A whole fan can cool your house off on those summer days in a matter of minutes.
Now if it’s hotter outside of course you wouldn’t want that hot air in just yet. A whole house fan would be needed once it cools down outside and bring in the cooler air and suck the hot air out of your house.
How it works. By placing the fan up in the ceiling of the top floor so it will vent into the attic. This will force all the hot air out the roof and soffit vents. Of course, you’ll need to have them already. Most newer homes already have them. More than likely if your roof was replaced in the last 20 years you’ll have a ridge vent. So chances are you have them so no worries.
The wiring… These fans use 120 volts and about 10 amps for the bigger ones. The fan shown in this video uses a three-wire from the switch to the fan motor allowing it to have two speeds, low and high.
Comments ( 6 )
Dom, questions: My Florida home needs a new roof. I will either put in solar powered roof mounted attic fans (not cheap plastic fans) metal. Or the ridge vent. One or the other, not both I was told. In Connecticut, I have ridge vents the total distance of the ridges. (a lot of venting) Yet my attic is hotter than h—! I need to know which one to use here. Talk about hot… we are talking Florida here my friend. Come back.
If you have a ridge vent there is really no need for a power vent. However in order to have positive venting you’ll need to have soffit vents. Even for a power vent to work you’ll need some point where fresh air can enter.
Hey Dom, we are purchasing a 1920 home that has had an addition to it. The new addition (approx 800 sq ft out of the 2900 total) has ridge vent. The new addition has central A/C, the older does not.
If we were to put a whole house fan in the older up stairs…will that cause a problem?? If so…is there a solution??
My husband and I are currently looking at installing no-duct (Mitsubishi) A/C units for the older part (would LOVE if you had a video on THAT! (just a thought))
Thanks again for the great videos…buying this home…I have watched a ‘zillion’ videos. You are the only one I subscribed to!! The first one I saw was ‘how to install 220V outlet’ LMAO!!…(110 +110 = 220 hahahaha) But learned A LOT!! Thanks again ;) n
Hi Nichole and thank you very much. Yeah I’m not much of a AC guy to make that video. However installing a whole house fan you’ll need to have a way for the air to blow out of. So in your case the older attic. And as long as your AC is off you’ll be fine otherwise you will be sucking that cool air right out of the house.
Hi—I want to install a whole house fan in my home. It’s built in 1989 and has a tile roof. It has a great attic space with ample room to move about for install. My question is: will I need to vent through roof, or is attic area with its current venting fine? Hubs isn’t handy and I don’t want to have a hired installer jack up my roof.
If it was built in 1989 you should have either a ridge vent along the top of the roof, or soffit vents or gable end vents. Either one of them will be fine.