Attic Shutter

In Texas, the attic becomes unbearably hot in the summer. Since I am constantly crawling around the attic, running wire or adding electric to support home automation, I'd like the attic to be less hot.

Eaves and vents are designed to vent the hot air out of the attic, but this is very ineffective.

In my previous home, I added a fan to one of the vents. My goals was to reduce my air conditioning costs. However, I did this before I was doing any home automation work. The fan had an auto on/off feature, which eventually broke. I did not notice any signifcant change in my electric bill, and I did not have the monitoring devices to determine if there was any change in AC usage. So, I abandoned an attic fan as a solution.

My house has two windows in the attic. They are papered over with black paper.

I thought it might be interesting to create an automated window shutter with the following features:

• • Replace the glass window with a metal mesh screen with a external decorative white muntins (muntins = the white wood trim that divides the window into smaller panes)

  • Add movable shutters that are controlled by a stepper motor and a Raspberry Pi

    • The movable shutters are right behind the metal mesh screen

    • A Raspberry Pi senses the temperature and automatically adjusts the shutters

    • In hot weather, the vents are open with slight downward slope to allow air to flow and prevent rain from entering

    • In cool weather, the vents are closed

  • The Raspberry Pi is power by a PoE ethernet cable

  • The window is put on the back of the shutter facing the garage to form a tighter seal than can be provided by the shutter

    • The window opens and closes automatically and is also controlled by the Raspberry Pi

  • Because the attic is dusty, the Raspberry Pi must be in a case with no vents. The case should be the heat sink.