Never Install An Attic Fan

An attic fan works by drawing in cool air to the attic space that pushes out the hot air through vents.

Never install an attic fan.

It s money down the drain. All of a sudden that attic fan isn t needed anyway. In such doing the attic fan will reduce the temperature in the attic space that in turn cools down the whole house. A fan might be necessary if the construction of your house is such that you.

This can lead to higher cooling costs and take a toll on your home s framing insulation and roofing materials. Alternatively you can hire a professional to do it for you and save yourself the hassle. The big complaint that leads to an attic fan request is usually a hot second floor which can largely be mitigated by air sealing the attic and installing a generous bit of insulation drastically reducing conduction and convection. It s also a good idea to turn any wall switches in the attic to the off position.

When exploring the best attic ventilation practices consider installing an attic ventilation fan to keep the hot air from settling in. As long as you have enough space at the base of the roof for an equal amount of soffit vents you shouldn t need a fan. Now in theory an attic fan would be mounted on the roof and it would draw air out of the attic. This is the best installation tutorial on youtube.

If you were thinking about spending 300 on powered attic ventilators and another 30 per year in electricity to run them take the 330 you would have spent during the first. Here is a corollary. Never try to install an attic fan on your roof with the electricity on. If you ve never installed an attic fan before it s worth checking out a few videos to see how it s done.

If you can improve ventilation in your attic and reduce the amount of heat the space holds and pushes into your home you ll reduce the cooling load on your air conditioner and save money on your utility bills. The money you spend on installing and operating powered attic ventilation fans will never be recovered in energy savings. Now i m going to say that it s probably ok in this particular house to install an attic fan because you don t have central air conditioning.