Quiet Cool Whole House Fans, anyone have experience with them

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ipoplaya_IHB

ipoplaya_IHB

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Thinking about putting some in to reduce electric bills and get some airflow through the stairwell and upstair hallway area...



Has anyone installed them in their home? If so, have they been worth the expense?
 
[quote author="ipoplaya" date=1211081492]Thinking about putting some in to reduce electric bills and get some airflow through the stairwell and upstair hallway area...



Has anyone installed them in their home? If so, have they been worth the expense?</blockquote>


Not in your place, kimosabe. There are a couple of other places within your HOA that have it. Noise is still an issue, but it is only meant to be used for a short burst, probably 5 minutes tops, to get all of the hot air that's been sitting in your home while you've been [strike]blogging[/strike] working all day. Especially if you are going to be selling said home within the next 5 years, you're not going to get your $$$ back in return.
 
Many people have them up here in Sacramento. I think it is because most summer nights the temps dip down to the low 70's even when the daytime temp is over 100. So people use their ac during the day and open the windows and use the whole house fan overnight.



I've been at a few homes while they were using the fans and I've never noticed any noise...perhaps some fans are quieter than others?



I'll ask my friends some questions about their fans and I'll post their answers.



Again - I'm not sure if it is something that would show a faster cost savings in Sacramento due to the hot days and cool nights. I know Irvine can get pretty warm in the summer but if I remember it doesn't have the cool nights when you could open the windows and run a whole house fan to cool the home off.
 
Playa - You can find various cooling tips <a href="http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/forums/viewthread/468/">here.</a>



We covered this last summer. ;-)
 
I think some of the people who have replied do NOT have experience with the "Quiet Cool" brand of whole house fan (www.quietcoolfan.com). These are not your old fashioned giant louvered hallway fan. They are multiple small room units that make almost no noise. I installed them last year in my house and have been very pleased with them.



These small, individual-room attic fans look like regular air conditioning vents, only square and a bit larger, and placed in the ceiling, of course. You can place them at the door to a bedroom and use them to pull air across the room from an open window. You can select which rooms to turn on, or not. I watch my wireless outdoor thermometer, and as soon as it is cooler outside than in, I crank up the "Quiet Cool's". Even though they are right in the bedroom with you, they make so little noise that you can leave them on all night if you want.



I very highly recommend these. (And I got a miniscule rebate from Cal Edison for installing them.)
 
[quote author="MacFanMom" date=1211444346]I think some of the people who have replied do NOT have experience with the "Quiet Cool" brand of whole house fan (www.quietcoolfan.com). These are not your old fashioned giant louvered hallway fan. They are multiple small room units that make almost no noise. I installed them last year in my house and have been very pleased with them.



These small, individual-room attic fans look like regular air conditioning vents, only square and a bit larger, and placed in the ceiling, of course. You can place them at the door to a bedroom and use them to pull air across the room from an open window. You can select which rooms to turn on, or not. I watch my wireless outdoor thermometer, and as soon as it is cooler outside than in, I crank up the "Quiet Cool's". Even though they are right in the bedroom with you, they make so little noise that you can leave them on all night if you want.



I very highly recommend these. (And I got a miniscule rebate from Cal Edison for installing them.)</blockquote>


Thanks MacFan. I found a local manufacturer of Quiet Cool type fans that hang in the attic... Gonna pick a couple up tomorrow hopefully.



<a href="http://www.smartbreezesystems.com/sbsStore.html">Whole House Fans</a>
 
I spent $700 on a whole house fan that was supposed to be one of the quietest on the market. I had an electrician install it in the hopes that my family could reduce our electricity bill and not use the central air as often. The temperature in the house dropped about 2 degrees as a result on hot days. When my husband and I were trying to let my daughter "cry it out" as she learned to sleep on her own, the whole house fan became a $1200 noise machine that helped her sleep and completely drowned out her cries so we could sleep (or not feel so stressed). That's essentially the only use we ever found for it. Maybe they are better now but this was only 4 years ago. As with everything, take the hype with a grain of salt and don't expect miracles.
 
I have a whole house fan and I find it extremely effective. Depending on the outside temperature, it can cool far faster than the a/c, equalizing the outside and inside temperatures in a matter of minutes. There are deadspots in my house, especially upstairs, that the a/c will not reach so the fan is critical. On full blast, it sounds like a squadron of helicopers dusting off at the same time. However, it has a dimmer type control for infinite speed control and it is very quiet on low speed. The main drawback is you can only use the fan when the outside condition permits it because the fan basically exchanges the air inside of your house with the air outside: it must be cooler outside than inside, it must not be dusty or smoggy outside, etc. Also, if you have allergies, the fan will pull all the pollen outside into your house. I inadvertently had the fan on for a few minutes when my neighbors were having a bbq and my house smelled like smoked kalbi all night. I could not use it for a couple of weeks during and after the wildfires last November because the air was so bad.
 
Do you want a whole house fan or an attic fan? If you're in Irvine, I'd think just the smaller quieter automated attic fans designed to keep the attic from turning into oven and thus saving the AC bill.
 
No personal experience, but it's most certainly underpowered relative to a wired unit. I don't know how much power it consumes, but just based on size, it's probably in the neighborhood of 30 watts. The smallest Quiet Cool fan uses 150 watts. You're paying for the solar power aspect more than anything else. Still, I would expect it to make a noticeable difference in attic temps.
 
I don't know how big is the fan either, but from the size of the solar panel, I would be surprised if it is any more than 5W. I guess I need to look at their spec.
 
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