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in the interest of economy, my roomate and i do not run the a/c in my
two story home which is about ten miles from the beach. as
expected, some nights we sleep downstairs.
i toured a historical home years ago in the south that used a central
well and gas flames to create an updraft that exhausted hot air and
provided circulation.
what would be the ramifications of replacing my attic acess with a
grill and setting the attic exhaust fans to a lower thermostat setting so
they draw air out of the upstairs during the heat of the day? im in
southern los angeles area so ive no real cold temperatures to worry
about; will the added moisture ill be intorducing into the attic be
significantly determental?
all replys appreciated.
Replies
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Here on the East Coast, whole house fans that vent into the attic or Attic vent fans that draw from the house are real common.
*But he's talking about trying to use the (usually much smaller) attic-only vent fans to vent the house. I think his scheme would work by replacing the attic access with a grill but not as well as a whole-house fan. If there are soffit vents, he won't stand a chance of pulling air out through the grill that he mentioned.PS - R.D. If you do use/install a whole-house fan or even go ahead with your scheme, it is extremely important to mount a smoke-detector/relay switch to shut down the fan upon detection of smoke. Otherwise if your house catches fire the fan will accelerate it's destruction. You need to check codes - due to this you may be in violation of your building code.Also, remember, the makeup air for the fan has to come from somewhere. If you forget to leave windows open, you will pull makeup air down chimneys and also backdraft gas appliances. Be careful with this!Jeff
*R. D.Jeff is correct in checking your building codes. I believe that if you check the BOCA codes, you will find that any attic that has more than 30" of head room requires an access in case of fire. What you are proposing to do is take out the access and put in an attic fan. I recommend that you get a qualified builder to determine where the best place in your house to install an attic fan, determine if you need move ventalition for you attic to handle the extra air flow to exhaust the hot air (you would not want to be pushing all this air into the atic and then forcing it back down into you living area thru cracks, around electrical outlets, lights, etc). You would also need to do like Jeff said and have it wired to your smoke detector to shut off in case of a fire.Vince
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in the interest of economy, my roomate and i do not run the a/c in my
two story home which is about ten miles from the beach. as
expected, some nights we sleep downstairs.
i toured a historical home years ago in the south that used a central
well and gas flames to create an updraft that exhausted hot air and
provided circulation.
what would be the ramifications of replacing my attic acess with a
grill and setting the attic exhaust fans to a lower thermostat setting so
they draw air out of the upstairs during the heat of the day? im in
southern los angeles area so ive no real cold temperatures to worry
about; will the added moisture ill be intorducing into the attic be
significantly determental?
all replys appreciated.