Whole-house fan

[piercetheorganist]

I came into a small amount of cash today, and so went to Home Depot and picked up a whole-house fan. Since my house is un-insulated, the attic (which is essentially a ceiling-mounted oven, during the NC summer) has the effect of trapping tons of hot air, and then radiating it right back down into the house. As a result, my air conditioning bill is -outrageous- (on the order of $175/month). By having a whole-house fan, the hot air will be forced out, and it may be reasonable enough that I can simply shut off the A/C and open the windows.

It's the 24-inch direct-drive model. 2-speed pull-chain. 10-year warranty. 4500 CFM (will empty all the air out of the house in just under 2.5 minutes, which is ideal). This is the model which mounts on top of the joists, and so no joist cutting is required. I'll be borrowing a friend's cordless circular saw tomorrow to cut a hole in the ceiling.

As I mentioned before somewhere, these things *terrify* me, but so does my summer electric bill.

My attic is no fun to crawl around in, being un-floored and cramped and oddly laid-out. I was up there yesterday, running some Romex above the kitchen ceiling to hook up the TOC over the sink.

I'll post photos after installation. Here are some pre-install photos:










Shutters closed:



Half the shutters open:





All the shutters open:
"




"I have to cut two holes in the ceiling; I only have one hole cut, and it's only half-cut. The cordless Ryobi circular saw I'm using has a bad battery -- holds very little charge -- and nothing saps battery power like a power saw.

In the mean-time, here are some photos from the attic:

As you can see, getting up into the attic is...difficult. The ladder is taller than I am, so you can see how high-up it is. Note the patented Back-Stabber:


The attic floor (which is actually the top of the solid wood ceiling below) is ...littered:


This is how the ceiling fans are mounted; outlet box into a hunk of wood which sits on top of the solid wood ceiling. Note the knobs and tubes from the original wiring. The patched cloth-cord wiring scheme in this house scares me; this is a fire waiting to happen:


As you can see, the kitchen is an addition to the house; this used to be the exterior wall:


General creepiness:


"




"Okay, the fan is up, there are a few more things to do before it's done, but nothing which will be noticeable in a photo, so here are the last photos:


Big scary hole in the ceiling:



Fan after being pushed up through the hole (not installed yet):



Fan mounted in place (I still have to install the air shield around it, so that it will suck up air from the room below rather than through those big gaps around the bottom):



The "oh snap!" zone



Shutters up:



More of the shutters, and the 2-speed pull-chain control:



And a video of the fan (click frame to view video; may open in a new window or tab):
"




"One last vid; now that the shutters and air shield are up:

"

[richieh]

Hey Pierce! This all looks familiar lol. Done a good job with it!!

Hope it's doing a good job in the sticky weather!

[Andrew G.]

piercetheorganist said:

As I mentioned before somewhere, these things *terrify* me, but so does my summer electric bill.

Bah! The only ones that are really scary are the old belt-driven ones.

[Troy]

i got a big fan like that one but a lot bigger when you turn that fan on man it will blow your a$$ wide open.

[piercetheorganist]

Whole-house fans, as far as I know, come in three sizes: 24", 30", and 36". 24" is almost always direct-drive, 36" is almost always belt-drive, and 30" can be either. So your fan can't really be "a lot bigger".

This thing moves almost too much air. Even with all the windows and doors open, my ears still pop. I guess that's the downside of having too big a fan -- a 4500 CFM fan in a 950 sq.ft. house.

[jeremy]

my great aunt/uncle has a belt drivin one in their house,theres is located in the hallway,they didn't install it,it was aready there before they moved in way back in 1994(they still have it now),i assume they put bag type inslation(between the fan/shutters doing winter time so the heat won't escape doing winter) and summer so cool air won't escape like while they run their a/c..

[jeremy]

if i do get one of those in my home,it will be this kind:

but at this time,i just put fans on my windows(which i like better)

[Deleted]

I used to see these in the Sears catalog, and love them. They looked like giant box fans.

