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Attic Fan Blowing Out Insulation Hazard

Plus, get black-out curtains for any windows that face south. you can still open the curtains when it's not really hot out!

Reply to
micky
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Ridge vents/soffit vents may be enough to prevent condensation from causing rot damage, but probably do relatively little for cooling.

I have never been in a "convection vented" attic that wasn't really hot on a sunny day in warm weather.

Reply to
Bob F

Even better - reflective (outside side) shades.

Reply to
Bob F

You've never said where the filter is supposed to go.

Reply to
micky

I've only been in mine, so it's good to hear your report. I'm not surprised. When my roof fan needs repair, I try to do it outside the summer, but if not I go up at the crack of dawn when it's still pretty cool out. **It's hard to oil the top of the motor. I don't know what I was supposed to do, but I've ruined a few motors. It's a little tricky to replace them.

Reply to
micky

I said "The HEPA filter will remove contaminants in the attic, and the carbon pre-filter will remove stale odour in the attic, when the "whole house fan" is not turned on, and the attic is effectively a "confined area"" in my reply to trader_4. You can still see that in a couple of paragraphs below.

Any sensible person would think the best place to put a HEPA filter to remove contaminants in the attic is "in the attic".

Reply to
invalid unparseable

A whole house fan moves a lot of air. The turbulence from that could shake the insulation enough to loosen more fibers over time.

Reply to
Bob F

Wow! Here that Yoga? Just put one of them there filters in your attic. Anywhere.

Reply to
micky

there is a lot of air sucked thorough the house and then exits the attic. No reason to filter anything. This thread has gone off the wall with ideas not needed.

I had an whole house fan in my last house for 40 years and never had the issues coming up here.

Reply to
Ed P

Good ideas.

ONe more of my own, which -- sorry -- probably doens't apply to the OP. I have a laundry chute from the 2nd floor hall to the basement. The basement is always cool. I slept there the first summer. I found a fan that just fits the opening, and I ran an extension cord from the basement up to the fan, and every summer I put the fan in the chute to blow basement air upstairs. It works. It would work even better if the stairs were not near the chute, or if the stairs had a door,, or if I could run a hose from the fan to my office, but last summer it worked well enough. Of course this summer I hear a comet is aimed at the Earth.

(I plug a mini-extension cord that I made into the one from the basement, and I ran a wire through the chute escutcheon to a line-switch, so I can turn it on and off. --- It was hard to find a fan the right size. I looked at 30 or more and one was exactly right. The others would have fallen down the chute or not fit at all.) .

Reply to
micky

I have a 15 inch or so "attic exhaust fan" which I insert into the attic access hole to blow into the attic in warm weather. I shorted the temp switch on it and plugged it in through an X10 powerline carrier remote control module. I Open a window downstairs, and sometimes the one in my upstairs bedroom, and turn on the fan in the evening as the outside temp gets below the inside. That cools the house off pretty well overnight. In the morning, when the outside gets warmer than the inside, I turn off the fan and close the windows and the door to the room where the fan is. The house can stay up to 10F cooler than outside at the peak outside temp which is in the late afternoon.

Reply to
Bob F

That's very good. I should do something like that.

I didn't use the laundry chute too much until last summer. I can't compare it with the outside, but I think it's 3 or 4 degrees cooler than it would be without the chute fan. And 3 or 4 is a lot.

Plus I have a 10 or 12" fan that blows on me at my desk. That makes a tremendous difference. I use a light dimmer to make it go just slow enough that i don't hear it. (Yes, people, everyone says this won't work but I've been doing it for 30 years.)

And I have a small fan to blow on me in bed.

But with all this, since my AC is still broken, I don't think the fans will be enough and I'll have to go to one of those cooling centers, LOL, that they advertise on local tv news, or take a trip and stay in motels.

Reply to
micky

A filter certainly can block the particles over a certain size, they can't get through the filter. The goal here isn't to remove all, most or even any of the particles in a confined area, it's to block them from passing through the vents. If this didn't work, obviously protective dust masks would not work.

Reply to
trader_4

Some clarifications:

My house is single story, 2200 Sq Ft. So is the attic is the same. The roof is peaked. I can not stand up straight in it, but I can walk bent over on plywood walkways I laid down so I wouldn't need to try and walk on the ceiling joists. The attic is kinda big. I'd probably need a big HEPA filter.

