Whole-House Fans.
Whole-house fans are installed in a central hallway inside the house and pull fresh outdoor air through open windows. They are often used to augment air conditioning or instead of air conditioning in mild summertime climates.
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Benefits of Whole-House Fans:
- Efficient, cost-effective cooling
- Can cut summer air conditioning costs and create a more comfortable living environment
- Exchange air much more rapidly than air conditioning units, allowing faster cooling of the interior
- Draw cooler air indoors, especially when used at night and early morning hours
- Extract heat from objects within a house, such as appliances, furniture and walls
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Belt-Drive Fans
Thanks to a motor mounted just above and to the side of the fan, a belt-drive whole-house fan provides for smooth, quiet operation.
Direct-Drive Fans
Direct drive whole-house fans are easy to install since no attic joists need to be cut. They feature a pull chain for easy operation.
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| Design Considerations:
- For maximum effectiveness, a whole-house fan must be sized correctly for the structure it is required to ventilate.
- The formula to follow for determining capacity is: square feet of living area x 3 = CFM (cubic feet of air moved per minute) required.
- Because whole-house fans exhaust hot air into an attic, a properly sized attic ventilation system is required to exhaust heated air from the attic to outdoors.
- To determine the net free area of attic ventilation required, use the following formula: CFM rating of fan divided by 750 = square feet of net free exhaust area.
- Failure to provide this venting will reduce the fan's airflow capacity. In addition, it will lead to noisy operation and ultimately failure of the fan motor.
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