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Whole house fan cooling

Discussion in 'Homeowners Corner' started by kholbert, Jul 25, 2011.

  1. Tim

    Tim New Member

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    This is an old thread, but I am in need of an attic fan. Our townhouse near Wynridge does not have an attic fan nor a top floor A/C unit. I don't know why maybe none of these townhomes do. The temp difference is about 15 degrees between ground level and the top floor. (freezing in winter hot in summer). Does HOA require approval for this? And anyone know the estimates about 10 years after this thread?
     
  2. woopity

    woopity cdubs ya know!

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    Tim---are you adjusting the baffles at your furnace to force the air in the correct direction? We lived over in that area in a townhouse that was single zone for 8 years and never had too much issue with keeping it comfortable. There were two main trunk lines coming off the top of the air handler and one fed the upstairs, and the other fed the lower two levels. In the summer--you want the one that feeds the lower levels partially/mostly closed, and the one that goes upstairs wide OPEN. In the winter--you'll move the upstairs feeder almost closed and leave the downstairs wide open so that hot air goes to the lower two levels...and rises to heat the upstairs.

    Fast forward to now...the two zone setup Van Metre did in our single family is crap and it's hot upstairs even with a dedicated unit. We replaced the original unit finally last year and it's mostly better now, but it sucked for a long time. I love home ownership ;)
     
    PDILLM likes this.
  3. L0stS0ul

    L0stS0ul hmmmm

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    The ductwork VM put in the attic is incredibly poor in our house and uses distribution boxes that are improperly configured causing almost all air to get to 1 vent per trunk line. Getting it reconfigured would be very expensive I've been told. One of the things I'm thinking of doing is buying a bucket of mastic from home depot and coat the connections around the distribution box. I was up there over the winter checking it and the amount of air loss is insane and that just leads to all kinds of issues. I'd really like to get the distribution box reconfigured from a triangle to a rectangle though to get the proper flow. I can't believe they did the boxes so poorly.

    We paid a lot of money to upgrade from the goodman unit for that upstairs and it didn't do much for us without the attic fan. The attic fan does help tremendously on these hot days though as the unit is able to keep up. I certainly know when it dies though and they seem to last 2-3 years. At least it's cheap at amazon and I've gotten pretty good at replacing it. $70 bucks every 2-3 years plus about 45 minutes of my time is worth it as long as I catch it in the early spring :)
     
  4. woopity

    woopity cdubs ya know!

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    Yeah--I had climatic out to do our replacement---and I didn't get them to reconfigure everything---but they did fix the biggest problem i had, which was my son's room, which sits on the middle-back of the house and gets the sunset/afternoon summer sun baking, (closest to the air handler i might add) was miles of ductwork away it seemed...and there was almost no air coming out of it. When they replaced the unit---they tapped his vent right into the top of the air handler and now his room is 20 degrees cooler than it used to be. The thermostat is also right outside of his room. It's so much better now, and my AC doesn't run 16 hours a day only to keep it within 1 or 2 degrees of what i want it be at.
     
    PDILLM and L0stS0ul like this.
  5. jwf

    jwf Well-Known Member

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    Robert from Cascades Comfort replaced and upgraded both my 1999 York units. Excellent service and knowledge of the systems and HVAC. Now I freeze upstairs in the winter because my wife sets the thermostats at 62 and I am toasty warm in the winter. The new high efficiency York units work great and for less money on my utility bills.

    Never heard of Goodman.

    15 years ago I had an attic vent fan put in. Later I learned about the ridge vent could get short circuited by the fan but I still think it helps. Shiner didn't think it was an issue when I had my roof replaced a couple years ago. I think it helps because I don't trust Washington Homes to have done the soffit venting correctly anyway. What a nightmare that was.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2021
  6. Tim

    Tim New Member

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    Roofer911 no longer services northern VA...
     
  7. Tim

    Tim New Member

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    Yes we have the baffles like you described. But they don't make a difference unfortunately. Bad design for our 3 level home.
     

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