Whole-house fan
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A whole-house fan is a type of fan installed in a building's ceiling, designed to pull hot air out of the building. It is sometimes confused with an attic fan.
A whole-house fan pulls hot air out of a building and forces it into the attic space. This causes a positive pressure in the attic forcing air out through the gable and/or soffit vents, while at the same time producing a negative pressure inside the living areas which draws cool air in through open windows.
Attic fans, by comparison, only serve to remove some hot air from the attic; no direct cooling effect is provided to the actual living space.
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[edit] Benefits
A whole-house fan can significantly lower the temperature in a building very quickly, and is much less expensive to operate than air conditioning. Newer whole house fans can be environmentally friendly and energy efficient additions to house cooling systems. On temperate days they can be turned on to circulate rising hot air out of the house while pulling cool air in. Also new models are quieter and smaller than their older counterparts.
[edit] Drawbacks
Having air enter through an open window means that it is unfiltered; it may contain pollen or other allergens. This is in contrast to an air conditioner, which mainly circulates air through a heat exchanger. Many homes have screens in the windows, but the holes in the screens are too large to trap dust and pollen. Large objects, such as insects and birds, are filtered out.
The fan can also be noisy. The noise is due to the large volume of air handled by such a fan and the speed of the fan blades. Direct drive motors spin the blades faster, producing more noise compared to belt-driven fans, which allow lower fan speeds and less noise. The noise may interfere with other normal household activities such as listening to music, watching television, or conversation.
[edit] Types
There are two types of fan:
- Ceiling Mounted: Mounted on ceiling between the attic and living space.
- Ducted: Remotely mounted away from the ceiling; can exhaust heat from multiple locations; operation is extremely quiet.
[edit] Installation
Installing a whole-house fan can be a do-it-yourself project.
Attics must be properly vented so that the air is able to escape back outdoors as quickly as it is being blown into the attic. A good rule of thumb is to provide the same amount of venting as the size of the shutter hole in the ceiling.
[edit] Gallery
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