Save energy and money with a whole house fan!

[Denim Deb]

Brian, if you want to tell us about yourself and what you're doing, go to the journal section. You can post there what all you're growing in your garden, any animals you're raising, or anything else you want to post.

 

[Marianne]

You could post some into stuff about yourself in the 'where are you, where am I' section (I think that's what it's called)

Lucky you! Young and getting it figured out with your little family. Good for you!

 

[~gd]

With all due respect to Joel There are few places where a good whole house fan can not save on COOLING costs. I have a brother in MO in the foothills of the Ozaks. A sister in CO on the eastern high plains desert, another in NY where the lake effect off Erie and Ontario effects the weather. I am on the NC piedmont here a 20C daily temperature swing is the rule.
I tend to think in F so the rest of this post will use that system. C was only used for Canada and the rest of the world. When it hits the high 90s to low 100s we just lock down to hold the heat out or use air conditioning. Usually the temperature starts to fall in the evening. When outside air is cooler than inside on goes the Fan and windows are opened, usually overnight. In the morning it is usually in the 70s inside and out. Sun rises windows go down Fan off. often I will run the A/C to knock down the moisture in the air but turn it off when I leave for work.
This is whar MO and CO do also but they don't have the humidity that I do. My brother in MO heats with wood and uses the whole house fan to bring the heat upstairs in the winter [he has a low slow setting on his]
The temperature swings in the CO desert seem huge to me. It gets Cold at nifht and Hot during the day! lack of moisture to moderate the swings. My sister there has a dual thermostat to control her Fan and heater/AC system.
The NY place is more like BC. When the land is warmer than the lakes the breeze/wind is onshore when the land is cooler the wind changes to offshore. The ability of large bodies of water to moderate temperature is well known. ~gd

 

[greenway]

I'm in Arizona and the climate is quite warm eight months of the year, but winters do get chilly enough to need heat. We try to wait as long as possible to turn on the furnace, and in between, I've found that the whole house fan can be useful for warming the house as well as cooling it. Whenever it's chillier inside than outside I put the fan on to draw in warm air. I'm thinking it might even be possible to enhance this by passively warming the air around the fan (drape it loosely in black plastic or put up some sort of wind screen, maybe?)

 

[k15n1]

A friend in OK said that he liked to use the fan but that it brought in a lot of dust. In MN, that's usually not a problem. Unless you're near a gravel road...

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I love mine, but have to take into consideration the outside temp vs inside temp. If it is close, it still feels good to have air moving. I live in the very deep south and it does get really hot. Now in the very beginning, when we first moved in here, it was hard to be comfy, cuz no insulation, no surrounding trees and limited climate control. Thats maybe when I really should have gotten my attic fan. It wouldn't have done much for me around noon, but once the sun had set, it would have been nice.
I now have a mini forest surrounding my house, so its much more bareable, plus house has received a few improvements.
The attic fan doesn't completely stop me from using an AC, but it does hold it off a good month or 2, saving me a lot of money every year.
One thing I have to remember is that if I clean up the yard and have a fire outside, I need to run in and turn off the fan and close off the house. My whole house has smelled of the great outdoors....smokey smell and all.
I don't think I paid quite as much for my fan as the origional poster, but Daddy and DH installed it themselves. Its not quiet, but I actually like the noise in a way.