So I have a bit of a moisture issue in my crawl space. I've considered closing up the crawl space completely but I think that sounds like to much work and this idea below sounds more fun.
I was going to buy a 20 watt or so solar panel to power a computer fan which I've seen get as much as 200cfm rating.
My questions are how is cfm measured. Is 200cfm for a computer fan the same scale as when you talk about 200cfm moving around in your HVAC system? If so it seems that 3 or 4 of these would be enough for my entire ~1500 sqft crawl space right?
Any thoughts on if a computer fan attached to a solar panel in this fashion would last for any useful period of time?
I was going to put maybe two fans per vent on two of the vents on the back of my house so it would create negative pressure and pull air in from the front/side vents and out the back.
Best Answer
CFM: Cubic Feet per Minute. It is the same unit for both.
Note that computer fans are not rated or listed for such use or permanent installation and might not like getting wet.
I don't doubt that such a setup would work but I would test it first with some power adapters (12VDC, common for 120mm fans) before looking at solar panels. As the exact power requirements will depend on the voltage and amperage of the fans, until this is known it is not possible to say if a 20W solar panel would be sufficient for a single fan.