First let’s go over some terminology.
Whole House Fan vs Attic Fan. A lot of times these terms are used interchangeably by accident.
A whole house fan draws air from outside the home, to inside the home through open windows and doors, then exhausts out through the attic vents.
An attic fan just pulls air through the attic from the attic vents and exhausts it back out of the attic.
Attic ventilation. There are different types of attic vents. Some are on the lower sections of the roof/attic called eave vents or low roof vents. Eave vents are mostly present in older homes. The drawback to eave vents is not being able to blow in insulation too close to them for fear of covering them up.
For your high venting there are dormer, gable, turbine, and ridge venting. Ideally you have enough venting both down low and up higher toward the roofline. As the temperature rises in the attic it naturally starts to pull cooler air from the lower vents and exhausts the hotter air out of the higher vents.
Unfortunately a lot of homes either don’t have adequate attic ventilation or just needs some extra encouragement for evicting the hot air. This is where attic fans come in.
Attic Fans. Some power attic fans can be attached to an existing gable vent. Others are cut into the roof and either run on electricity or solar.
They typically work off of an internal thermostat that will turn the fan on when the attic reaches a certain temperature. The fan will continue to run until the attic temperature has decreased back down below the set temperature, similar to your central air conditioner.
We have multiple styles available to suit most any application.
Power Fans: These are hard wired to electricity. They can be attached to an existing gable end vent or cut into the roof if there is no gable. The PRO to a hard wired fan is that they can pull a higher CFM than the solar version. The CON would be if electrical is hard to run to the location.
Solar Fans: These are powered by the sun. They are cut into the roof or added to an existing gable. The PRO would be they don’t use electricity, saving you money and helpful if it is difficult to get electrical run to the location. The CON would be that they pull out about half the CFM than the hard wired power attic fans produce.
Regardless of what you are in need of, we at Perfection Home Systems can help! Please contact us for more information on adding venting or fans to your attic.