As we head toward the change in seasons in the Greater Toronto Area and enjoy the fairly consistent cool evenings and mornings with the nice warm days. It’s part of what we all love about Canada.
The problem is that the inside of your house does not mimic these temperatures unless you have an older home with poor insulation. So we all have to run our air conditioners all day long to stay comfortable. Which these days cost much more than it ever has.
This is the time of year when having a whole house fan will make all the difference in the world. We have all tried the box fan in the window and it may work pretty well for one room but it just does not compare to a whole house fan.
At bedtime if the outdoor temperature is less than the indoor, shut off the air conditioner and open a few windows with the whole house fan running and it cools down the house in just a few minutes at a fraction of the cost to run the air conditioning system.
In the mornings run the fan with the windows open for a couple of hours to pre-cool your home- it freshens the air in the house and the best part is that when you shut it off before the outside temperature starts to rise the air conditioning system does not need to run anywhere near as much. Days when you do not run our fan your air conditioning system will begin to cycle fairly early in the morning.
While the whole house fan does have its limitations (it’s not a good idea to use on humid days), it has many other advantages as well. We have all burned something in the kitchen or maybe your spouse likes to cook fish… well, nothing works better at getting that out of your house fast than the whole house fan. One last advantage is that they also pre-cool your attic space as well, which just adds to the energy savings.
The best part is that whole house fans are relatively inexpensive. They are usually very simple fans that are installed in the ceiling and blow their air into the attic space of your home. This pulls in the cool air from outside to cool down your house and your attic at the same time. They are sized to move a lot of air all at once and can come with either two or three speeds.
So if you are looking for ways to save money on your utility bill or maybe you just want to reduce your carbon footprint, a whole house fan is a great way of getting several benefits from one simple piece of low-cost equipment.