Whole House Fans

[BigDee]

I'm thinking about doing a whole house fan and putting a window A/C in the bedroom to run at night.

Anyone have experience doing anything like this? Opinions? Recommendations?

I got my latest electric bill and it's now running over $300 a month to keep my 3200 sqft home cool. It makes no sense to be spending this kind of money to keep all of these rooms cool when we are not in them.

[hghclsswhitetrsh]

Just make sure you crack windows to keep the reassure from oing negative. If you don't it can pull the air from the flue vent pipe bringing the combusted gases into the home. There's nice solar powered ones available.

Cheers!

[SideShow Bob]

And don't turn on the whole house fan while your fireplace or wood stove has a fire going.............ask me how I know.........

[ben4372]

I do just what you are thinking of. window unit and whole house fan works great. You could even put it on a timer. I leave mine on through the night and wake up to a cool house, then close it all up. It also blows out that hot attic air. Keep in mind you need a good bit of venting so the air can get out. lots of turtle vents or gable vents. Even without a whole house fan you should have an attic fan to cool that roof area. I also built a insulated box to cover it in the winter as those louvers are heat holes. One weekend and you'll know you did the right thing.

[Ready Room]

I grew up with whole house fans - best white noise ever!

[Tinelement]

Love ours.

It runs every night!

Go for it.

[CO Hugh]

I have a couple of neighbors that have them and they like them. One house does not have AC at all. I know one said he runs it in the evening and then the AC does not come on until about noon.

I am looking at getting one also. Check some of the comments at the home depot website. One suggestion I was told is to build a box for it so the box extends past the insulation and have a plywood cover for winter time to put over the fan.

While a bigger fan is better, if it is less than 24" to mount you won't have to cut ceiling joists, so i was told. Check yours. If bigger then you will have to cut the joists and reinforce them to put it in.

Also try additional insulation in the attic, about $300 to blow in yourself. Home Depot will loan you the blower for free with purchase of insulation. Also an attic fan either roof or gable mount is supposed to help a lot. I have neighbors that swear by them. Most of the neighbors have attic fans.

[anomad]

I had a whole house fan and two swamp coolers in New Mexico.

The whole house fan was good on cool nights or especially good at opening the kitchen window and evacuating cooking smells if you were frying something up. Overall I used the swamp coolers on fan only mode more than the whole house fan.

If I were retrofitting a house here in the Denver area for cooling I would go with a big swamp cooler in an existing window or easy wall to cut a hole in. I would have done that, but I am in a rental... So I just sweat and use a fan, natures evaporative cooling I suppose.

They also make LARGE evacuation fans that fir into a window, which may be an option for you? http://www.air-n-water.com/product/9166D.html

[gnihcraes]

Be sure you have enough attic insulation, ventilation. Sounds like it's heat soaking and you can't cool the house fast enough.

Place called Colorado Home Cooling does whole house fans. Give them a ring.
(not affiliated with them in any way)

http://www.colohomecool.com/

[rondog]

We have one, and Colorado Home Cooling installed it. I love the thing, it works great! But you have to understand their limitations. If it's blazing hot out, it can't really pull in cool air because there isn't any cool air. But if you leave the windows on the sunny side of the house closed and open the windows on the shady side, it helps.

You MUST have plenty of attic ventilation, I can't stress this enough! CHC will put the vents in, he knows all about this. A big fan blowing into your attic will move a lot of air, and it has to be able to exit or you'll just pressurize the attic and kill the airflow. The venting needs to be capable of letting out all of the air the fan pushes in.

You can tune the airflow in your house by only opening certain windows, like the shady side windows in the day, and the bedroom windows at night. It gets so cool here in the nighttime, you won't need to run an a/c at all. The fan will make it downright chilly in the house. Or if you need to "flush" the heat out of a room or area, leave everything closed and only open the windows/doors in that area.

Opening all the windows in the house wide open isn't as effective as you might think, it's better to open them just a little. The fan will only move so much air, and making it have to suck in a little at each window tends to increase the airflow. Everything wide open and yeah, it'll move air, but there's so much volume available it slows down the airflow and feels like it's not doing anything. Just crack everything a couple inches and it feels more breezy inside.

And if it's going to be a scorcher, use the fan to suck in as much cool air in the morning as possible until it starts warming up outside, then shut off the fan and close up the house, and set the a/c thermostat. The a/c may not come on for quite awhile if you've cooled the house down enough first.

Overall, I highly recommend one! Get the big 36" 2-speed one, you won't regret it. Hi/low is a nice feature to have. And belt drive is quieter than direct drive. Also, have a pro install it, you won't regret that either. Ryan did a great job and it didn't take him long, but he does them all the time.

Oh, forgot to mention ceiling fans. Good quality 52", 3-speed ceiling fans help a lot too! One in each bedroom and one in the living room, they'll stir up nice breezes even if the air's hot. And if you have something generating cool air like a/c or a swamp cooler, they're even better.