The insulation of choice in Southern California seems to be blown in fiberglass. If I do this, it would seem it would be shedding particles all the time. Maybe a HEPA wouldn't keep up. In addition, I'd need to run it all the time or be going up there to turn it on and off.

The Soffits are above every window, so closing some windows would not work. I'd need to close them all, which defeats the purpose of the fan.

I don't have any windows facing south, but I do have sunlight block curtains on every window.

I live in San Diego so the climate is mild. I live about 2 miles from the ocean which moderates the climate even more. This is why we pay the big bucks for housing. No snow ever. No freezing. Max summer temperature maybe once or twice a year 90 degrees.

The house has central air. I turn on the air conditioner once or twice a year to see if it still works. It's 50 years old. Works fine. The heating I turn on in the dead of winter in the morning once in a while when the house temperature gets down to 58 degrees. (BRRRR) I only run it for 15 minutes to take of the chill and to make sure it still works.

I only need the whole house fan at nights during the summer. In San Diego, no matter what time of year, the nights cool down a lot. So turning on the whole house fan cools down the house a lot. You need to cover up when sleeping. Even in the summer. In the morning I just turn off the fan and close all the windows. The house stays cool until about 4PM. When the sun goes down, I repeat the process.

My gas and light bill is $150 a month on average.

Temporarily, I've closed off the soffits while I decide what to do. I just had the rolled insulation removed so blowing the fan will clear out some of the dust and contaminates stirred up by having this done.

My current thinking is to put in foam board insulation. This will stay down below the tops of the rafters allowing me to see the wiring and work on it if I need to. And the foam board will not shed.

Maybe this will eliminate the soffit problem. If not, I'll remove the whole house fan from the hallway ceiling that blows from the house into the attic and install a fan in the wall of the house that blows from the inside of the house to directly outside.

Reply to
Yoga Photodude

If you have already removed all the particles in the attic with a HEPA filter, what particles will pass through the vents when you turn on the whole house fan?

Please note that the "HEPA filter" I am talk about is a portable electric air purifier.

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Reply to
invalid unparseable

I have another suggestion. Use a dimmer suitable for electric fans (inductive load) to slow down your whole-house-fan so that wind from the fan wouldn't pick up the particles.

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Reply to
invalid unparseable

You keep saying this crap, but the fact is that the HEPA filter will only remove the particles that stay in the air long enough to get to it. Most will settle to the surface, ready to be whipped up and blown out by the whole house fan whenever it is running. The HEPA filter will have virtually no effect.

Reply to
Bob F

Put in your own batts. It would cost a bit more, but they now sell attic insulation that comes in lightweight breathable covers to control fibers. Insulating yourself is not very expensive, and laying down batts is not a huge job. I have done it in 2 houses.

His chance that a "dimmer" would work to slow down his fan is very small. The motors used in the fans are unlikely to work to control the types of motors used in the fans.

Reply to
Bob F

It would probably be cooler in my house if I too closed all the windows during the day, but I don't. I only have 3 rooms with windows (one room that I don't use or have an open window), and I close one window to about 2 inches and the other on the other side of the house to 6". So the hot outside air can blow in through those areas.

I have the feeling that even 2 and 6" is like having them wide open. Do you all think that's true? That the warm/hot breeze through the house is as great with only 2 inches (or maybe 4) as it would be if it were 2 feet.

So would 1/2 inch be better? I like hearing the noise from outside. Maybe birds, an occasional car going by.

It's supposed to be 95F today, though tomorrow is only 88. 11:45, still cool enough at my desk.

Reply to
micky

Power Range:500W-1500W. Sounds like a lot , but the ad only mentions "inline duct fans" and they are nowhere near the size of whole house fan motors. They're nowhere near 1500 watts either so I don't know why the ad is so narrowly targeted.

Hmm. Actually it says "for Hydroponics Inline Duct Exhaust Ceiling Fans"!! But they have others in the row farther down.

When I was born, my father had an inline duct fan put in, in the duct going to my room. My mother was impressed.

Reply to
micky

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