Do Attic Fans Work

A whole house fan is usually installed on the attic floor near the center of your house.

Do attic fans work.

Attic fans are intended to cool hot attics by drawing in cooler outside air from attic vents soffit and gable and pushing hot air to the outside. How does an attic fan work. Powered attic ventilators are housed in the. Well what s been found is that if you turn the attic fan on in the summertime that it depressurizes the attic but it doesn t stop there.

In the late evening or early morning the fan is turned on to exhaust hot air from the house. Ideally this will lower the high temperatures that have built up in your attic. 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. However if your attic has blocked soffit vents and is not well sealed from the rest of the house attic fans will suck cool conditioned air up out of the house and into the attic.

Attic fans come with different models. The main work of an attic fan is to regulate the heat level of the attic by removing hot air out of the attic and pushing it outside providing needed ventilation. Fresh air is pulled in from your soffits and or roof vent creating a draft through your attic. Cooler outdoor air enters through open windows lowering the indoor temperature.

This air is then exhausted through the fan to the outside. Ventilation fans or powered attic ventilators are designed to cool the attic pushing out the hot attic air and rushing in a flow of cool outside air. Do not use mechanical means electric attic fans. Much of that heat then conducts downward and finds its way into the house.

Attic fans exhaust hot air from your attic to the outside. Some can have manual switches while others use a thermostat to turn them on and off automatically. The problem with this design as argued by energy professionals is that attic fans also pull the conditioned air from your home into the attic. The attic fans are fitted with thermostats that will switch on and off the fan depending on the homeowner s preference.

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. In such doing the attic fan will reduce the temperature in the attic space that in turn cools down the whole house. More than 50 of the attic fans i see do not work and have current still live to the motor. One of the leading causes for fires.

How an attic fan works.