When clients first decide that they first want a media room, their main focus is inevitably on how big their screen and sound system can be.

If they’ve really thought things through, they’ll have factored theater seating into their dream space.

The one thing that won’t occur to them is that having you engineer adequate airflow and cooling in their media room is something they should budget for. As an AV Pro, it’s your job to broach the subject early, and assert its importance.

The first reaction most clients will display when you discuss the airflow in the room will be bafflement, but they’ll get it once you paint a picture for them: Cram a dozen adults into a well-insulated, soundproofed, 15×25-foot room with no windows, and it’s going to get hot and humid even before you factor in the heat from the electronics.

I can attest to the consequences of bad, or in this case absent, HVAC design.  Years ago at my old store, we did a small renovation that included framing out three sound rooms in the back of the store.

None of them were ventilated.

At one point the middle room had a big projector, an early-generation 55-inch plasma TV and three giant, Class-A, multi-channel amplifiers on display. It was nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit in that room.

Not good planning at all, and not a pleasant shopping environment.

To avoid doing the same thing in someone’s home, as an AV pro, you need to partner with the general contractor and the HVAC guys. And in order to get your HVAC needs met, you need to speak their language. That means you need to be conversant with CFM (cubic feet per minute), BTUs (British Thermal Units) and Tons of Cooling.

HVAC installers will generally want to know about how many Tons of Cooling you need, so after you calculate the total heat load in BTUs in your room, you need to express it in Tons of Cooling. The easy part is that 1 Ton of Cooling = 12,000 BTUs.

Short of going to engineering school, there are plenty of wikis and online reference sites to help you determine total BTUs. Don’t fret; eventually you’ll know this stuff as well as you know AV and automation.

Don’t forget to factor the time it took to calculate this out, however nominal, into your design fees. Once you know how much cooling your clients’ media room requires, it’s a simple conversation with the site supervisor for their builder or with their general contractor.

Because of this extra forethought, the finished installation will be even better than your client expected.

Lee Distad is a rAVe columnist and freelance writer covering topics from CE to global business and finance in both print and online. Reach him at lee@ravepubs