[jeremy]

spiffy said:

I used to see these in the Sears catalog, and love them. They looked like giant box fans.

yep,some come with box fan styles with 2 wheels(like 2 wheels on bottom left side of the box fan frame and 2 legs on bottom right side) mounted on bottom of the box fan frame to move it around and stuff,my middle school had 2 of them(both are belt drivin(all red 6 bladed metal fan/red blade arm center piece) and both sides protected grills both has wheels mounted on bottom of the box fan's frame so we can move them around without picking them up...

[jeremy]

jeremy said:

if i do get one of those in my home,it will be this kind:

but at this time,i just put fans on my windows(which i like better)

my middle school's gym had 4 of these metal type giant ceiling/roof mounted exhaust fans with bigger shutters and everytime doing p.e. class,i go in the gym and when i look up on the ceiling,i see all 4 of those exhaust fans running(shutters open) and i remember i throw some stuff(suck as lollypop stick,piece of M&M candy) up in those fans and i hear a fan blade hit it...lol(while my p.e. teacher wasn't looking) ;D(all my middle school years was 1991/1992 school year to 1993/1994 schoool year).....

p.s. the fan wheel(fan blades) look the same as the silver fan i posted in my middle school gym's ceiling exhaust fans.

[Deleted]

piercetheorganist said:

Whole-house fans, as far as I know, come in three sizes: 24", 30", and 36". 24" is almost always direct-drive, 36" is almost always belt-drive, and 30" can be either. So your fan can't really be "a lot bigger".

This thing moves almost too much air. Even with all the windows and doors open, my ears still pop. I guess that's the downside of having too big a fan -- a 4500 CFM fan in a 950 sq.ft. house.

Supposedly the 60" Envirofans and Marleys move ~45,000 cfm. That's what you meant, right, not 4500?

[piercetheorganist]

spiffy said:

Supposedly the 60" Envirofans and Marleys move ~45,000 cfm. That's what you meant, right, not 4500?

No, I meant what I said -- 4,500 CFM of air. My house contains about 9,500 CFM of air. Hence the fan empties all the air out of the house in under two minutes, which is better than ideal; HVAC ideal is a 2.5 minute exchange time.

How could you think that a 24" fan would move the same amount of air as a 60" fan? There's no such thing as a 60" whole-house fan ("house" implying residential). That's wayyy commerical-grade power.


And for the ultimate in super-creepy blade designs, we go to the Acme Fan Company (what an original name), where they've cross-bred a GE Vortalex blade to Dracula...:


www.acmefan.com/PropWall.htm



There you go, Dan, Acme makes a 72", 15.7 HP, 563-RPM one which gets 79,330 CFM. And it weighs over 1,000 lbs. Noise level? 70 sones (for comparison: normal human speech = ~2 sones). I'm pretty sure that if I mounted that in my ceiling, it would push the roof off. Like a kleenex in Katrina.

I gave GOT to get me one of those...

[Andrew G.]

Acme = ILG, who originally made exhaust fans like this. See the AFCA for more information.

[Ben C.]

Lol, that fan will make you deaf just long enough for you to not hear the roof lifting off of the walls. Put that in your house and the air exchange will be 0.0000002 seconds.

[Deleted]

piercetheorganist said:

spiffy said:

Supposedly the 60" Envirofans and Marleys move ~45,000 cfm. That's what you meant, right, not 4500?

No, I meant what I said -- 4,500 CFM of air. My house contains about 9,500 CFM of air. Hence the fan empties all the air out of the house in under two minutes, which is better than ideal; HVAC ideal is a 2.5 minute exchange time.

How could you think that a 24" fan would move the same amount of air as a 60" fan? There's no such thing as a 60" whole-house fan ("house" implying residential). That's wayyy commerical-grade power.

I thought maybe, due to the difference in design and speed . . .

I am not familiar with the specs of non-ceiling fans, clearly.