Crawl space ventilation system
AssigneeTB&B Partners
InventorTimothy A. Reese
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A fan unit being suspended from a building floor structure within a crawl space. The fan unit includes a fan, a fan motor, an inlet grill, a discharge plenum and an outlet grill. A timer connected in the power supply activates the fan motor at periodic predetermined time intervals to move the crawl space air through the fan unit. The fan unit is located and orientated to create a negative pressure to pull air into the crawl space through wall inlet grills and to also create a positive pressure to force air out of the crawl space through wall outlet grills. An outside humidity sensor can be used to insure the outside air has a lower percent humidity than that desired in the crawl space and an inside humidity sensor is used to turn the fan unit off if the crawl space humidity is below an acceptable limit.
Claims11
A ventilation system for a building crawl space to reduce the moisture content of enclosed air within walls of the crawl space, said system comprising:
- a fan unit having a fan operated by an electrical motor and suspended from the building floor structure and centrally located and orientated within the crawl space;
- said fan unit includes at least one inlet grill, a discharge plenum and an outlet grill for moving air within the crawl space through said fan unit to establish relatively high and low pressure areas within the crawl space;
- inlet vents in the walls, adjacent to low pressure areas relative to outside ambient air pressures, allow for movement of relatively low moisture content outside ambient air into the crawl space;
- outlet vents in the walls, adjacent to high pressure areas relative to outside ambient air pressures, allow for movement of relatively higher moisture content within the crawl space to the exterior of the crawl space;
- and
- a timer unit manually set to transmit a first electrical signal to a control switch to activate said motor for ventilation time periods that are set to optimally reduce the moisture content of the crawl space air.
A multiple ventilation system for at least one crawl space under a building structure with exterior wall vents to reduce the moisture content of the air within the crawl space, said multiple system comprising:
- a timer unit associated with the at least one crawl space that is manually set to transmit a first electrical signal for ventilation time periods that are determined to optimally reduce the moisture content of the air in a respective crawl space;
- an outside humidity sensor to determine the percent moisture value of the ambient air and generate a second electrical signal to indicate the ambient air moisture value and a first logic circuit to compare said percent moisture value with a predetermined first threshold limit value;
- a fan unit having a fan operated by an electrical motor and suspended from the building structure and centrally located and orientated within said at least one crawl space;
- said fan unit includes at least one inlet grill, a discharge plenum, an outlet grill and an outlet baffle for moving air within the main crawl space through said fan unit to establish relatively high and low pressure areas within a respective crawl space, so that air flows in and out of the respective crawl space through respective exterior wall vents;
- and
- a controller unit associated with each crawl space having a main switch, at least one control logic circuit and a control switch that receives said first and second electrical signals, wherein the first electrical signal is transmitted to said control switch to activate the fan motor when the outside ambient air humidity is above the first threshold limit value and to turn the fan motor off when the outside ambient air humidity is above the first threshold limit value.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.