I think I would do an oscillating wall mount fan mounted over the door into the house

Wall mount. That generally does a better job cooling than overhead and also keeps bugs down. We've a 30" Air King on our porch that we use frequently. The larger fan allows us to run it on low so we get more airflow for less noise.

Thanks for the recommendations! I don’t know why I never considered a wall mount on the brick wall above the patio door — in my mind, I was always trying to mount it to the roof structure. Mounting it to the brick wall means that I wouldn’t have to see the fan when looking out the patio door, which is ideal! I’m also glad to hear that a wall-mount gives better airflow.

Should I consider two wall-mount fans on the wallC or is one sufficient? I presume that the would oscillate to give good coverage, but two fans might be an even nicer flow?

Thanks!

In my limited experience the outdoor wall mount fans are very powerful.

Hi Bryan, we’re planning a new, covered patio, and I’d like to know, what did you decide … one or two oscillating fans? I love your idea that wall mounted fans can’t be seen from indoors, and I need to keep bugs from entering our patio doors. Please let me know if you went with one or two fans, and if you have a brand/product recommendation. Thank you!

Hey! I ended up going with two Kichler wall mount fans. I think one would have been sufficient for airflow, but I like symmetry so I needed two haha! I ended up mounting them on my artificial hedge instead of my brick wall, and with the bronze colour it blends in pretty well. The flow of the two fans cross each other so I don’t need to use the oscillation feature, and it kept a group of 15 of us comfortable on a hot day. I think they were about $500 CAD each, but these aren’t like your indoor fans — they’re really heavy and seem high quality 🙂 I have pics from my final build below. Good luck!

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6326475/back-yard-complete-overhaul-before-and-after

Wow! What a beautiful area! Thanks for the info on your fans. They look great, and it was a great idea to mount them on your hedge … they look good there and blend in. I too am a “fan” of symmetry (pun intended), and I want to mounted on the brick wall of our home for comfort and also to keep bugs from entering our patio doors. Thanks again for your help :)

Sorry to be a bug, yet your hedge is so attractive and could possibly solve a less-than-desirable view problem I have. What is the product name, where did you buy it, and how has it held up?

Hey! It’s pretty simple to build the artificial hedge — that entire area was actually an afterthought, since I used to have a row of cedars there as a privacy screen, but I had to remove them because the roof overhang was larger than expected. But it actually worked out well, because then I worked in the buffet and storage area that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

I’ve seen artificial foliage panels available in lots of places (like Amazon, Wayfair, Home Depot, etc.), but I bought mine from a reputable arterial turf supplier in Toronto called Rymar (which is also where I bought my turf). I didn’t want to cheap out on the panels, since it’s a bit of work to put everything together and it would suck if they faded over time due to UV light exposure! I guess time will tell, but I’ve been through two winters already and the panels still look brand new 🙂

Building the hedge was pretty straightforward:

1.) Framed in a pressure-treated stud wall

2.) Clad the studs in pressure-treated plywood.

3.) Stained the plywood dark green (as an added layer of protection from the elements, and so that any plywood seen through the foliage blends in).

4.) I bought stainless steel Arrow staples to ensure that they won’t rust over time. I used a Milwaukee sharpie pen to colour the staples black, so that they’re more discreet.

5.) I set the pressure of my pneumatic Arrow staple gun so that it’s perfect to attach the foliage panels to some plywood. You can play around with some test material, but you want enough pressure to firmly attach to the wood, but not so much pressure that the staple cuts through the ribbing/grid of the foliage.

6.) Using the staple gun, I stapled the 20x20” foliage panels directly to the plywood “canvas”. This part takes time, but it’s kind of relaxing mindless work and fun to see the progress haha! I did one 20x20 foliage panel at a time, and worked my way from top to bottom. For each new panel, I’d just snap it into the neighbouring panels and go crazy with the staple gun, putting lots of staples to firmly attach the foliage grid to the plywood. It’s not as picky as you’d expect — you can always staple little pieces of footage to fill holes and work around stuff like the fan mounts. You can step a few meters back from your work every once in a while to check for consistency. One tip is that for my 90-degree edges and corners, I didn’t simply bend the foliage over the edge. That might have been faster (and how I usually see it done), but it looks bad in my opinion. I think it’s best to have a separate foliage piece on each surface that meets so that they meet at a clean 90-degree angle — this way it’ll look like you trimmed the hedge perfectly square.

Some links for materials:

Foliage Panels:

https://shop.rymar.ca/product/envywall-boxwood-lite/

Staple Gun:

https://www.homedepot.ca/product/arrow-pneumatic-t50-staple-gun/1000829391

Here are a few more pics — one is in progress (after staining the plywood, and before attaching the foliage). The other two pics show how I tried to make it look like a real hedge from the neighbour’s side, since I like my neighbours haha 😂

You are so kind and helpful! Thank you so much for all the tips, links and pics! What a beautiful area you built … I’m confident your neighbors are thrilled to have you living next door!

No problem, happy to help! And thanks for the comments — it was a long process with a lot of learning! 👍

Hello! Our new patio and gabled roof project planning is near completion, and I’m back here to ask if you’ll please give me your input on wall mounted fans. My husband had a conversation with a neighbor who said that an oscillating fan that’s mounted on the exterior wall will cause loud vibration noise inside the home. I think it’s possible that our neighbor’s experience could have been a result of an unstable mounting job, but I want to ask, what is your experience? The exterior wall on our home where I’d like the fans mounted is brick and mortar. Thoughts please. Thank you so much!

Hey there! Sorry, I can't really provide much feedback on that since my fans are mounted to my artificial hedge that's separate from my house. They're certainly powerful and I'm guessing any potential vibration into the house would be similar to a wall-mounted air conditioner unit. I'm guessing that it would probably present more as white noise than something that's truly unbearable, and when you're using the fan you're probably not in the house anyways haha!