Solar powered roof fans?

[prairiewind2]

Does anyone have experience with these? We just bought a horse property in Florida and the concrete barn needs a new roof. Roofer suggested installing a couple of these fans during the roofing. I’ve looked into solar roof fans and they get mixed reviews for houses but I can’t find much about open barns.

Barn has a center aisle that faces north/south with stalls on the western (hottest) side. It has a hip roof. Stalls open to paddocks with Dutch doors. Stalls have overhead fans but that seems a little inefficient to me since they would either be pulling down hot air from the ceiling (going in one direction) or be mixing cooler air from the floor up into the ceiling and then moving the hot air around the barn. So we probably won’t use those fans and will instead blow a biggish fan from the north door down the cooler concrete aisle, diverting some of that air into stalls with low-placed smaller fans. We wonder if the roof fans could make a significant difference overall.

We live in the frigid north now so hot, humid Florida is a totally new world for us!

[Bluey]

Also consider the dust problem you may have, provide for air currents not to be dust carriers.

[prairiewind2]

Thanks, Bluey. That is an excellent thought. I hope we’ll be OK because the north end of the barn opens to a small cement pad and then a grassy area - so with luck we won’t be blowing in too much dust. Good aisle management should help too.

[OTTBs]

I got a solar roof fan on the garage last year. I’m not crazy about it being on for these freezing cold days of late. I’m wondering if a cut off switch is possible. Not sure if FL will present this problem. I do think my garage was cooler this summer (it had no venting before, now has the fan and a ridge vent.)

[FitToBeTied]

Since you are replacing the roof, you could put a cupola on with an exhaust fan in it. They make some pretty powerful ones and it will draw dust up and out. You can put it on a switch in the barn aisle and turn it off and on when you want.

[prairiewind2]

Thanks so much for your replies. I’ll check with the roofer to see if there can be any sort of a control put on the fans so they can be turned off, if needed. But it sure sounds as if the fans might have helped your garage!

As far as the cupola goes - I’m a little nervous putting anything that sticks up high on a roof in hurricane country. I know I’ve seen some cupolas in Florida but I would be worried to death. LOL But - there are probably powered fans (not solar) with low profiles that might accomplish about the same thing as a cupola. Thank you for the idea. I’ll check it out!