Review Of Solar Attic Fans: How to Install A Solar Powered Attic Fan On A Gable Or Through The Roof
Posted by carrie_roll
Carrie and I have been thinking about installing a solar attic fan in our house, so we’ve been learning as much as we can about solar powered attic fans before installing one of our own.
It’s interesting, because there are some great video guides available online which will guide you through the process and show you how to harness the sun’s energy for spinning some blades and cooling your house.
Here are a couple of great videos we’ve found (and a couple of kits we’re looking at).
In this video guide (Link opens in new window), you actually cut a hole through your roof in order to install the solar attic fan.
With this guide, you install the solar panel outside and then just run a cable to the inside of your house.
I guess the type of solar attic fan set up you choose will depend on a few factors:
- A review of the layout of your house (Will you be able to install a fan in a gable? Only if your house has one.)
- Your willingness to cut a hole in your roof
- How powerful and ambitious you’re feeling (we would say the second type of fan (where you put the panel outside and the fan inside) is less difficult).
If you’re looking for a few great solar attic fans, we’ve found in our research that people are most pleased with the solar attic fans they’ve been getting through Shop.com.
(Lowe’s (Loew’s?) and Menard’s apparently sell some, and apparently quite a few other companies are making these as well, but we didn’t find anything saying something positive or negative about the solar attic fans you can get at Lowe’s or Menard’s. Does anyone know? Comment below.)
So, we found a discount code for Shop.com (Available by clicking here) which will save you $10 on any purchase of $100 or more.
And we’ve linked to three of the solar attic fans Shop.com offers (below) so that you can get an idea of what’s available.
Hope this has been helpful for you! It sure has been good reviewing our options for solar power attic fans in order to write this post for you, and decide what we want to do for our home.
Solar Attic Fan 20 Watt Up to 1200 CFM from Shop.com |
 Standard Solar Attic Fan |
 Get a great solar attic fan that is perfect for mounting on a gable. |
6 Responses to “Review Of Solar Attic Fans: How to Install A Solar Powered Attic Fan On A Gable Or Through The Roof”
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Willie Bernington says:
I seen one of them fans at lOew’s, but didn’t buy it. But they do got ‘em.
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R Thornton says:
When should the atic of your pitched roof house have “breeze through ventalation” and when should it be sealed tight?
I have an old centurian that of course had no central air and heat when built. Over the years it now has central refrigerated air and natural gas heat. Should the atic still have louvers at each end and a cross breeze blowing through?
I can’t seem to be able to get an opinion from a professional unless it is attached to a $20,000 new system estimate. My system is working fine. I just do not want to be wasting energy.
Thank you -
As far as I understand how the attic space works, it should never be sealed tight.
The purpose of an attic is to vent and insulate your home, and it does that by forming a barrier between your home and the outside… so the only thing that should be sealed tight (in my relatively unknowledgable opinion on the subject) is the connection between your attic space and your home (if you have one) in the cooler months of the year.
However, I’m going to defer this to Tim Carter at AskTheBuilder.com. He’s a friend and someone who would definitely know the answer to the question.
(He may have even answered it on his site at some point).
You can ask him at http://www.askthebuilder.com/Submit_Question.shtml
Sorry not to give you a definitive answer, but Tim should be able to.
Thanks for being part of the GreenJoyment community!
Warmest,
Jonathan
GreenJoyment -
Toma Saine says:
Where my aircon. vent is I have a ring around it. It’s not leaking from any where. I had siding put on my house last year, do you think it could be because they put siding over my vents & siding has smaller holes in it for the vents. Help.
Thanks -
Hi Toma,
I’m not sure what you’re asking. There’s a ring around your air conditioning vent that was put there by an installer or there’s a dirt ring or…?
Thanks Toma,
Jonathan
http://www.GreenJoyment.com
I saw my neighbor cutt a whole thru his ceiling and put a fan in it. (I thought it was a solar panel for electricity, but now I know what it actually was. Thanks