wrote in message
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On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 08:05:57 -0500, "John Grabowski"
wrote:

Many many years ago my grandmother had a fancy device for utilizing the
hot
air in her walk-up attic to dry clothes. I think the technical term for
it
was "Clothes Line".


That is the right idea but with a 3:12 attic you could only hang
Barbie clothes

The reason I am considering this is the attic cruises at 130 f and the
house is air conditioned. By using the house air I am paying to cool
it down, then paying to heat it back up again at the same time that
getting unused hot air out of the attic is a problem.

I understand what you are trying to accomplish and it is a good idea to make
use of the hot air. However to retrofit an existing structure may be more
costly than the savings gain as well as being unattractive. You should look
into solar houses and structures like that which are designed from the
ground up to utilize the natural forces for heating and cooling.

Having spent many days in hot attics on wiring jobs I can tell you from
experience that the only thing that I have seen that brings a residential
attic down to a decent temperature is a whole house fan. The homeowners who
have them love them. On hot days when there is low humidity they turn on
the whole house fan, open the windows and the house is quite comfortable.
Those roof mounted mushroom fans help somewhat to bring the temperature
down, but the attic is still hot.