I would love to put together (not right now, but when I have the time, I swear!
) an automated climate control system, and everything seems to be present on the hardware side with cheap temperature sensors and some X10 junk or similar, as well as *nix based software, so automated control of fans and other on/off systems seems to very doable and reasonably priced. The only thing I can't find is motors to drive vents/windows, so I could for instance automatically have a window open on a summer morning before sunrise and the whole house fan suck all the cool air in, then shut-off the fan/close up the window automatically too. Or maybe have solar thermal collectors and vents that will open or close depending on the temperature in the collectors during winter.
All the home automation stuff for windows I've seen is horrendously expensive ($300+) and a bit on the small side. I could conceivably run a few used garage door openers, although that would be a bit kludgy/oversized, so does anyone know of any other cheap, small to medium sized UL approved electric motors I could use for opening and closing windows/vents?