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Your experiences with a modern whole house fan system in NorCal

Yakoo752 said:
Got my first full electric bill last week and didn’t like the numbers I saw knowing how often I ran ac this month (I like to sleep cold and opening windows at night upstairs wasn’t doing it for me) so

I installed the 5300 this weekend. Took a total of 5 hours or so. Pretty simple.

Running it now at level 4 and I can’t hear it at all from downstairs. At a 1, I can’t hear it standing underneath it.

I’ll know by end of next week if it works (supposed to be 90 here).

I’m impressed so far
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Great! I love ours. Really liked the concept of the fan up in the peak of the roof away from the living quarters and the insulated damper.
Note: our house is on a slab with all tile floors, 2x6 walls with max insulation and light colored stucco exterior. 10' ceilings, fully vented eves and all the roof peaks are vented. Positioned to take advantage of some 60' trees that block the afternoon sun. We've got free firewood so we really focused on the cooling aspect of the house when we built it.

Installation was done several years ago and it's still going strong after baking in the attic.
 
Well, the whole house fan was a godsend during the hottest days of summer when it cooled down outside but was still hot in the house.

Oddly I find myself using it on winter days like today where outside is hotter than inside as we lack central A/C and only turn on the gas fire insert in the front of the house in the AM and then in the later PM use the gas fired "wood stove lookalike" in the rear TV room.

I thought I'd only use it on the hottest days of summer but not the case.

Very happy we did it.
 
Here is a little food for thought:
https://youtu.be/s7rJWTVc22I
I don't think an environmental engineer would agree that adding a simple whole house fan without having your home checked out first would be a good idea, especially on a newer home.
DT
 
His negatives are somewhat overdone.

Yes, if there is unhealthy air outside, like when there is a fire in the region, then you don't want to run it. Plenty of his other negatives don't really apply to CA, like humidity.

It's not rocket science, for many parts of CA it is a good thing. He's just trying to generate revenue with his videos.
 
dtrides said:
Here is a little food for thought:
https://youtu.be/s7rJWTVc22I
I don't think an environmental engineer would agree that adding a simple whole house fan without having your home checked out first would be a good idea, especially on a newer home.
DT
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:laughing

He seems to think we are dummies that don't know there are only certain parts of the Country, like the Bay Area, where it makes sense.

Cooler nights and low humidity is where they work well.

If my siblings in Texas, Florida or Georgia asked me I'd tell them to forget the idea for obvious reasons.

This guy is making his video in Atlanta which is a stupid place to consider a whole house fan.

Nobody using a whole house fan uses it instead of a kitchen exhaust fan that I'm aware of so that is another red herring.

And no, if I had huge allergy problems I would not use one and I have no plans to use it if we have smoke in the air.

The one good point made is near the end and if we still used our fireplaces for wood a whole house fan would not make sense unless you could effectively close your flue.

We have gas inserts now without standing pilots.

But I do agree with him, if you are in Atlanta, forget a whole house fan.

He doesn't mention ceiling fans but they are useful pretty much anywhere in the Country whether you have central a/c or not.
 
Homes now are built to be a sealed envelop, not the leaky cold in winter/hot in summer construction used in the past.
If you just pop a 3x3 hole in the ceiling and install a big fan you most likely will be putting your house into a negative pressure situation, so it will be pulling air quite likely form places you don't want.
I get it if you live on the bay and just looking to remove warm air on the rare days it gets hot , but if you live anywhere that A/C is used and you have a well insulated envelope ( such as a new , energy efficient home) , it might be worth having a expert look things over before you get out the saws-all.
That is all. :)
 
dtrides said:
Homes now are built to be a sealed envelop, not the leaky cold in winter/hot in summer construction used in the past.
If you just pop a 3x3 hole in the ceiling and install a big fan you most likely will be putting your house into a negative pressure situation, so it will be pulling air quite likely form places you don't want.
I get it if you live on the bay and just looking to remove warm air on the rare days it gets hot , but if you live anywhere that A/C is used and you have a well insulated envelope ( such as a new , energy efficient home) , it might be worth having a expert look things over before you get out the saws-all.
That is all. :)
Click to expand...
You always open windows with the furthest path from the fan, it takes about 1-20 minutes to drop the temp by 15 degrees or more depending on the temp difference to outside.

It works in California. Period.
 
dtrides said:
Homes now are built to be a sealed envelop, not the leaky cold in winter/hot in summer construction used in the past.
If you just pop a 3x3 hole in the ceiling and install a big fan you most likely will be putting your house into a negative pressure situation, so it will be pulling air quite likely form places you don't want.
I get it if you live on the bay and just looking to remove warm air on the rare days it gets hot , but if you live anywhere that A/C is used and you have a well insulated envelope ( such as a new , energy efficient home) , it might be worth having a expert look things over before you get out the saws-all.
That is all. :)
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They do put the house in a negative pressure, that's how they are designed to work. You always open windows before turning on a whole house fan.
 
I had the fan running on low and the wife closed her office window. I went to plug in a phone charger and I could feel air coming in from the switch plate...

apparently, she closed the sliding door as well

:laughing
 
Climber said:
You always open windows with the furthest path from the fan, it takes about 1-20 minutes to drop the temp by 15 degrees or more depending on the temp difference to outside.

