On Jul 31, 3:10*pm, Eric in North TX wrote:
On Jul 30, 11:29*pm, z wrote:





this had been bugging me for a while. roof-mushroom style attic fan
with junction-box style adjustable thermostat, looks pretty old and
like it had been maintained periodically by drunken chimps, wrong
sized sheet metal screws sticking out, etc; making me suspicious.
attic seemed overly warm on summer days. usual 1950s attic insulation,
i.e. less than currently recommended, meaning hot attic generating hot
house.

so, stuck a remote reading outdoor thermometer *up there. gets up to
120+. seemed too high. took second look at fan setup. despite physical
appearance, seemed to be working OK every time I check on it. fan
capacity OK. twiddled around with thermostat settings, figured maybe
somebody had screwed up the calibration. remote thermometer still
showing 120+ up there on hot day. look at fan some more, it's running
OK every time I check. maybe thermostat is intermittent? finally wire
up boom box to thermostat and turn it up loud so i can tell from
downstairs when thermostat is opening and closing, with remote
thermometer to indicate temperature

answer comes very quickly when i come down from attic. turns out fan
is wired to attic light switch in hallway near attic hatch/ladder.
soon as i get down and turn the attic light off, music stops. turn
light on, music starts again. this, despite big clearly labeled (and
working) fan shutoff switch in attic.

haha.

I did that on my first house on purpose. I had no thermostat, just a
squirrel cage from a furnace blowing out through a grille in the end
of the attic. We used it as a whole house fan, it was a walk in attic,
so to operate it, you blocked the door open and turned on the light
switch. The draft was powerful enough to suck the door shut, and it
kept the house nice and cool, but that was Northern Ohio, I doubt that
would work in Texas. The light was put on a pull chain in case you
actually needed to go up there.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Wired up an outside motion sensor light last year. It's on same end of
house as the electric service entrance, so the main circuit breaker
panel is down below in basement.
So ran a three wire (Plus ground conductor) #12 AWG straight up from
the basement; and since it was on the surface through a closet used
armoured cable. The light uses white/black and ground. The red is
currently spare.
Idea was to use the extra wire to either trigger some more lights (the
capacity of the motion sensor is 500 watts, incandescent!) or through
a transformer to operate a buzzer to indicate that someone was or had
been around that end of the house in the dark and triggered the light.
Or both.
However now glad that I did because probably going to use the extra
(red) wire to operate an attic fan during the few short weeks it is
hot enough to warrant it. With a switch down below and/or a thermostat
in the attic. Let's see unlike an electric heating one the thermostat
will have to switch ON (not OFF) when temperature reaches a certain
setting.
I've been painting, the eaves and fascia of the house in current days
and the amount of heat out of the fairly numerous and distributed
vents around the soffits and end of the gables is very noticeable.