WHAT IS A WHOLE HOUSE FAN?
A whole house fan is a simple method of cooling a house. The fan works by drawing cool outdoor air inside through open windows and then exhausts the hot air inside the room through the attic to the outside. This results in improved evaporative cooling, excellent ventilation, lower indoor temperatures, and most importantly lower summer electric bills. A whole house fan can lower the temperature of a room by 3C in just a few minutes A whole house fan can be used as the only means of cooling a home or combined with central air conditioner to help cool the house more quickly. The biggest advantage of a whole-house fan is the cost. It can reduce your cooling costs by 30 percent. Most of the times, the outside air temperature and humidity determine the time when the whole house fan is favorable over air conditioning. The best time to use the whole house fan is when outside temperatures are below 30C. However, as moving air feels cooler than its actual temperature, running the fan at higher t
Whole house fans are fans that are mounted to your attic floor above a hallway. A hole is cut in your drywall ceiling above your hallway and a white shutter is mounted over the cut hole. The whole house fan pulls a breeze through your home from open windows. You can use whole house fans in lieu of your air conditioner.
Quite simply, a whole house fan cools a structure by pushing hot air out through attic vents and drawing cooler, fresh air inside through open doors and windows. The fan cools a house by using the temperature difference between the inside and outside air, and can never make the temperature lower than that of the outside air. This means you should only run the whole house fan when the temperature outside is lower than the house’s inside temperature. Nights and early morning are the best times to run the fan and lower the overall temperature in your home. (Note: Adequate attic ventilation is required for a whole house fan to work efficiently. See Side Note at bottom for more information.) Install the Fan The first step in installing a whole house fan is to select a unit that has the proper cfm (cubic feet of air per minute) rating for the size of your house. Available units range from 1,000- to 3,000-square-foot capacity. For our 2,100-square-foot project house we selected the HV 1600 Go
Cooling and ventilating a typical residential building is not easy. One could open several windows and hope a cooling breeze passes through the building, but it’s more likely a swarm of outdoor insects will find the openings first. Standard electrical fans might cause currents of air to flow, but it will be the same stale air without ventilation. Air conditioning units can provide cooling and ventilation, but they can also be very noisy and expensive to operate. One economical solution to both cooling and ventilation problems is a whole house fan. A whole house fan works on the principle of ventilation. Early whole house fan models were very similar to stand-alone electric fans, except they were ceiling-mounted in a wooden frame over a foyer or common area. Fresh air would be drawn in from vents cut into the outside walls of the attic. A wall switch would allow the homeowner to turn on the whole house fan in an individual area, or all of the fan units at once. This early design proved
A. Sometimes whole house fans are called attic fans. However, the whole house fan is an entirely different concept. Whole house fans draw air in through the windows of the house and blow hot house air out through the attic. Of course a whole house fan would never be used simultaneously with an air conditioner.
