I have a 130 year old house with no AC on the second floor. I have a large (approx 1000 sf) FINISHED attic that I plan to use for living space. I have no experience with a whole house fan. Is it ok to install one in this situation? Will it be extremely windy?
thewrangler_sw
Favorite Answer
Before I went to the expense of buying a large whole house fan... I'd try out a window fan. Set it to exhaust out one window, and open another across the space, so you can get a good pull thru the area. Or even use a pair of them... one to pull air from outside and one to vent out.. or both to vent out, with windows open downstairs, for fresh air to be pulled up thru the home.
Personally.. I'd lean more towards a window air conditioner than a fan...I like it cooler, hehe.
A whole house fan will have the ability to move more air... a larger volume....typically, you would leave windows on the bottom level open a bit, to pull air up from the first floor thru the upper floor space(s).
The key to using either the window or whole house fan is ventilation... you MUST have some source for new air to be pulled into the home... this means, usually, leaving some windows gapped. Shutting doors will slow or stop, the air flow, and void your attempt to cool the room.
Good Luck
mrrosema
The whole house fan that I have is in an unfinished attic; is a bit louder than a typical window fan and is designed to go at a vented gable, which you would not have in a finished area. If it was me I would get an air conditioner with an integral venting fan and when I wasn't using the attic space or it was not too hot there I would just use the air conditioner fan and maybe a window fan if you have the windows. If you can open up the rest of the house to the attic and install a temperature controlled whole house fan in a window that has louvers that automatically close when the fan is not operating you would probably be fine. The fan would be < $200 but not sure about a louvered window. The wind could be a problem if you have candles or paper lying around but otherwise should be OK.
Jerry G
I never bought into the whole house thing. Why pull dirty air into the house? If you can stand the looks of it, I would simply put an evap cooler in a window - You could even make a new hole in your slanted roof, no window required. The evap has filters - even if you do not connect water to the evap cooler it simply plugs into a wall outlet - a whole house has the added expense of adding an electrical outlet somewhere.
The whole house fan is generally a physically large fan which can turn more slowly and move air without much noise. However, you only have 1,000 sq. ft so no problem for a smallish evap.
I would graft extra air filters to the evaporator cooler to keep the incoming air filtered. even better You could also buy a remote control, about 10 or 15 dollars, from a hardware store, to turn the cooler fan on a few minutes before retiring to the upstairs area.
?
An attic fan could cool the entire attic down 10 in all likelihood 20 levels yet this could nicely be a stretch and that's on condition which you have very solid soffit air flow and the prevailing insulation would not intrude with it. With R-38 in the domicile, cooling the attic down 10 levels can not do lots for the domicile yet R-38 will make a great substitute on your storage! it fairly is going to additionally help decrease warmth circulate into your place from the standard storage partitions. i could say your terrific wager is the insulation.