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Discussion Forum

whole house fan installation

Farkel | Posted in General Discussion on April 16, 2009 10:29am

I installed a whole house fan a few years back but it is so noisy, I don’t use it much. I think problem is that, because of the house layout, there was no place to install the fan and still have 3 feet of clearance in the attic between the fan and the roof. To maximize the clearance, I made a fan box and installed the fan between the ceiling joists.

I have thinking about re-installing the fan. The concept is install the fan on its side on the lip of the hole in the ceiling, so that it blows out across the attic rather than straight up to the roof. I understand that this would involve building a box above the hole in the ceiling to seal it.

I don’t see why this wouldn’t work, but I have not seen this mentioned as an acceptable installation technique.

Any thoughts?

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Replies

  1. User avater
    rjw | Apr 16, 2009 10:37pm | #1

    The problem could be (i) direct mechanical connections between the fan and the drum head - er, ceiling, and/or (ii) an inexpensive fan and/or (iii) an out of balance fan.

    Decouple the fan from the framing is the first thing to try, IMO


    "Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

    Howard Thurman

  2. gfretwell | Apr 16, 2009 10:49pm | #2

    My family thinks the sound of the fan is part of the charm. I thought about recording and playing it back on a good sub woofer when we turn the A/C on. It is a belt drive fan with good shock mounts but there is still a healthy low frequency sound. I actually have 2 and we usually only run them on low speed. Both on high probably turns over all the air in the house in a few minutes.

  3. User avater
    xxPaulCPxx | Apr 17, 2009 12:07am | #3

    You might want to consider adding more ventsa to yout attic to let out all that forced air!

    Tu stultus es
    Rebuilding my home in Cypress, CA
    Also a CRX fanatic!

    Look, just send me to my drawer.  This whole talking-to-you thing is like double punishment.

  4. DanH | Apr 17, 2009 04:27am | #4

    No reason why it wouldn't work (in a purely mechanical sense), but if you have enough room to do that you probably have enough room above the fan for air movement, so that isn't you problem.

    Building the box would help muffle the sound of air movement through the fan, though. (Or, probably more properly, the sound of the fan blades moving through the air.) On the other hand, the worst vibration from the fan is apt to be radial (from a slightly out-of-balance condition), and orienting the fan with a horizontal axis will result in the vibration being up and down (vs side-to-side as it is now). This would make vibration noise worse.

    You can buy other styles of fan assemblies (though they're more expensive than the standard unit). There are units with 2-4 smaller fans that are supposedly quieter and can more easily be oriented differently.

    The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
  5. User avater
    BossHog | Apr 17, 2009 01:57pm | #5

    Not all fans are made to be installed on their sides. It might affect how long the bearings lasted. Ya might wanna check the literature that came with the fan.

    I've heard of people building an offset box, so the fan is a few feet over to the side of the opening. I think they glued rigid foam insulation to the sides of the box to muffle the noise of the fan.

    Maybe that would be an option?

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