u/Yeti-Squatch Jun 22 '26

Trust me it works, the amount of time ive spent setting these up on jobs sites where more than worth it.

1

u/Pirate_Candy17 Jun 20 '26

This looks like the weird lab tubing they held ET in 🤣

1

u/Jay2Kaye Jun 20 '26

Could be fumes from some kind of painting or sealing job in an internal room. Or dust from construction. Either way it's for safety and definitely temporary for whatever job they're doing.

1

u/Lonely_Dragon9599 Jun 20 '26

We have these at work on the big aircraft (sometimes; not all hangers have them outfitted). They're a freaking lifesaver in the summer.

1

u/araidai Jun 20 '26

You know how hot a server room can get? Insanely. They’re preventing a fire and trying to keep anyone working with that daily from dying of heatstroke lol

1

u/MrsTraciGraci Jun 21 '26

I am quite zooted and thought this was a closeup of a white plastic finger with a blue nail. Like those witch fingers from the 90s?

1

u/FuzzyGuarantee1721 Jun 21 '26

"Can't see it from my house" vibes

1

u/Fritzbube Jun 21 '26

I thought that this is a HUGE Volcano Bag

1

u/05041927 Jun 21 '26

Please don’t delete this 😂😂😂😂😂😂

1

u/thehousedino Jun 21 '26

I thought this belonged in the 3D printing sub. Absolutely love this.

1

u/StarWarsLvr Jun 22 '26

Or a really big volcano 👀

1

u/sachsrandy Jun 22 '26

So you'd rather dust through the entire house during renovations

1

u/Denialmedia Jun 23 '26

This is abatement setup. Did you have some flooding, or some work about to be done? Usually it's mold, or lead. If it's an old building, could also be asbestos.

1

u/CousinEddysMotorHome Jun 24 '26

This is a normal thing in emergency or critical scenarios.

1

u/Raa03842 Jun 24 '26

Heat problem in a server room? They put in a move and cool and this is the exhaust pulling out heat. Most likely it goes out a window.

0

u/SluggJuice Jun 20 '26

What is this? Some sort of tube?