whole house fan

[Mom to Brandon and 2 cats]

Anybody have a whole house fan? What do you like about it? Is it noisy? Does it keep the house cool? I understand that you can't turn it on until the outside temperature is cooler than inside - is that usually a long time to wait?

We live in a mild climate, CA, so I'm wondering if this is a good alternative to AC. Seems like at most we'd use the AC maybe 15x/year.

Thanks for your input!

[missym]

We installed one a few years ago and are happy with it. Although it sounds kind of like an airplane taking off, it does circulate all the air in the house within a short time. I think it's too loud to leave on all the time, but I'm sensitive to noise like that. It is great in the evening when it cools outside but the house is still stuffy.

One downside to ours is that we're on a crawlspace, and the fan is powerful enough that it pulls musty-smelling air from there into the house. That dissipates within a few minutes, though.

Missy, mom to Gwen 03/03 and Rebecca 09/05

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[ColorBlue]

We have a whole house fan that I love. It really cuts down on the nights that we need air-conditioning because it keeps the air flowing through the entire house. Our is in our attic and we can turn it on and off anytime we want so its not tied to temperature. Its also good for the attic because then hot air doesn't build up up there which is good for the house and also helps to keep rest of the house cooler. I think the ones that automatically come on or off are tied to temperature. I wouldn't want to have it automatic. As to noise, as I said its in the attic, we have a two story house plus attic and basement. The fan is on right now and I'm on the first floor, I cannot hear it. I can hear it when I"m on the second floor but its really just a hum.

Ours is installed in the side of the house not like some others in the floor of the attic. I think this helps to cool things down because it pulls the air through the attic to the outside.

HTH.


Tracy

[wencit]

We live in CA too, although where I live (Tri-Valley in SF Bay Area), it gets pretty darn warm in the summer time. Basically, it draws in the air from outside and circulates it through the house, so that's why you wait until the outside temperature is cooler than the inside. When I was working, I would come home in the summer months and turn on the house fan, and it would cool down my home in about 30 minutes. That's a lot faster than our A/C. Occasionally we have days when the temperature doesn't cool down by 7PM or so, and that's when we run the A/C; however, that don't happen very often. I'd say I use the house fan much more than the A/C, just because it works so much faster.

Regarding the noise, it has two speed settings, and when it's on the higher setting and I'm upstairs, I can definitely hear it. I'd call it loud. On the lower setting, it's tolerable, and when I'm downstairs, I can barely hear it. I usually run it on the higher setting for a few minutes to quickly draw in lots of cool air, and then switch to the lower setting for continuous cooling.

My parents live in Silicon Valley, where the summer temps are a little milder than where I am, and I definitely think a house fan would be a nice alternative to A/C. (Although not today, when it's supposed to hit 95 degrees!)

[Mom to Brandon and 2 cats]

Thanks,
your reply is most helpful, as I'm located in the SF Bay Area, actually, the heart of Silicon Valley!

[alkagift]

I live in Georgia and used to have one and really liked it. I wanted to mention that it's possible (not saying I know for sure) that the really noisy ones that the others mentioned are older. We had an old one and replaced it and the noise level was like night and day--it was awesome. Very powerful fan, too, so it did a great job. Good for nighttime.

Allison
Mommy to Matthew Clayton, 5/19/03

[hez]

I grew up in a house with a whole house fan. Ours was set up to draw air from inside the house up through the attic and outside-- so no musty air issues- all the air entering the house was fresh from outside through whatever doors & windows were open. I remember it being on a lot at dinner time and through the evening. I don't remember it being on during the day-- we kept the shades down a lot to keep it darker/cooler in the house.

Mom & Dad had the fan set with a timer and variable speed. Kinda loud upstairs, but pretty effective as a white noise generator at bedtime. If we weren't careful about how we left doors, they occasionally slammed shut. And if we didn't have enough windows or doors open, it would pull air from the chimney-- get a sooty smell in the house. I learned a little physics experimenting with speeds and window openings and so forth. Side benefit.

In HS I didn't like that I had to keep my door open at night to be cool in the summer-- privacy thing. I remember rearranging my room to angle my bed to get the best breeze under the window.

My parents finally gave in two or three years ago and installed central AC. They're on the west side of Cleveland-- so more moderate than some areas, but can still get hot & humid. The AC's helping mom's asthma now.

[shilo]

interesting. we have a whole house fan and it did not seem to help _at all_ upstairs until like 10pm when it was much cooler outside than in. it did help some downstairs, but of course that didn't get anywhere near as hot. we would have to open all the windows in addition to running the fan and there had to be at least a 10 degree difference between inside and outside temp for it to make a dent on the upstairs temp. we installed ac last summer after ds was born and we were all having trouble sleeping with the heat.

to op since we live in the same town :)... we used a company called Mechanical Air. dh chose them because they were the only ones who were 'certified' by some sort of national watch-dog group in our area. the bid was about $200 more than most of the others we got, but dh felt this extra certification meant they would do a better assessment of our needs and a better install. well long story short, i'm really dissapointed by the overall outcome. 1) i kept smelling gas in the garage intermittently after the install - i called pg&e, they came out and checked, and sure enough, they hadn't properly reconnected/sealed a gas line when they had to remove it to put the a/c unit in. 2) we get lousy air flow in the master bedroom. we had asked them to fully evaluate our existing ducting (we were already wired and ducted) before we proceeded with the project, and they assured us that given the unit and install they were recommending, that it would be the right coverage for the house. not to say it doesn't help, but it's just annoying to have put money into it and have it still be sub-par. anyway, i wouldn't give my rec. to use them, fwiw.

lori
Sam 5/19/05 How lucky I am that you chose me.

[jennifer_r]

We had one at our old house and I also had one at the house I grew up in. Believe it or not, it really works. I'm in NJ so the summer gets really hot here and we turned it on only at night and it really cooled down the house so much that it got cold. Ours was original to the house ('68) so it's an older model so the noise level (tho it was very quiet) and other features should be improved on by now. FWIW, ours was in the attic.

I would discuss this with people in your area to see how it works cooling their homes.

Jennifer

Mom to:
Christopher 12/29/89
Adelaide 8/23/04
Bronwyn 11/9/05

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