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June 10, 2009
Attic Fan Recommendations
As a child in the south, we had attic fans that sucked the air through the windows in our house to remove hot air and bring in the cooler air outside. Given how hot our top floor in our home now gets, I'd like to install something similar to reduce the need for A/C. I was wondering if anyone had installed an attic fan and could recommend someone who could do the work?
Comments
I'd like to add a question;has anyone figured out a way to install an attic fan in a flat-roof row house?
Posted by: Bob Marvin at June 10, 2009 11:08 AM
I cobbled up one using the hatch one year but had to close it during rains, so gave up. I think this is do-able with an actual fan setup,which should be rain-proof. There are solar-powered models also, which may be worth looking at.
Posted by: cmu at June 10, 2009 11:19 AM
Oops. misread. What I setup was a whole-house fan, nothing to do with the attic. Helpful only until the temp goes about 85 anyway
Posted by: cmu at June 10, 2009 11:20 AM
cmu,
You inadvertently DID answer my question, as I MEANT to type whole house, rather that attic fan. Of course none of this helps the OP
Posted by: Bob Marvin at June 10, 2009 1:38 PM
Looked into this last year--for the 3rd floor of our victorian house since it good insanely hot up there. Estimates came in around $2000 so we passed. Decided instead to use that money to better insulate the attic.
But the fan can be done. It really only releives the heat on the top floor since it's hard to get enough movement going to suck up the air from the floors below that.
Posted by: lah at June 10, 2009 5:39 PM
We lived in a small three story brownstone that had a whole house fan, and it worked like a charm for much of the warm weather. Previous owners had built a box over the hatch - with the fan facing the back of the house (over the hatch). There were louveres that opened only when it was running, and the fan was perpendicular to the roof. Rain did not get in. The winning trick was to only open windows on one floor at a time: during the day, I closed the windows on the top floor, and opened the lower floor windows. That sucked the hot air out and brought cool air thru the floor I was on. At night, I closed up the bottom floor and opened only the top floor windows where our bedrooms were. It works best when the outside air gets cooler than the inside of the house. I have no idea what it cost them to have this box built. Also: it was a small house (15' wide, 30' deep).
Posted by: parkslopemom at June 10, 2009 8:28 PM
I have installed a few attic fans over the past couple of years and may be able to do so for you also, however, I would need to know a few more details about the particular fan you have in mind, where exactly in the attic you want it installed, and the layout of the attic. If you would like to give me a call to discuss it a little further, let me know in a response and I will give you my telephone number to reach me at or you can just email me at MannyCruzNYC@aol.com
Posted by: Manny C at June 11, 2009 6:13 AM
We’ve given occasional thought to this for our building, but never done more than preliminary search for options, including these:
http://www.airvent.com/homeowner/products/staticVents-windTurb.shtml
http://www.gaf.com/Content/GAF/RES1/ROOF/MasterFlowSolarExhaustVent.asp
http://www.airscapefans.com/
Posted by: vinca at June 11, 2009 8:33 AM
Just get rotating industrial cone tops ... environmental friendly and fits int Brooklyn landscape .. paint adds a nice touch ... lol
Posted by: myrnett at June 11, 2009 10:57 AM
I've been able to get much of the benefit "parkslopemom" mentions by putting a 20" box fan in a top floor window and opening ground floor north-facing windows.
Posted by: Bob Marvin at June 11, 2009 2:33 PM
If you search on "Whole House Fan" in the forum there are a number of discussions from last year. There did seem to be some options that worked on a flat roof. I also want to do this - I grew up outside Baltimore and this worked great in a much larger house than a typical brownstone.
Posted by: jb312 at June 12, 2009 1:11 PM
I would go with a 25 or 30 watt solar attic fan. You can find them at http://www.solaratticfansource.com.
Posted by: solaratticfansource at October 20, 2009 9:26 PM
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