Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #82264 in Home Improvement
- Brand: Rand Solar
- Model: R-36w
- Dimensions: 29.00 pounds
Features
- Solar Powered Roof Top Attic Fan
- 36 Watt Solar Panel with adjustable angle mount
- 2200 CFM (cubic feet per minute) of ventilation
- Can successfully cool an attic space up to 3440 square feet
- Includes 85 degree thermostat
Rand Solar Powered Attic Fan-36 Watt-w Roof Top Ventilator with Thermostat
Product Description
This high quality Rand Solar Attic Fan will cut your cooling costs dramatically! With this high quality attic fan, you will dramatically cut your cooling costs in the summer. Your attic can get hotter than 160 degrees in the summer. This heat works its way into your house, and makes it more difficult to cool it in the summer. With this attic fan, you can cool your attic temperatures by up to 50 degrees. In the spring and fall, you may not need air conditioning at all! In the summer, it will dramatically decrease the amount of time that your air conditioning needs to run. And, since it is all powered by the sun, you will get these benefits at no cost to you! It also provides needed ventilation to decrease moisture and water vapor in your attic. This, combined with the decreased attic temperature, can increase the longevity of your entire roof system. Easy roof-top installation will work with almost any roof. And, the adjustable angle solar panel easily adjusts to point at the sun. Includes an automatic 5 year parts warranty from date of purchase. Approximate overall dimensions are: 24.5" L (24.5" is the mounting flange size) X 24.5" W X 11" H (height with panel laying flat) Approximate dimensions of just the ventilator that sits above the roof line are: 21-3/4" L X 21-3/4" W X 11" H
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
By Steve
Rand 36 Watt Solar Attic Fan Review.I ordered the fan from suncoastdeals and there was no delay getting a response and the fan arrived on time, as promised. Packaging could have been better, but the unit arrived intact and in good condition. When testing the fan for the first time, the fan wobbled excessively. I contacted suncoastdeals and they immediately sent me a response on troubleshooting this particular problem. I did as they suggested and found that a small piece that holds the fan blades in place was the culprit. Nancy from suncoastdeals immediately sent me a new piece and a new fan blade, so I would say that customer service is outstanding.It is interesting to note that while I was testing the fan, I was sitting on my front porch at about 8:00 AM with the solar panel facing toward the house in the shade and there was enough light to cause the fan to spin. The sun was in the east and my porch is on the west side of the house. I was impressed. What this indicates to me is that this fan should still be spinning during the latter part of the day when the sun is low in the horizon and the air is cooling.The base of the fan is metal with decent thickness and the hood is made from a different material (not plastic) which appears to be of decent quality. The motor, to my surprise, is quite small, but I suppose that is the nature of the beast. From what I read, dc brushless motors are ideal for this application. Inside there is a screen attached to the supports via plastic ties. I suppose that, all in all, the fan could have been constructed with somewhat better materials, still, it seems adequate for its intended purpose and should should be reliable for many years. Considering the cost of solar fans, this is a best buy.Positioning...One of the problems with this fan, and most others, is that it needs to positioned on the roof facing south. The one exception here is that it is possible to install this on the north roof and raise the solar panel in position with the sun facing south. With a little ingenuity, I suppose the solar panel could be removed from the unit and installed in the best position. BTW, this panel can be raised to almost 90 degrees vertical from the fan body.Installation...This fan came with no instructions, but suncoastdeals provides a link to a video from "This Old house" to help in installing this fan. While there are many video examples on the net how to do this, this video, in particular, applies to this fan. The difference is that the opening in the housing on this fan is about 18 inches wide, so when this fan is used with 16 inch on center roof joists, this extra width has to be taken into consideration so that the shingles will fit around the fan base. This extra step of cutting out the shingles larger than hole in your roof wouldn't be necessary if your roof joists were at 24 inch on center.The first video is the one supplied with the fan.[...] - "This Old House"This second video is a similar installation.[...] - "Heat Blockers"The second video seems a little easier, except I would caulk around the hole before setting the fan in place and perhaps caulking under the roof shingles once the fan is installed. The first video is the best method, but I suspect that is is a little overkill for this application. Opinions, anyone?Rated CFM...This fan's cfm is rated about the same as my whole house fan and that just doesn't seem possible, but for now, I won't argue the point. I do think it moves a considerable amount of air. There is a great deal of contention about fan size in relation to attic space. The recommended size for my attic is different depending on who you ask. My thoughts on this is that too big is better than too small, as long as you have adequate intake vents. Something to consider is that your roof is absorbing heat, getting the hottest during mid day. As the sun begins to lower in the sky, it absorbs less heat, but the roof has already absorbed a great deal of heat. There is a lag time between roof temp and sun exposure. What this means is that ventilation during the evening hours is critical for removing the latent heat of the roof.My thoughts on this subject...The way it works is that the suns temperature is what it is, let's say 90 degrees. You would think that your roof would get no hotter than that, but it's all about BTU's. BTU's is a measurement of energy. The more energy, the hotter it gets. The sun puts out a lot of BTU's