Building Science Attic Fans

Attic ventilation works on the principle that heated air naturally rises primarily utilizing two types of vents.

Building science attic fans.

Trying to solve the heat gain problem in your attic by using a fan is like lying out at the beach with a fan blowing over you and thinking you re not going to get a sunburn. Building science fundamentals see all events a building science consulting and full service architecture firm specializing in building technology for all types of buildings including commercial institutional and residential. It is designed to lower the temperature of an attic by exhausting air from the attic and replacing attic air. The amount of attic cavity ventilation is specified by numerous ratios of free vent area to insulated ceiling area ranging from 1 150 to 1 600 depending on which building code is consulted the 1 300 ratio being the most common.

A powered attic ventilator has a different purpose. Attic hatches got their name because they were hatches. I am trying very hard to simply accept the science from an expert in this case. Intake vents located at the lowest part of the roof under the eaves allow cool.

However as a very old builder 70 years i have known cases where roof mounted attic fans have helped tremendously where the roof is a full hip and the ratio of ridge vents to soffit vents was way out of whack. Much of that heat then conducts downward and finds its way into the house. Attic air conditioner and furnace standard vented combustion gas furnace with a single stage air conditioner located in a south texas attic. Using fans to ventilate your attic violates the fundamentals of building science.

And we didn t make it easy to get into the attic. The remington solar ventilation attic fan is completely the remington solar ventilation attic fan is completely powered by free solar energy. Unlike a ventilation fan a whole house fan an attic mounted fan that exhausts air from a home at night is designed to cool a house that is to lower the indoor temperature. Don t let your attic suck power attic ventilators are a bad idea.

Using a fan to blow hot air out of the attic doesn t address the radiant heat flow from the roof to the attic floor. Even solar attic fans can cause problems. In westfield mass who helped write the new code language.