It works in California. Period.
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Mine does not drop temperatures as fast as that but I'm still very pleased with it.

If I had a modern energy efficient house rather than one built in the fifties, with no insulation in the walls, perhaps temps would drop faster.

We did add insulation to the attic of course and now have energy efficient windows but no insulation in the walls is problematic.
 
dtrides said:
Homes now are built to be a sealed envelop, not the leaky cold in winter/hot in summer construction used in the past.
Click to expand...
Yeah, a whole house fan would not work in my current house, built in 2017. It is sealed and there is some sort of fan that moves air between the attic and the crawl space at certain times. I don't actually understand how that part works, but I can hear it when the furnace/AC is off.

But when I lived in Folsom I had a whole house fan installed and it was great for that house (built in 2000). My home there was basically a big two-story cube with high ceilings and large attic space. I had to verify that there was enough square feet of openings in the attic to let the air out and we had more than enough without modifying anything.

The unit had two fans and each had low and high settings, but both were running when it was on. On the low/low setting you could only hear it in the bedroom closest to where the fans were positioned - nowhere else in the house. On the high setting it was quite the roar. But it could pull cool air through the entire house in 15-20 minutes, so it was very effective. Just getting the hot air out of the attic on a 100+ degree day made a big difference. It cut way down on our air conditioning bill when we used it in the summer there.

The control for the fans had a number of hours to run before shutting off, or run continuously (or off, of course). We could let it run at night on the low fan setting for six or eight hours, after running it on high for 20 minutes to get things going.

I would definitely get one of those again if I were in a home where it would make a difference.
 
GAJ said:
Mine does not drop temperatures as fast as that but I'm still very pleased with it.

If I had a modern energy efficient house rather than one built in the fifties, with no insulation in the walls, perhaps temps would drop faster.

We did add insulation to the attic of course and now have energy efficient windows but no insulation in the walls is problematic.
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You won't have the temp drops at night that we get further inland, which really makes the difference with whole house fan.

Have you thought about blowing insulation in? I know that many older homes in CA have very little insulation and their windows suck. Same with the access to plumbing in key spots, CA was way behind New England when it came to plumbing standards and requirements.
 
Climber said:
You won't have the temp drops at night that we get further inland, which really makes the difference with whole house fan.

Have you thought about blowing insulation in? I know that many older homes in CA have very little insulation and their windows suck. Same with the access to plumbing in key spots, CA was way behind New England when it came to plumbing standards and requirements.
Click to expand...

I've looked into blowing insulation into the walls but the articles are hardly convincing as there is sag over time it seems.

Plus we have stucco which is harder to repair without the repair showing.

What are your daytime/night time temp differentials during the summer.

We are 35 degree difference in August at around 85/50 high/low average.

It definitely cools off the house noticeably within an hour but but mere minutes.

I'd definitely still do it again though.
 
In August, we were around 105/75, we have stucco as well on the outside and concrete roof tiles which is very common down here.

We do have worse air down here, so I always checked the air quality before turning on the fan, we work very hard to keep the air quality inside the house as good as we can get it. A couple years ago, during the fire that came within 10 miles of Fresno, I went through the whole month without using the whole house fan when it would have made the most difference.
 
Our 1953 house definitely benefits from a whole house fan. We had a couple of extra vents installed on the roof to make sure we were moving enough air. Geoff, that may be your problem. Check your soffett vents to make sure they are all clear, especially if you have blown in insulation. They should have installed dams to keep them clear and you should feel air blowing out them. When the outside temp drops, I open a couple of windows furthest from the fan and turn it on. it only takes a few minutes to replace the hot air with the cooler outside air. If I crack only one window open, it will whistle.
 
dravnx said:
Our 1953 house definitely benefits from a whole house fan. We had a couple of extra vents installed on the roof to make sure we were moving enough air. Geoff, that may be your problem. Check your soffett vents to make sure they are all clear, especially if you have blown in insulation. They should have installed dams to keep them clear and you should feel air blowing out them. When the outside temp drops, I open a couple of windows furthest from the fan and turn it on. it only takes a few minutes to replace the hot air with the cooler outside air. If I crack only one window open, it will whistle.
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New roof in 2017 a few years before the fan with tons of new eyebrow vents plus the big hole where our old solar powered attic exhaust fan is still located.

Our old roof just had those small vents under the eaves so would not have been enough though it does have one gable end vent but not that large.

It could be that the TV room is a separate attic from the main attic as it used to be part of the garage workshop so that small attic is not served by the whole house fan but air from outside is pulled through that room so it does cool for sure as you can see the temp fall and feel the air breezing past.

The rest of the house is under the main attic; kitchen, living room, dining room, bedrooms.
 

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Sac area.

We have a whole house fan and love it! Wake up, open windows and turn it on for an hour. Shut windows and go to work.

Gets the warm air out of the attic and brings in cool air. Have the sprinklers go on and complete a cycle befofe I get up and shower. I’d like to think that “knocks down” and keeps dust on the ground?

If we are up late, I’ll turn it on in the evening. Be sure to replace your a/c filters every couple of months in the summer.
 
On the air filters, don't just get the cheapest ones, you want to get the better filtering ones that filter more than just things like feathers and leaves. :laughing
 
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