Ventilating my storage building

[Captain Spaulding]

I have a metal storage building for our RV. It has 16’ eaves and only the roof is insulated. I am planning to insulate the sidewalls.

The building gets hot. I’d like to ventilate it, but I don’t want it open all of the time to avoid condensation during the shoulder seasons.

Building is used only for parking the RV and some associated equipment. 14x14 door in one gable end with a man door in a side wall. No windows or vents at all now.

In my mind, the perfect setup would be a small powered fan with louvers, paired with a set of louvers at the other end, all operated by thermostat.

But that is pretty complicated.

Maybe more practical would be a thermostatically controlled fan in one gable end with a switch to turn it off, paired with some kind of manual vent in the other gable end that I could open when the summer heat hits.

Anybody have any thoughts? Crazy ideas are welcome too, as they make me feel more normal and entertain us all!

 

[nadogail]

Why not a thermal switch controlling a fan that will push the louvers open with the air blast?

 

[Captain Spaulding]

Why not a thermal switch controlling a fan that will push the louvers open with the air blast?

That will work great for exhaust, but what about an inlet?

 

[nh_yota]

That will work great for exhaust, but what about an inlet?

Easy. You wire a thermostat to a contactor that opens two motorized dampers - one on each gable end of the building - and also turns on a fan mounted to one of the dampers.

 

[matt_i]

I have a metal storage building for our RV. It has 16’ eaves and only the roof is insulated. I am planning to insulate the sidewalls.

I snipped that part out because it seems somewhat pointless to insulate if there's no "forced heating or cooling".

So here's a wild idea for you. What about a standard lawn sprinkler which can reach most of the roof. When conditions are proper, you turn it on and allow the water to remove the heat from the metal roofing. As it dries the evaporation will remove even more heat. Somewhat dependent on relative humidity but assuming typical "cool water" of 70F or less there's a pretty big delta T and the water has a very high specific heat capacity.

It seems like the control sequence from thermostat/electrical to water/mechanical is more complicated but something like a Red Hat Asco valve would easily do the work.

 

[dcg9381]

Easy. You wire a thermostat to a contactor that opens two motorized dampers - one on each gable end of the building - and also turns on a fan mounted to one of the dampers.

Meh. Simple gable fans setup push/pull with thermostats. Don't with anything electromechanical to open the dampers, let the air do it. Thermostats are about $20 at Home Depot.

 

[nh_yota]

Meh. Simple gable fans setup push/pull with thermostats. Don't with anything electromechanical to open the dampers, let the air do it. Thermostats are about $20 at Home Depot.

That works too - I just have a preference for the motorized ones.

 

[Hank11]

I'd start with fixed gable end vents. Fairly large ones. Let the heat rise and do the work. Insect screening in the vents would be a good idea.

 

[K'ledgeBldr]

Anything mechanical means it will fail at some point.

Just use convection- install a ridge vent and open the eves/soffit.