and the air temperature is a summation of those BTU's minus the amount reflected back into space.From a roofs perspective, the roof absorbs a great deal of energy during the day and releases it slowly. It reaches a balance between how many BTU's it is absorbing and the roofs ability to radiate energy. The problem is how we construct roofs. We use materials that have a high BTU absorption, which is not very bright, but it's how we do things today. Moving on... The heat from our roofs is radiated into the attic causing the temperature to rise, which in turn is radiated into our living space, which in turn needs to be removed with house ventilation or air conditioning. Insulation slows down the amount of BTU's transferred into the living space, but does not stop it. In an ideal world, if insulation were perfect, air conditioning would only run to remove our body heat and heat from our appliances from our homes. As we all know, this isn't so. Our major concern, in this case, is to reduce the amount of energy seeping down through our insulation into our living space. Lowing attic temperatures is one way of doing this. Another is to put a radiant barrier above the insulation. Even radiant barriers perform better if the attic is kept cool. The bottom line is that the cooler your attic, the less energy you need to cool your home.We have three ways of removing heat from the attic space, natural ventilation, forced air, and shade trees. Some claim that a naturally ventilated attic which is designed correctly works very well. I don't know, but not everyone agrees. I've been in attics that had many trees on the property and that works very well, but who has 20 or 30 years to wait for trees to grow? That leaves us with two choices, either modify our attics for natural ventilation or add forced air ventilation, or both. The only thing I know for sure is that forced ventilation will pull hot air from the attic as long as there are enough vents for incoming air to replace it. So, let's think along those lines...Ideally, the perfect scenario is attic air being drawn across the hottest part of the roof with intake vents at the lower part and forced air handlers at the top. Attics aren't designed this way, yet. For most situations, we have a big hot box. In this case, the best practical solution is to get air moving around the entire attic blowing on all surfaces and then be pulled out of the attic. Herein lies the problem with installing a forced air ventilator and why peoples results vary. Installed incorrectly with existing vents, it is possible for a attic fan to pull air directly from a nearby intake vent, which will result in very little improvement in the attic temperature. This could be compensated for by blocking some intake vents or perhaps installing baffles to redirect the air from these nearby vents to blow away from the fan. Also, if the fan is not large enough, there will be very little change is air temp. The fan has to powerful enough to remove more BTU's that the roof is radiating for a temperature drop to occur. In my opinion, the more powerful the fan, the better, as long as there are enough intake vents to accommodate the outward air flow.This brings up the question of what happens if you don't have enough intake vents. First off the amount of fresh air pulled into your attic will be reduce accordingly, perhaps to the point of making the attic fan infective. Secondly, this could create a negative pressure in your attic strong enough to pull air from your living space through gaps in your ceiling, such as light fixtures and such. In extreme cases, it could increase your cooling costs by drawing air conditioned air into the attic. The fix is simple, add more soffit vents or gable vents. I suppose that in a really extreme situation, it could draw gases into the house from water heaters and things of this nature. I have never heard of this, but it's better to do the job right than take a chance. Remember... You need enough intake vents to accommodate the amount of air being pulled out of the attic by your fan. The same applies to a whole house fan.The most important question to many people is, will this attic fan pay for itself through reduced energy use? The answer is, "it might". Some claim it has, others claim that there is no difference.There are basically two types of attic fans, one that runs off of house current (AC) and solar. An AC fan cost money to run and eventually will end up costing you more than the more expensive solar fan, assuming they both last the same. Most people that own these types of fans don't know if it saves them money, or not, but then there are people who claim to have saved a great deal of money. There is no guarantee for a payback, so don't buy it based solely on that. Many people claim that their house subjectively feels cooler and others that their air conditioner runs less often.What size fan do you need? Again, in a perfect world, the fan should bring your attic temperatures to that of the outside air. This is impossible since the whole point is that your roof is hotter than that and fresh air brought into your attic will be warmed by the heat from the roof. The more air flow into your attic, the closer to the outside temperature the attic air will get. So what's the magic number? I don't know, but it seems to me that the recommended fan size suggested by solar fan retailers is way under what it should be. I suspect that since this is a new technology and since the cost is so high, they lower the standards to get people to buy into this. As an example, for my attic, one site recommends a fan of under 400cfm while another recommends 700cfm (minimum). It's almost impossible to predict what fan to get because of all the variables. How large is your attic space? Are your roofs steep or shallow? Is you roof light or dark? What kind of ventilation does your attic have now? Are you willing to increase the amount of intake vents you have? Is your roof facing north, south, east, or west? Do you have trees? Well, you get the idea... To me, it's a no brainer, just get the biggest fan you can that matches the amount of intake vents you have....I'll update this post after I get the fan installed.
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