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Heating & Air Conditioning

Whole house fan vs attic fan

12 years ago

Having a debate as to which is better, so I though I'd see what you all think. I want to install an attic fan to help get some of the hot air out, as it gets 100+ up there during the day. My wife thinks that instead we should put a whole house fan in instead so we can draw hot air from the second floor as well.

Would that work? We have no vents in place leading from the attic to the second floor, so would we have to put some in for the whole house fan to work? Or is there even much of a difference between an attic fan and a whole house fan.

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Comments (3)

rmrc12
12 years ago
"We have no vents in place leading from the attic to the second floor"

The whole house fan would go in the attic and draw air from the second floor. Our fan draws air from the hallway centrally located on the second floor but there are options for fans in each room. The installer would determine whether you need more attic venting to the outside of the house.

We have a 2700 cfm whole house fan and LOVE it. When it cools down in the evening we open the windows on our 2nd floor and turn the fan on. It's amazing how fast is cools the home. Since the whole house fan vents to the attic it also turns the air over in the attic helping to cool the attic. We have been very happy with our whole house fan.

There are some things to consider though. I've read comments from experts on here about fire hazards due to the suction from the fan. I believe this is primarily a concern for those with water heaters in the home. Our water heater is in our garage and so the flame is not subject to the pressure variation caused by the fan. Hopefully some experts will chime in on the things to look out for.
User
12 years ago
Attic fans are not nearly as good for attic ventilation as are vented soffits and a ridge vent. They don't move enough air to really keep an attic cool. Whole house fans only work in climates where the exterior temperature and humidity is pleasant enough for you to want to introduce that air into your home. They don't work in conjunction with AC. You don't want to introduce unconditioned air into an environment that you are trying to condition. If your second floor is hot, a second zone and better return ducts is probably a good idea to consider. And the life of your roof will be greatly improved with proper attic ventilation from soffits and ridge vents.
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Depends what he is trying to do. HRV is great for ventilation while maintaining heat (and sometimes humidity). However, if he's trying to provide a draft as an alternative to air conditioning in warm weather, an HRV won't do anything for him. There's no reason why a whole house fan wouldn't work without an attic. It actually is easier as you won't need the separate operating louvers to get from the living space to where the fan is.
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If you divide the db by 10, that is pretty close to the sones number. The Tamarack HV1600 requires an attic vent opening to outside of at least 3 square feet and the HV1000 needs approximately 1.5 square feet. The best price I have seen, so far, is $430.00 plus shipping at www.houseneeds.com which is for a HV1000R unit (remote control with the R22 insulation package). The noise rating on this unit is 3 sones which would be about 30-35 decibles. The HV1600 did not have a noise rating in the information but it would certainly be higher. I will probably buy the HV1000R unit to vent out the heat build-up in the house and attic as I live in So. Cal. and it takes 3-6 hours for the house to cool down at night after it has been well over 100 in the summer during the day and quickly cools to the low 80's to upper 70's by 3-4 p.m. so this will save running the A/C for this extra length of time. The Tamarack Ghost requires 4 1/2' of opening above the ceiling joists (30" for unit and 2' for air space). The HV1600GR would be more efficient but noisier and costs about $215.00 more than the HV1000R. I am simply looking for something to vent out the hot air and waiting 7.5 more minutes for that to happen is not a critical issue vs. the extra price so I would probably get the HV1000R unit. The cost of running the smaller unit is ~$.01/hr. vs. ~$.025 for the larger unit at high speed. As you can tell, I spent a lot of time researching these units. There is a WhisperAire unit for sale on E-Bay and the current bid is $186.00 but there are still 5 days for bidding to take place so price will certainly go up.
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All that advice and no mention of existing attic ventilation??? What gos in must go out. Translated means that unless you have far more square inches of attic vents than normal,a ceiling installed fan will perform poorly. You might even create health hazzards if the attic has insufficent exhust vents. The fan creates a high postive pressure in the attic and negative pressure inside living area. Air leaking back into living area will be heavly contaminated with dust,insulation particals and possibly worse. The conventional method of overcoming this is large movable shutters in one or more gables. Your origional plan of mounting fan in gable completly eleminates issues of pushing dirty attic air into living area.
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Can't help you with your questions but as a 13 year owner of a WHF I tnink maximum capacity (cfm) is an overrated subject. We end up turning out fan down slower because its quieter but also cause we don't need to get ALOT of air exchanges. We crack a few windows like 5 inches and we get excellent air velocity (breeze).
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brickeyee
12 years ago
Correct ridge and soffit vents do as good a job without using any energy.

If the vents are not correct using a fan to vent the attic will not work well either, and may depressurize the attic enough to pull conditioned air from the house.

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