Whole house fan

[Pete]

Put in a whole house fan and love it. At night we turn it on and suck all the cool night air into the house and attic. No more sweating at night. I put in the belt driven one with a third horsepower. It says it moves 6600 cubic feet of air per minute.

Here in SoCal, Edison has rebates of 50 dollars for one.

[Goonie]

When it's not humid out at night, we do the same thing. Open the windows, and turn on the house fan. Love that nice cool fresh air breezin' through the bedroom!

[laurence]

Ditto, San Diego is the perfect place for a whole house fan, with relatively low humidity. Tonight we hung out in our converted garage/playroom with the kids. We had the big door open a crack, cranked on the whole house fan and relaxed in the breeze. Run the air conditioner a grand total of 4 times this year so far.

[StJohnsWood]

We had one in a house when we lived in Chicago. I really loved it. When the humidity was low it would cool the place right down. The trick is getting the right windows open and not being greedy by opening them all.

Funny thing though if you had loose papers, away they went. I would try to get paper airplanes in the jet stream.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Just dont leave your kids helium balloons somewhere in the house unattached to anything when you run yours overnight, or you'll be waking up around 2-3 in the morning to a very strange sound.

[Sarah in SC]

What is this thing you talk about, strangers--this "low humidity"?

And this is why whole house fans do not work in the south and why I heard the A/C kick on at 2 am when it is set at 80! I loathe August!

[HFWR]

Since I have no gables, i.e. hip roof, a whole house fan is a non-starter. Would work in the spring and fall, but not so well in the summer. But we had one in the house I grew up in, and it seemed to work well, especially in the evening.

[Westernskies]

They don't work well here in Phoenix, where it cools off to 104 at night in July and August. I remember growing up in Missouri, we had one in our house- it ran almost every night. It was an old belt drive unit, the louvers rattled when it came on, but it was kind of relaxing- you could fall asleep in the cool breeze, which was subliminally associated with the unique noise signature of the fan.

[travelover]

I have a 4 foot wide double hung window in the kitchen, so I just put two $15 box fans side by side and exhaust the air. Cool night air is drawn in from the upper story bedroom windows and flows down the stairs and throughout the lower level of the house This works so well that I have never bothered to install a ceiling mounted whole house fan. I run an attic exhaust fan during the summer to keep the attic temperatures below 100 degrees, which also helps keep the house cool during the day. We have not used AC at all this year in SE Michigan.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

By the way, I've done fine in a couple of houses by just mounting the fan in the attic access opening, putting a little tape around it to 'seal' it to the opening, and shutting the closet door the opening was in when I wasnt using it. Run the cord down and plug it into a wall outlet. Takes about 15 minutes and you can take it with you when you move

[Westernskies]

...it was only a matter of time before these got outsourced to China, too.

[newlife06]

We have had whole house fans in our home since we bought it over 16 years ago. Presently, our upgrade to THE GHOST keeps the cats ears pinned back and my furniture dusted...LOL We love feeling the cool breeze over us in the cooled off evenings of summer...nothing like it I always say. Keeps us from using the A/C until we are broke. However, interesting tidbit here. We hired a company to do an energy audit on our home. With his handy dandy thermal imaging tool, we were finally able to pinpoint why several of our rooms are consistently warm. The whole house vent lit up like a barn fire! Seems its not very "green" or efficient for keeping the heat out. We just had 32 solar panels installed (Take a Hike Edison!) last week. Sure is fun watching the meter dial run backwards! I am just not sure I can give up my whole house fan.

[Pete]

Quote:

Originally Posted by newlife06 We just had 32 solar panels installed (Take a Hike Edison!) last week. Sure is fun watching the meter dial run backwards!

I'm interested in hearing how this works out for you. Are they on your roof, backyard or what? What kind of dollar amount do you save monthly? What did you learn from the experience?

[newlife06]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete I'm interested in hearing how this works out for you. Are they on your roof, backyard or what? What kind of dollar amount do you save monthly? What did you learn from the experience?

Pete,
My DH and I are so excited about our SUNPOWER solar panels. We interviewed three contractors before choosing ours. Basically, you provide 12 months (recent) of electric bills. They analyze it (cost, daily usage, etc.), look at which direction your roof faces, and how much you would like to reduce your current bill. Our twelve months came up with about $3100 spent annually. We decided we wanted to reduce it by 80%. They tell you how many panels that would take and how much that would cost you. So, ours was rather costly, but will pay for itself in 11 yrs. We could have been happy with reducing it only 50% or less and paid much less. The feds are giving incredible incentives to "go green", but the incentives are shrinking as it becomes more and more popular. Our incentive was around 14,000 dollars. If we ever get a solar powered car, we can plug it into our system rather than pay someone else at their elevated price!

We have a two story home. The panels are installed flat, elevated off the tile because they need a bit of ventilation to stay cool, over our tile roof facing the backyard. We had to drive around the block and peek between the houses to actually see the panels.

We are very excited about our solar system. We did quite a bit of research before making our decision on using solar, and choosing SUNPOWER. What did we learn? We learned that not every solar contractor will tell you the truth. We nearly got ripped off. SO YOU GOTTA DO YOUR RESEARCH.

Also, we no longer pay a MONTHLY electric bill. Its called net metering. We see a monthly analysis and pay a final bill every 12 months. We were seeing an average of about $225 per month.

[Pete]

[quote=newlife06;695066]We are very excited about our solar system. /quote]
I am excited for you. I really like where all this is going.
My problem is my electric bill is pretty low (about 50-60 per month on average). I wonder if buying a smaller unit would do me any good. I live in SoCal and we get plenty of sun.

[newlife06]

Pete, we are out in the Inland Empire area of SoCal and have been watching our energy bills go from 80ish to $360 using our a/c. We have a large 2 story home that needs to be cool for this Mama! We have also changed out our lightbulbs, shutting off computers, unplugging energy drainers when not in use, etc. If this doesnt work, I give up. LOL

[Pete]

Quote:

Originally Posted by newlife06 We have also changed out our lightbulbs, shutting off computers, unplugging energy drainers when not in use, etc. If this doesnt work, I give up. LOL

I have done all these things too. Are you familiar with the Edison recycling program where they put a device on your A/C allowing them to turn it off in case of a brown or black out? They give me between 30 and 40 dollars back each month June thru Sept. I don't use my A/C anyway. I just installed a swamp cooler which I talk about on another thread. Between it and our whole house fan-no problem. 96 outside today 73 inside.

We are neighbors. I live on the border b/t la and the empire.

[newlife06]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete Are you familiar with the Edison recycling program where they put a device on your A/C allowing them to turn it off in case of a brown or black out? They give me between 30 and 40 dollars back each month June thru Sept. We are neighbors. I live on the border b/t la and the empire.

Yes Pete. We also have had the Edison Recycling program since 1992. Its a great little credit until they snatch that power away from you in the dead of summer when you NEED that a/c in your face. Not fun. We are having it removed and installing a generator in the next few months. The generator, during a blackout, will keep us entertained with our computers and our ability to stay cool with our ceiling fans and whole house fans, however, not the A/C (need a more expensive unit for that kind of power!).

Hey there neighbor! We are out here in beautiful Chino, home of the "Chino Rocks" earthquake recently. A couple of weeks ago, we were in South Pasadena for the Eco Fair that had a special guest: Ed Begley - Mr. over-the-top-eco green lover. LOL