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Running your air conditioning in the summer can be quite costly, especially in July and August when the daytime high often gets into the 90s. Of course, it’s not like you really have any other option but to keep your AC on unless you want to sweat in an unbearably hot house. This is where installing a whole-house fan can be extremely beneficial as it will allow you to save some money on your electricity bills without having to sacrifice anything in terms of your comfort. Here we’ll explain everything homeowners should know about installing whole-house fans and show you why installing they’re such a good investment.
An Overview of How a Whole-House Fans Works
A whole-house fan is a large, powerful fan that’s installed in the attic so that it faces down and pulls air upward. There’s then a vent in the ceiling just below the fan that it draws air through. The fan is always in a fairly central location within the house so that it can effectively draw in air from throughout the house. For instance, you’ll often find the fan located at the top of the stairwell that connects the topmost floor to the floor below it.
Whenever you want to run the fan, you first need to slightly open a few windows so that the fan can continually pull air in from outside. If no windows are open, the fan won’t work effectively and won’t be able to do what it’s supposed to. Running a whole-house fan with no windows open is also extremely dangerous if there are any gas-burning appliances in the home. That’s because the negative pressure the fan produces when all of the windows are closed can cause the exhaust fumes a gas appliance produces to backdraft. That means the fumes can get sucked into the living space instead of venting outside.
When a whole-house fan runs, it continually pulls the warm, stale air in the house up into the attic. This air then eventually flows outside through all of the roof and attic vents. At the same time, the fan draws fresh, cooler air into the house through the open windows. Most whole-house fans are so powerful and work so effectively that they can completely exchange all of the air in the home somewhere between 10 and 20 times an hour.
As long as you only run the fan when the temperature outside is lower than the temperature in your house, it will cool your home far more quickly than your AC does. It will also do so while using only a fraction of the energy your AC does. Depending on what the temperature is outside, the fan can sometimes make your home feel at least 10 degrees cooler in just a few minutes.
In addition to bringing cooler air in from outside, there is another reason this type of fan is effective. This is that it quickly gets rid of all of the heat that builds inside the attic during the day. Even a well-insulated attic that has proper ventilation can easily end up being 30-40 degrees hotter than the temperature outside in the late afternoon. This heat then makes the entire house warmer. This is part of the reason why an AC system typically still has to run quite a bit in the evening after it’s cooled down outside.
How Much Can You Save on Cooling Costs With a Whole-House Fan?
The exact amount you’ll save in electricity costs depends on a variety of factors, one of the most obvious ones being how many hours a day you run the fan instead of having your AC on. The easiest way to break down the potential savings is to look at the average cost to run a whole-house fan for one hour compared to how much electricity an AC system typically uses in one hour.
Most whole-house fans use between 100 and 700 watts of electricity per hour, although much larger units can use around 1,200 watts when running on the highest speed. Most AC systems consume anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 watts per hour and will usually run for around 30 minutes per hour.
Let’s say you have a 500-watt whole-house fan that runs for an hour. The current average electricity rate in California is around 32 cents per kilowatt (1,000 watts). That means running the fan would cost you approximately 16 cents per hour. If you have an AC system that uses 3,000 watts per hour and runs for 30 minutes each hour, it would cost you 48 cents, or three times as much as the fan.
Of course, you only ever want to run a whole-house fan when the temperature outside is below your desired indoor temperature or at least cooler than it currently is in your house. You also never want to run the fan when it’s overly humid outside. Nonetheless, in the Sacramento area, you’ll be able to rely almost entirely on the whole-house fan for several months a year and most evenings. When you consider that you’ll quickly begin to see how much the savings you’ll get from a whole-house fan can add up.
Other Benefits of Having a Whole-House Fan
Installing a whole-house fan can provide some other great benefits in addition to lowering your electricity bills. One is that the fan can lessen the repair needs and extend the life of your air conditioning system by reducing how much your AC has to run each year. That means it can save you money in more ways than one.
Another great thing about having a whole-house fan is that it makes it easy to significantly improve your home’s indoor air quality during the warmer months of the year. High levels of indoor air pollution is a problem that affects almost every home. This is especially the case during the times of the year when it’s generally too hot for you to open your windows and let fresh air in. A whole-house fan will fully exchange the air inside your house once every couple of minutes. That means it will quickly get rid of all of the stale, polluted air and replace it with fresh, cleaner air from outside. Running the fan when you’re cooking dinner will also get rid of the cooking smells so your house smells cleaner.
Contact Us Today
If you’re searching for top-notch HVAC services in the Sacramento area, Atticman Heating and Air Conditioning, Insulation is the company you can trust. We’re locally owned and operated and have a team of dedicated HVAC experts ready to assist with all of your indoor comfort needs. If you’re looking into installing a whole-house fan, you can count on us for help.
We offer a range of models that will work in any size home and will evaluate your house to ensure the unit you get is exactly the right size. We’ll also determine the best location for the inlet vent and give you expert advice on the best way to use the fan so you get the most out of it. To set up a consultation and learn more about the benefits you can enjoy with a whole-house fan, call us today.
