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Originally Posted by CroFlames
Never heard of that. Is it integrated with your ductwork, or is it a portable unit type of deal?
Very interested.
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Installation company was Canada Whole Home Fans (not around anymore) and done in 2009, however I understand these are frequently used out east and parts of the USA.
Think of it as a super-sized bathroom fan, except that it is installed at the top of our stairs in the ceiling. Internally you just see some light plastic grating and can kinda see the louvres inside if you look hard enough, and beyond that I can't recall if there are 2 large fans or 4 smaller ones. Dimension is approx 20"x 30". The fan "sucks" in the air from inside the house and discharges into the attic space. Requirements include: having adequate flow of external air into the house, and more than adequate attic ventilation (which might not exist in older homes).
Adequate flow... so you open a door, or window, or combination thereof. You must *not* operated without opening an external source. For obvious reasons it needs to be cooler outside than inside... so the cool air is "sucked" into the house thereby displacing the hot air which is exhausted into your attic. At some point the attic space vents through the eaves and also then gets cooled. If we want the whole house cooled we'll open the door or window furthest away from the fan. At bedtime we open our window and the junior(s) open theirs... we use either the 2 or 4 hour timer, and high or low speed, and it just shuts off automatically and closes the louvres. Yes it is possible to actually get too cold. Also works well if you over-cook something on the stove and make the house stink.
Only problem that has occurred was we had our home humidity too high for a few years and in the harshest times of winter we had condensation form on the fan frame. Also some of the attic insulation got pushed away too far from the device so we got some slight browning on the ceiling within a couple inches perimeter.