I have a new shop. I need to create some airflow. I bought an 84” residential style fan - it’s pretty light weight. I’m going to mount it to the bottom of the center truss. My question is, should I do any bracing to the adjacent trusses? I want to minimize any vibration created by the fan, but I also don’t want to transfer vibration to the other trusses that will have light fixtures on them. I think vibrating lights could be nauseating. What do you guys think?
Vibrating lights is really annoying. Probably not nauseating for most folks, but really annoying. If you have 7 trusses (photo only shows 6) put the lights on the 2nd one from each end then the bracing would go from the 3rd one from each end to the center one and you should be good on all fronts. Otherwise, I'd hang the fan with no bracing and see how it behaves before bracing to the ones with lights.
That’s a good point. I could always add the bracing afterward if needed. There are 7 trusses total.
I mean worst case scenario is you need to take down the fan for access to install the bracing afterwards, but you might be able to get away with removing a couple of fan blades if you have to add bracing after the fact.
If your fan is managing to put enough energy through guy wires to vibrate lights on adjacent trusses, I'd be spending time looking at balancing the blades better.
Hmmm. Guy wires. I was thinking bracing with some of the leftover metal the building guys gave me or with wood. But guy wires are another option.
Unistrut between two joist and mount a electrical junction box to it. At least thats where I would start.
I ran a cross brace between 2 trusses. This let me position the fan a bit more optimally as well. It pushes air pretty well and vibration is nada!
Thinking out loud..... I saw end plates on some nice-looking massive industrial fans blades in a warehouse. Future mod for the fan? Fan modding might be a good new forum
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