Talk:Whole-house fan

Spam

This page is blatant advertising, just as well as the related page Silicon Valley Power. Sorted as part of the Notability wikiproject. --B. Wolterding 17:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• No it is not! That is like saying water heater is advertising. This article contains advertising, which I have removed. — Reinyday, 23:03, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Accuracy

The Attic Fans portion contains inaccurate information. Especially related to this sentence: "[...] as they only seem to cool air just around drop stairs or access panels [...] [1]". That paragraph is based on citation [1]. I've read citation [1]. The writer of that paragraph mis-understood what citation [1] is trying to say about drop stairs and access panels.

By the way, citation [1] is no longer on the web. A Google cache version is here (don't know how long this cache will last):

• On the Level: Attic fans do more harm than good

I am citing the actual text relevant to the inaccuracy below, so that the article could be corrected even without the cache:

"Powered attic ventilators can and will pull conditioned air from the house. These fans will pull indoor air not from just around the drop stairs or access panels but from any penetration into the attic, such as wires going through top plates of walls, plumbing pipes, drywall that's not tight, etc. These fans can be counter-productive to your interior cooling efforts. You've already paid good money to cool the inside air and now you're additionally paying for the electricity used by the fan to pull it out.When the attic fan motors get old and wear out, the bearings can seize up and become a fire hazard. They are not something people keep an eye on. They get installed and then forgotten. I've met people who have lost their homes and all their possessions to fires begun by a malfunctioning attic vent fan. I found a hot, seized fan in an attic last week in an unoccupied house. It was hours or even minutes from causing a fire."

I've deleted the "Attic fans" section, due to the inaccuracy. Plus, there is already an Attic fan stub. If anyone wishes to correct this inaccuracy, s/he can re-write the article in the actual Attic fan stub.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.125.183.194 (talk • contribs)

Question: whole house fan PLUS AC???

My question is : might it not make sense to run both the whole house fan AND the AC? I ask because I live in a four story house. The top floor gets VERY hot... seems like with the rising heat, one could benefit by using the whole house fan. Perhaps it wouldn't be on "high" power, but perhaps it might help some of the hot air vacate the house. I see this as a very interesting question. I realize that it completely contradicts the orthodox position, but I still think it's worth pursuing. I wonder if anyone has tested this scientifically--how much power would be used in scenario A (AC only) vs. B (AC plus whole house fan). I think in a vertical house such as mine, scenario B might lead to lower energy use. I'd love to hear your thoughts. --Dylanfly 18:53, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you would be better off installing more than one unit (as necessary) to cool your house. Four stories is a lot to cool for one unit. Another suggestion is to provide air return vents to the a/c system in the hottest parts of the house. The difficulty with using a whole house fan to exhaust this hot air is that air must be blown (sucked) in somewhere else to replace the air being pushed out by the whole house fan. This (outside) air will be hot and humid. It takes energy to pull the moisture out of the air, and this will lead to warmer air temps coming out of your vents. For the most part, you don't want to use a whole house fan and an a/c at the same time. If you can seal off the top couple of stories, and isolate them from the a/c system, a whole house fan might help up there (with windows open in the 3rd story). You must have a rather large a/c system for a four story home. An a/c professional will have great suggestions for you, including a process to determine how large of a system you need to meet your comfort needs. I doubt he or she will suggest a whole house fan and a/c system at the same time. Eyknough (talk) 01:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

First off, Eyknough has no clue what he's talking about -- this is a bunch of supposition and "educated guessing", and many of his points are flat-out wrong. However, I'm not going to correct them for the same reason that I'm not going to allow this discussion to continue -- it's completely inappropriate for Wikipedia. This talk page is for discussion about the article itself, not the article's subject. So if you have comments about the spelling, grammar, adherence to Wikipedia policies, etc., of the article, then by all means feel free to post it here -- but if you're looking to talk about whole-house fans (not this Wikipedia article about them), then this is the wrong place -- contact an expert off-site. Some Google-searching should help you find sources for information, and I'm willing to volunteer my own expertise as a long-time worker in the fan industry. But again, this page is the wrong place for this. Please feel free to refer to Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines and WP:FORUM. Thank you. Mr. P. S. Phillips (talk) 02:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Dear Mr. P. S. Phillips, your tone is a bit harsh. The question is relevant to the content of the article: the query asks about the known utility of a combination of whole house fan and AC. If no such combination is common, then the content may not be useful for the article. But there's also no need to insult Eyknough's fine effort, nor to claim that you are "not going to allow this discussion." The whole tone is rather autocratic and haughty. Let's be nice. Smilo Don (talk) 14:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Policy is policy, and by definition immutable. We don't just say "eh, the policies don't matter, let's have a free-for-all, so long as everyone is being nice". Feed free to refer to the Wikipedia policies cited above. Understand that when I say I'm not going to enable the previous discussion about A/C and whole-house fans to continue, I'm saying that in keeping with (and working to uphold) established Wikipedia policy, and to promote a culture of professionalism and encyclopedicness. And...talk pages are NOT for general talk about the subject of the article; they are for discussion of the article itself. So NO, it is NOT okay for someone to be discussing the relative benefits and drawbacks of various personal operation schemes here. Again: "This talk page is for discussion about the article itself, not the article's subject. So if you have comments about the spelling, grammar, adherence to Wikipedia policies, etc., of the article, then by all means feel free to post it here -- but if you're looking to talk about whole-house fans (not this Wikipedia article about them), then this is the wrong place -- contact an expert off-site." Mr. P. S. Phillips (talk) 15:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

criticism

This website seems to have good sources saying why this kind of ventilation is a bad idea. --Espoo (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2012 (UTC)