Is a Whole-House Fan the Ideal Way to Keep Your Home Cool? – Sobieski Services | DE, NJ, PA, MD

Is a Whole-House Fan the Ideal Way to Keep Your Home Cool?

For many Wilmington residents, summer temperatures also bring big electric bills. Instead of letting your air conditioner take the brunt of your home’s tremendous cooling tasks, you could use a whole-house fan to help supplement that cooling capacity and cut your energy bills by a significant amount.

How Whole-House Fans Work

A typical whole-house fan pulls cool air from the lower floors of your home, especially through open windows. The fan then distributes this cool air as it’s pulled toward the upper floors, finally exhausting through outlets in the roof and attic. The effectiveness of the whole-house fan depends on its size, as well as your home’s air volume.

A typical fan offers anywhere between 30 and 60 air changes per hour. Whole-house fans work best in areas with low humidity and an average nighttime temperature drop of five degrees or more. These fans are also more effective in multistory homes than those with a single story or split-level.

Ventilation Benefits

Whole-house fans are very effective at keeping your home cool, especially during nighttime and pre-dawn hours. If you use your air conditioning a lot during these hours, you can easily cut back and save both money and energy. Whole-house fans are also relatively affordable, with some municipalities offering extensive rebates that offset some of the cost of purchase and installation.

Concerns for Allergy Sufferers

Those suffering from chronic allergies should be aware of how whole-house fans work. Since these fans draw in unfiltered outside air, it may also draw in pollen and other airborne pollutants. For this reason, a whole-house fan might not be ideal under certain circumstances for allergy sufferers.

At Sobieski Services, Inc., our goal is to help our customers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey learn more about energy and home comfort issues – especially HVAC and plumbing issues – so that they can save money and live in healthier, more comfortable homes.

Photo Credit: RustyClark (hottnfunkyradio.com) via Compfight cc

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