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Originally Posted by RedChariot
Those of you that have put in a solar fan in the garage, was it worth it? Does it reduce the heat in the garage? We have had the Solar guys install 2 solar tubes without incident and are happy with the results. Your thoughts.
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Solar Guys do great work, and I loved the three solar tubes they installed for me. However, the electric garage to attic fan didn’t help very much. Note that there are Solatube solar attic fans available, but these don’t suck out all that much air. The garage to attic ventilation fan is NOT solar, and it’s a lot more powerful and makes more noise. (The running fan is quiet, but sucking out several hundred square feet per minute makes noise from the airflow.) Powerful electric fans like that use quite a bit of electricity when they are working. How much, I don’t know because I couldn’t find any info online about that. The ad on the Solar Guys web site says it saves compared to running several attic fans or a garage air conditioner.
I had mine installed in a two car garage in The Villages. I sold that house in two years and bought another one. However, I found that I rarely used the fan.
So what is the problem? The garage attic was not insulated, so the heat in the attic percolated down through the ceiling drywall. The garage door faced south, so the garage door and the driveway got very hot in the mornings. The air being sucked in through the vents installed in the garage door was even hotter than the general air temperature. So, the fun sucked air through, but it was hot, humid air, and it didn’t seem to lower the temperature very much. If I parked my hot car in the garage, I might as well have parked a hot iron there—it really heated up the garage a lot.
These fans work best when the outside temperature is much lower than the garage temperature. But in the summer, the outside low at night may be 74° and humid. Run the fan all night, and your temp in the garage is nearly that low, but in the day it will quickly heat up from ceiling heat and garage door heat. Add a hot car and that increases.
I’d recommend that you first have about ten inches of insulation blown into the attic and double insulate your garage door. Then have the fan installed and use it at night. If you drive your car, park it in the driveway until night. Will your garage then be cool? No.