I have had solar attic fans for over 15 years. Are still working with no care after installation. Cooled my storage area tremendously. Very happy with cost and also results

John did mine, he's excellent. I really feel with the two fans you should get a noticable drop in temperature. I know after my fans were installed the attic air temperature never goes above roughly 10 degrees over the outside air temperature. For very large attics two of the 35 watt fans should be more than enough air flow. Just check to see if you can see light from some of the soffit vents in the attic. The vents over the garage should be easy to see. Most of them should be open.

Another way to look at it is at the peak of the day if you touch your roof you will burn your hands. The attich should be super heating. Pulling outside air into the attic and pushing out the super heated air has to make a difference.

Pressure drop
 

Many of the insulation installers in this area do not use baffles in the soffit area to allow air to come into the attic. Think of your attic as the emphysema man...he can not get air out of his lungs if he can not get air into his lungs. There are a couple of solutions I know of. Install baffles which is not a fun job after the insulation is already in place. Another alternative exists if your home has gable ends. You can install a solar gable vent fan on one end bringing air into the attic and another solar gable vent fan blowing out. The two fans working together will usually create enough air flow to provide the proper exchange of air. The last option is too plug off about eight feet of the ridge vents in the immediate area of the fan. When a fan is installed to close to a ridge vent or static vent, the fan takes the path of least resistance and brings the air supply in from the ridge vent instead of the soffit vents. Then the fan will short circuit and suck in the air that has just been exhausted from the fan. This creates a circular air supply so all you are doing using the hot air you just exhausted to try and cool. Meanwhile the hot air will stack up to as high as 150F. To prevent this from occurring, a fan should never be installed less than five feet from a ridge vent unless it is physically blocked off.
Also, once you get the air supply issue solved, it would be helpful to properly insulate the attic stairway opening. Without insulation, this stairway functions as a chimney and just like a well designed fireplace can create quite a suction as the hot air rises up into the attic. Remember hot air always rises. I would be happy to conduct an energy balance study at no cost to you if you are interested. PM me or email jp@jphomeservices.com

Save Money
 

I agree with everything but your first statement. A correctly installed and engineered solar attic fan should save $200/400.00 year on your electric bill. With a 3-4 year payback on the installed cost and at least a 20 year fan life, you are saving $3.400.00 to $6,800.00. I am also sure that electric costs will continue to increase so the actual savings over time should be even more.

Experts
 

Not only will I claim to be an expert, having installed hundreds of fans in the past 18 years, I have extensive training on insulation systems by Owens Corning, the inventor of fiberglass insulation along with technical training from several manufactures and design engineering firms. I have also participated in over $750 million of construction projects spread over the past 52 years. I would suggest that I have acquired enough knowledge and install experience to be referred to as an expert. But at age 74, I am still learning. Just last Friday, I attended an advanced air management seminar in Houston, TX and came away with a few more nuggets of information.

Your article
 

Properly engineered systems do not pull air from the interior of the home. They pull air from the soffits.

Regarding point # 2, I strongly disagree. Over the past ten years my company has replaced more than 1,500 roofs and installed hundreds of fans....without even one call back for a leak. Properly installed, it is virtually impossible for an attic fan to leak

3) There are ways to work around blocked soffits if you know what you are doing.

And you have to factor in the experience of the person that wrote the article. I new to this area so I know very little about the solar guys but I was a Solatube distributor for four years commencing in 2004. I have been to the Solatube manufacturing plant in California, and several other solar fan and sun tube manufacturing facilities. Like I said, I do not know the Solar Guys but I do know that I have more engineering and install experience than most salespeople do and I have engineered and installed a very large number of air and water management systems. I have not used sales people to sell my projects for the last seven years, because generally they don't have the same approach and convictions that an owner does.

The Solar Guys are pretty good at what they do. They are not an engineering firm but they know the homes in the Villages and where the problems are and what needs to be done to correct them for the specific areas that they address. I think in general the homes here in the Villages are built relatively well and the Solar Guys charge a reasonable price for these upgrades. I'm sure other companies do a good job as well.

If you are an expert respectfully, you are one who failed mathematics. 55% of your electric consumption is HVAC. You do not need to speculate on that percentage. There are dozens of studies that confirm that or you can simply monitor your own consumption by a device that takes 100,000 measurements of your electrical use per second, that's 8.6 billion times a day, I'd say that's pretty accurate (Home - Sense.com). I've one and 55% of my electric consumption is HVAC.

So we know in Florida not every month is a cooling month. Let's say it is precisely ten and the portion of your bill purely for kilowatts is $250.00 or $2,500 annually of which $1,375.00 is HVAC.

You are claiming $200 to $400.00 or 14.5% to 29% can be saved by the installation of a solar fan.

If you have facts to support this then you, Sir, are wasting your time here, on TOTV, and should immediately contact Jennifer Grandholm, former Governor of Michigan and current US Department of Energy Secretary. But, in your own interests do protect yourself. I recommend that you find a way to capitalize on this ground breaking energy savings.

Perhaps, I am not giving you credit for altruism, are you the energy equivalent of Dr. Jonas Salk (inventor of polio vaccine) and you are providing this ground breaking version of energy conservation for the good of all mankind without profit? If so then godspeed sir! And thank you!

I’ve installed over 1500 solar powered fans. There is a fire fuse. Plus, we covered the ridge vents which are useless unless they are made by air vent.com. Covering the ridge vents prevents negative air flow as the principle is to bring cool air from the soffit vents to displace the hot air from the attic where the unit should be installed. Also, with the 26% Federal solar tax credit makes it less than any thousand dollars. More like $550 to $700 depending upon the 20 to fifty watt unit. The garage vents are very efficient too. But electric and no tax credit. The solar garage vents are efficient and have the 26% tax credit. I’ve installed enough of these to know they work. Retired now, so no dog in this fight.

We put in a solar attic fan. Made sense to me if only moving some air. Never looked at it for any payback or anything like that. We keep the AC at 80 in the summer since we are not there and if it ever breaks, I will not know since it doesn’t make noise.

Looked into a garage fan this past year but I thought it would vent it to the outside but since it just dumps more hot air into the attic I decided against it.

Waste. Look where they install the fans. See how close to the ridge vent, and far from soffit vents. These fans do nothing to circulate air throughout the attic

It is incredibly dangerous to drop your stairs "a bit". That breaks the fire wall, and in case of a fire would act as an accelerant. Unless you;re going up and down stairs / ladder, it should be kept completely shut.

Scam or needed?
 

I am thinking of putting a thermostatically controlled electric garage vent fan in but instead of in the garage where it doesn’t have enough intake air, instead putting it in the lanai where it has all the intake at the same level as the soffits. This should positive pressure the attic and blow hot air out the top, lower overall temperature in the attic, and hopefully lower the garage temp at the same time.
My question is how noisy are the fans operating?
What say you?