OK just did the climb, and it was a nightmare. The unit is rated a 4.3 Amp at 120 volts. So that 4.3 amp is the starting amperage, not the running amperage. So a guess a current sensing relay of 3-4 amps would do. Now to find a small unit. And see which contact sensor has terminals to wire the relay to. Is there one you suggest?
Cheapest I know of are the EcoLink ones. Think around $25 for Z-wave plus. For the current sensing relay yes most are adjustable. Something like this would work:
Allan I think I will decide soon, but this is the one that I think will work easier as it is a pass through no large clamp. This will fit inside a standard deep 1900 box. Let me know what you think.
Current Sensing Relay
Yeah that would work fine if you don’t mind having to rewire.
Minor rewiring job and it will be inside the box as the box installed is very deep. Actually way too deep. The clamp on would work great usually the clamps are large. But since no measurements are shown I am not sure.
You could install a Qubino relay such as the Flush one as it has wattage reporting:
The @TheSmartestHouse may have other ideas too.
Would you use WebCoRE to determine on or off?
Yes or a custom app. You would need to monitor wattage usage to determine values when on or off and set accordingly. Really no different than community apps to monitor laundry.
Yeah! I have one for that and it works great. I am ordering something today or tomorrow.
At this point why not just put in a standard outlet and plug the fan into a standard smart plug? 4.3 amps is well under the rating of most (all?) smart plugs and its a on/off so it would be fine for a fan. If its hard wired you can easily use a old computer power plug, cut the end off, and hard wire that in then plug it into the outlet.
Not allowed in his jurisdiction:
There’s a lot of research that says power attic ventilators actually RAISE your cooling bill because they don’t pull cold air from the outside, they end up pulling your air conditioned air up from the house. So, maybe just shut it down completely and save even more money.
http://www.oransi.com/page/attic-power-ventilator
These are just two of MANY articles on the subject of attic exhaust fans.
I did my own little test on this to see if my Attic Fan saved me anything on my cooling bill. What I notices is, yes, my temps in the attic went down however, my air did run even more. So in my case, I’ve turned off the attic fan for good and only use it when I have to go up there and it’s way too hot.
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[quote=“Ryan780, post:33, topic:139912”]
There’s a lot of research that says power attic ventilators actually RAISE your cooling bill because they don’t pull cold air from the outside, they end up pulling your air-conditioned air up from the house. So, maybe just shut it down completely and save even more money.
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Interesting article, but that depends on the quality of construction. When, my home was built it was built to be extremely energy efficient. After, I moved in I had a problem where I was not feeling well often. I went to doctors and more doctors and found nothing. My neighbor moved in after me, and he to felt ill. He also went to the doctor and found nothing. I spoke to my allergist, and he suggested I have a test done on the house. Well it came back as what is called sick house syndrome. That is a general term as I understand. The cause was that my home is too well sealed. When I heard this I laughed, and asked the two environmental inspectors what do I do? My neighbor hired a different company and had the same result. Long story short I had to install a computer control to allow fresh air into the system when either heat or AC is on or humidity reaches a certain point in the summer. Again I didn’t believe this. But my wife said get a consultant in. We did and were told the price, and we were told if this doesn’t work we will get our money back minus the consulting fee. Well we did the job. And my problems went away within three days. My neighbor followed and is well to. During the test the consultant took a variety of tests and also found that there was heat transfer between the ceiling and the attic as we have a vaulted ceiling. He setup a fan in the attic gable 1500 CFM and the temperature transfer dropped a huge amount. He recommended an Air Vent Model 15 and I had it installed. I measure attic temperature and humidity and have found both drop a huge amount when the fan is operating. There is both a thermostat and Humidistat on the exhaust fan. So I swear by this fan, and so do all my neighbors in the development.
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Yeah…we have a newer home (built 4 years ago) and one of our bathroom exhausts upstairs was set to run so many minutes per day for the same reason, sick house syndrome. It has settings for how many people and the sq footage of the house and based on that it figures out how long it should run each day. You can even add sensor switches to the other exhaust fans so it counts their run-time against what it should do in a day and uses the house electrical as communication.
With that said I replaced all bathroom exhaust fan switches with GE z-wave on/offs and schedule them all on for a little bit each day to do the same thing.
Wouldn’t a whole house fan work better?
The original was made by Broan and part of their “SmartSense” system. Per stuff online:
“Broan SmartSense® is the smart choice to meet local and whole-house requirements of ASHRAE Standard 62.2 and other related guidelines (including building codes derived from the ASHRAE standard).”
So its a relatively cheap and easy way to meet code regulations. Every house in our development (same developer) has one…you can tell because the exhaust on the side of the house has a different look then the other exhaust fans.
No Ryan, the two systems are completely different. A whole house fan ventilates the house by drawing air in through the windows at a imprecise way. Also, the air is unfiltered. A fresh air ventilation system works with you sealed heating/AC system to bring in a certain amount of fresh air to turn over the volume needed.
Yes my home has a Broan in the bathroom which goes on automatically with humidity. I love the Broan.