writes:

Thanks to you and the others who replied.

My brother did something like this and it worked like a champ.

The house was a ranch with attic access from the garage. He just
placed a box fan in the opening and had the fan blow downwards into the
garage. We're in a 8800 dd climate and he found that it worked best in
the spring / fall.

This was done mainly as an experiment, but it did work and I recall
that quite a lot of heat was available. If one wanted to do it
"right", I would envision a system with a thermostatic
switch/thermostat, ducting to pull the heat from the top of attic, to
floor level (heat rises), possibly a filter and some kind of high temp
cutoff (fire safety). Plus you'd need to think of some kind of return
duct as just blowing heat from the attic would result in some
pressurization of the house, that air needs to go somewhere...

I'd encourage some experimentation first. (cheap fans and some flexy
duct snaking through the house).

Any suggestions for a source and size for ducted fans?


From: "buffalobill"

buffalo ny: garage air due to car exhaust concerns is usually required
to be isolated from the home. i would put money into insulating the
attic to retain the home's heat.

The garage is already insulated.

for your complete answers: http://www.buildingscience.com/resources/

I'll look into this.

From:

Good idea. For more heat, you might replace a south roof with transparent
polycarbonate Dynaglas greenhouse roofing material, which comes in 4'x12'
corrugated sheets and costs about $1/ft^2 and lasts about 20 years.

I live in the Mojave Desert. I don't need any more heat,
especially in July and August :-)