Solar Fan for the garage
 

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.

From the posts I have seen in the past when I was interested in the subject it will be a yes and no answers. One such example.
https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...ght=Solar+fans

I had Solar Guys install an electric garage fan (not solar, sorry).
They cut 2 ventilation panels in the garage door and the fan is installed in the garage ceiling.
It uses minimal electricity, keep the garage extremely cool (not a/c cool)
Keep the attic ventilated so the attic is cooler too.
Doesn't depend on the sun, and you can turn it on or off whenever you want.

Either way you go, you know as well as I do that Solar Guys does great work. Good luck.

I can’t answer your question about a garage solar fan, but I would highly recommend an overhead garage screen door. We had one installed by cool breeze and really like it. We hardly ever use the garage door anymore, just the screen. It opens and closes with a remote clicker just like a garage door. The garage is much cooler when using the screen and we can see out, but people outside can’t see in unless it’s dark outside and there is a light on in the garage.

I’d recommend stopping that heat from getting into your garage in the first place.

Insulating the doors and applying window film are your best and least expensive options.

As far as attic fans, there’s a very lengthy return on investment for those.

Lots of threads on this forum about insulation and fans.

Agree with Pondboy.

They just draw the heat in from your driveway so no real benefit.

So every one year inspection (4) from Frank any improvement on solar fan in garage. Nada since 2010, so not putting one in this house. Our garage faces south, so screen would not help. Their recommendation insulate the garage door, which we did.

Will the fan work in the evening when the outside air is cooler than inside the garage? In short does it include a battery to run it when the sun goes down?

If you think you are going to cool down your garage with any kind of fan, you are mistaken. If you want cool then you will need to install a mini-split A/C unit.

Any garage fan are going to draw the hot air from outside into the garage so if it's 90+ degrees out then your garage will be 90+ degrees.

The problem is if you have the sun beating on your garage door, it's going to act like a radiator and heat your garage. The garage door temperature can reach 125-150 degrees on a very hot day. Also, the attic can superheat and you will get heat gain from that as well.

So the real answer is to insulate your garage door, put insulation in your garage attic and install a solar attic fan near your garage roof.

Many will say don't get an attic fan but the truth is unless you already have very good ventillation, the attic fan, solar or electric will prevent your attic from superheating. My attic used to superheat to about 150 degrees on very hot days. Not it doesn't go above 115 degrees and I've had the solar fans for the past two years.

The solar guys can do all this work.

I've done all this and I can tell you 100% my garage is about 5 degrees cooler than the outside air with the doors closes. With the doors open it will be a couple degrees cooler or the same temperature as the outside air but I don't get that heat gain from the attic any more.

Do not make these upgrades as investments. You will never recoup the cost unless you live in your home for a long time. You make these improvements for your comfort. Also, you get a 30% tax CREDIT for the cost of the insulation.

Hope this helps.

We have one that was in the house when we bought it. The garage is still an Oven. Better to insulate the door and see how that works.

We had a solar fan installed in our attic to keep the attic from getting extremely hot. We did not install to cool down the garage. By keeping the attic from getting so hot, we felt it would neutralize the house as well.. we have a block house. So far so good.

Solar fans
 

Hi guys, several years ago we had the solar guys put a vent fan (electric) in the garage. Included in the price was insulation installed on the door and a thermostat that controls the fan. Please understand that it will NOT cool the garage but it will keep the garage at ambient temp. It also forces air into the attic which in turn will curb the spikes during the day.
I’ve been very pleased with the work that the Solar Guys have done and would recommend them any time.
…….Happy New Year……and to all a good night

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.

If you have a hot space adjacent to a cooler space, heat energy will flow from the hot space to the cooler space until both spaces become the same temperature. Adding insulation between these spaces will slow down, but not prevent, the heat transfer process. So, adding insulation anywhere will not provide any lasting cooling effect. That is why builders do not add insulation to a garage ceiling. Also, blowing 90+ degree air into any space will not cool the space any lower than 90 degrees.

This is a little misleading. True energy will flow from hot to cold but when the attic superheats the garage ceiling is like a radiator for a very long time. I thought like you but I gave in and insulated my attic. The result was a noticable reduction in temperature in my garage.

Regardless of the theory, all I can tell you is what I experienced.

BTW the reason why the builder doesn't insulate the garage ceiling is because it's non-living space. Same reasoning with the Lanai. It saves them money.