Attic Fan experience

I have an electric attic fan. When the attic reaches a certain temperature, it turns on to remove the hot humid air.

I’ve been in this house since 2005, and I've replaced it once.

Not sure if I’d trust a solar power one.

Most homes just use a whirlybird or ridge vents for attic ventilation.

Someone more knowledgeable than me should chime in, but it seems like it depends on the ventilation in your attic. If you don't have a ridge vent, whirlybird or soffit vents, it wouldn't have anywhere to push the air. Otherwise, I would think it would work great. I had an attic fan in my old house but it was inside the house. It was great for those 2 months out of the year where the weather was perfect, but otherwise, it just sucked air conditioned air out of the house. Thought it was bizarre.

I weighed a powered attic exhaust fan vs turbines and ultimately added two turbines. I was looking at hard wired, but that isn't important for my decision process.

As others mentioned, and the conclusion I came to. Powered has too much risk of sucking air from conditioned space vs just the attic.

I added two turbines to existing (undersized) ridge vents and am very glad I did. It reduced that attic temp greatly. The warning with mixing vents is creating a short-circuit and sucking air from the ridge vents vs soffit vents. I did a few smoke tests and found no evidence of this. Just hot attic air going up and out.

I suspect unless you have a bunch of obvious places to suck air from the inside or few soffit vents, you are fine no matter which type of vent is added.

In general, I just don't trust the ridge vents to passively work in our heat load. I think my house and HVAC is much happier the more my attic breathes.

The ridge vents in these modern acadian style houses around the state just seem insufficient. The majority of my attic volume was trying to vent through a 6' ridge vent that was frequently stuffed with bird nesting material.

If you are sitting in a hot car, cracking a sunroof and a window a few inches helps. Having a fan up there that sucks the air through is no contest.

How much money would you likely save running off of solar? I'm willing to bet the juice ain't worth the squeeze in this situation

A lot of calculations play into how much fan vs how many cubic feet of attic..But having said this we bought two the solar fans 8 years ago and had installed and they have been great. One other thing to check is warranty the ones I bought were made in Phoenix and had a lifetime parts warranty so when one of the fans slowed down the company was still in business and sent me a new motor to install. The installl was simple except I had to get a small extension ladder to get up to the fans....It was pretty easy removal and reinstall from inside of attic....Hope this helps..

last time i looked into it, the building science said just put the turbine fans in. solar powered may change the equation somewhat, though. this assumes that you have adequate soffit and ridge vents

Most likely they suggested solar as you probably have limited electrical. I would recommend electrical powered fans, not solar. They can continue to pull cool night air up into the attic. Reducing your cooling in the house.
You have got to have some way of remove attic heat. It can get very hot up there. Crawled around up there enough times in the summer that it can boil your brains. Recommend you get the best units you can afford. They are not hard to install, especially if you already have vents.
You have to have a gable end vent or soffit vents. You want to pull outside air into attic. Not house interior air.
Hope this helps……