How to Choose a Whole House Fan

A whole house fan offers many potential benefits to homeowners. These include lower utility bills, cooler homes, better air circulation throughout the home, and the satisfaction of reducing your carbon footprint. Not bad for a day’s work, right?

But, it only offers these benefits if you choose the right whole house fan for your home and your needs. Getting the wrong whole house fan may save you now, but cost you later, or it may be inefficient for the needs of your home. These are a few things to consider so that you choose the best whole house fan for your home.

Cooling Efficiency
Getting the right size fan is very important if your goal is to cool your home in a cost effective manner. Ideally, you want to purchase a whole house fan that will move 1.5 to 2.0 CFM per square foot of living area in your home. For example, if you live in a 2,000 square foot home, you will want to purchase a fan with a rating of 3,000 – 4,000 CFM.

Breeze Generation
Some homeowners want more than a gentle cooling. They want to feel a definitive breeze wafting through the home. Cooling will occur more rapidly with this choice, though it may lack the energy efficiency of other fan choices. In this instance you are looking for 2.5 to 3.0 CFM per square foot, which would require a whole house fan offering 5,000 to 6,000 CFM for a 2,000 square foot home.

Adequate and Appropriate Roof Venting
The most important aspect of any whole house fan is the proper balance of cool air coming in and warm air going out. The air going out must have proper ventilation, through roof vents, so that the air can escape as rapidly as it is coming in. To determine this you must take the CFM of airflow specific to the fan and divide by 750. This tells you how many square feet of free venting you need for that fan.

There are, of course, other important considerations for whole house fans too, such as:

Location of the fan – an open hallway allowing access to various rooms throughout the home is best.

Type of fans – people who experience periodic cold snaps will need insulated-door fans while those in Southern California can use standard fans fine for the most part.

These simple rules will help you choose the right whole house fan for your home and the cooling effect you most desire.

Check out our amazing selection of whole house fans here. And if you have questions about any of them, call us here at wholehousefan.com. 1.888.229.5757