Do Solar Attic Fans Work

How an attic fan works.

Do solar attic fans work. The whole house fan is installed inside the attic between the living space and ceiling. However if your attic has blocked soffit vents and is not well sealed from the rest of the house attic fans will suck cool conditioned air up out of the house and into the. Whole house fans work on the principle of removing the hot and humid air out of the house. You will probably need two solar attic fans to get the results you want.

That means you will need to double up your investment in this area. However the utility of attic ventilation fans is actually quite a controversial topic. Attic fans exhaust hot air from your attic to the outside. It helps to cool your home temperatures and the attic by approximately 30 degrees.

When installed properly on a roof with standard asphalt shingles solar powered attic fans do not require caulk roofing cement or any other product to prevent leaks. For the attic fans to work at peak efficiency they need to be on a south facing roof slope if you live in the northern hemisphere. These fans are designed to remove excess heat from your attic which in theory is supposed to lessen the load on the air conditioning in your home. A great roofer will cut the shingles and lace the fan housing into the shingles so that rain will stay outdoors where it belongs.

To determine the number of cubic feet per minute needed for a power vent fan multiply the number of square feet in your attic by 0 7. Depending on what your utility charges that s about 40 per year. Danny s tests of solar attic fans showed that in florida where there s abundant solar energy yearly savings from installing two fans in a house with just over 1 000 square feet of air conditioned floor area amounted to only 460 kwh. If a cloud blocks the sunlight the fans slow or stop.

Solar powered attic vent fans usually don t move as many cubic feet of air per minute cfm as hardwired fans. Attic ventilation fans whether hard wired or powered by their own solar panels seem like a low cost and effective way to help keep your house cool. Exhausting moderate amounts of attic air as solar fans do can counteract this reducing infiltration my calculations show it to be about right for a vented attic but either do the calculations or measure the pressures. Good insulation reduces fan effectiveness.

An attic fan is installed on the slanted side of your roof or on one of the gable sides of your attic. Because solar attic fans operate with a lower power output they are unable to move as much air as some of the other options that are available. This pressure balance improvement and the cooling provided by the air flow are most significant in the case of a leaky. The downside of attic ventilation fans.

Attic fans are intended to cool hot attics by drawing in cooler outside air from attic vents soffit and gable and pushing hot air to the outside.