Arguments against solar attic fans.
Do solar attic fans help.
That means you will need to double up your investment in this area.
Solar powered attic vent fans usually don t move as many cubic feet of air per minute cfm as hardwired fans.
Now there are many articles that are against solar attic fans for many different.
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.
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.
They can provide a cooling effect that reduces temperature significantly in your house.
I have found other points that solar attic fans help keep attics cooler and therefore extend the life of your roofing shingles.
How an attic fan works.
The downside of attic ventilation fans.
Ad the infrared rays from the sun are powerful.
It will offer you more benefits that include.
Using the simple physics principle of air circulation it can draw in cool air while letting out the warm air.
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.
Good insulation reduces fan effectiveness.
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.
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 attic.
This pressure balance improvement and the cooling provided by the air flow are most significant in the case of a leaky.
But there s really a more fundamental reason that power attic ventilators won t help a lot and for some reason i didn t mention that in the original article.
However the utility of attic ventilation fans is actually quite a controversial topic.
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.
However there is no statistical evidence of this being true.
And it s part of the reason that my state georgia has banned power attic ventilators unless they re solar powered which was a concession needed to get the grid powered fans banned.
You will probably need two solar attic fans to get the results you want.
Other arguments for solar attic fans.
Attic fans exhaust hot air from your attic to the outside.
Yes attic fans can make a difference.
Do attic fans really help to cool a room.
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.