Another Murrieta home owner is ready for the coming summer with a new Whole house fan!
This was a typical installation with a Trident 4.8. The attic space was adequate and the venting meet the requirements so it was a very straightforward project.
Murrieta, Ca has the perfect climate for a whole house fan. Next week it’s starting to heat up just a little as you can see from the weather forecast:
Even when it’s mild with some cloud cover we still have a 20-30 degree temperature swing everyday in Murrieta which is why Whole house fans work so well here.
Thermal mass heating is a phenomenon that happens when the sun heats your home and attic up all day long. Even after the sun goes down and it’s 20 degrees cooler outside your AC is still in a constant battle with all the heat trapped in your attic, walls and ceilings. A whole house fan pulls that nice cool, clean air in through your windows and pushes it out your attic which removes not only the hot air from your bedroom but it cools down your attic as well which saves you from having to run your expensive AC for hours into the evening.
Thermal Mass Heating.
It’s hard to imagine that the 2x4’s in your walls heat up along with the outside air temperature but the ambient temperature outside wants to transfer to the inside of your home.
This thermal mass heating effect is best experienced when you get into your car on a hot day. The sun heats up the car like a small oven and even if you put the cars AC on full blast it still takes 10-20 minutes to cool down. If your like most people you will roll your windows down to help remove that stale, hot air as quickly as possible.
This same “hot car” effect is experienced in your home but on a much larger scale. The attic, insulation, walls, ceilings and drywall heat up substantially during the day. During the summer months your attic can reach temperatures of 140-160 degrees F! This heat bleeds from the attic down though the insulation and drywall into your living space. Then you flip on your central air conditioner to fight the thermal mass heat wave that your attic is emitting which takes hours and does nothing to cool down your attic which is the main probeom.
Remember the hot car analogy? Where you can open your windows and cool down the car in a matter of minutes. This is exactly how a whole house fan works. You can pull all the hot air out of your home and attic in minutes and it only costs pennies to operate.