Summary: In order for a whole house fan to function well in needs a lot of space. The hot air is pulled best through the house by pot vents or turbines.
Question: Our builder after having inspected the house by taking a walk through declared that he cannot install a whole house fan which was what we wanted. The explanation he gave for his conclusion was that both eave vents and roof vents are installed accidentally. He called these vents soffit vents an continuous ridge vents. The builder also held that the whole house fan we wanted would burn up. Is his assessment correct? We actually want a whole house fan to be installed.
Answer: What was the builder imply when he used the word ‘accidentally’? Your home is located in California in the central valley. It needs to have the maximum possible ventilation. If I were your builder I would actually add a whole house fan to the package for roof ventilation to the existing continuous ridge and soffit ventilation. But this also requires the installation of some more additional roof ventilation products to make sure that there is no burn up.
Whole house exhaust fans are available in different sizes and types. The key function of these fans is to move large volumes of air. Moderate climates with low humidity are best suited for the functioning of these fans. A pleasant breeze flows through all your rooms in your home with a whole house fan when the air outside begins to drop as the sun sets. Even when the summer heat reaches its zenith, you may need a blanket to stave the cold when you sleep when there is a whole house fan turned on!
The whole house exhaust fans draws in thousands of cubic feet of air every minute. A similar volume of air has to be expelled out from your home if the fan were to function effectively. The fan blade will not be pushing out sufficient air though it will be spinning if the house has small exhaust areas or if the air does not have places to be expelled. The fan motor could overheat if the air flow past the motor is low. It may be compared to car tires spinning on ice and snow. Since outdoor air is not moving across the radiator of the car, the car engine overheats fast.
The requirement of the exhaust fan in terms of the free net area that is needed will be provided in the written instructions given along with the whole house exhaust fan that you buy. The free net area is defined in terns of square inches or square feet. But then you should know what this means. Don’t assume that a hole measuring one square foot in your roof covered with a cap will give you the exhaust opening of one square foot.
About half the area of the whole that you have made simply goes off in the slits or insect screening in the metal vent. To make a leeway for this, I will go for making a free net area larger by 25 to as much as half of it. Installing affordable and simple spinning roof turbines is one way by which you can achieve this ventilation area.
The continuous ridge and soffit ventilation that you anyway have hidden may look sleeker than the great roof ventilation products. The roof ventilation products moreover permit large quantity of air to easily escape from the attic place that has become hot. Additionally these work whenever there is a slight breeze that blows across the roof. To avoid being noticeable from the street, I will suggest that you install them on your roof at the backside.
Ask your builder to set up simple static roof top vents of you do not want roof turbines. These roof ventilation products are efficient and common. I have set them up in my home. You will be able to meet the needs of the whole house fans with some 10 or may be 14 pot vents bit depending upon the kind of fan you have procured. These vents ought to be places on that part of the roof that renders them invisible from the ground.
The builder may lie by telling you to go for an costly change order. You need to outsmart him. It will not cost you more than $150 for the actual materials that are required for the purpose of ventilation of the fan. The product installation should not take even 4 hours. As the builder has undertaken the installation of the whole house fan, he shouldn’t be charging you according to the time taken. This package includes the installation of roof vents.
The spinning roof turbine matches well with whole house fans. These vents do not limit the opening in the roof. In comparison with the air that a hole in the roof that is just an opening to the atmosphere exhausts, more air is exhausted by the spinning roof turbine vents spinning either by air pushed by the whole house fan or by wind power.
The extent of roof ventilation that is possible is limited and that is the fact. A farmer who manages chicken houses will tell you how the ventilation is done for the chicken have to be in a cool place as they do not sweat or they would die.
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