What Do Corvettes and Fans Have In Common?

Creating Air Flow Movement Is One Way To Beat The Heat!

Imagine it’s a beautiful sunny day, a HOT sunny day, and 90 degrees.  You’re driving down the highway in your favorite convertible. Life is good, you’re not feeling hot, until…you come to a stop light.  Suddenly, you feel the HEAT!  Why is that? The temperature hasn’t changed.  What has changed is the air flow and you’ve lost the evaporative cooling that it provided.  The Same principle applies when you use fans for air movement.

Wait…What?! How does it feel cooler when the temperature doesn’t change?  It’s called evaporative cooling.  Moving air helps remove moisture from your skin, taking some of the heat with it creating a cooling effect. So, now you’ve decided you want to use air movement to beat the heat.  Exactly how do we do that? Using floor or ceiling fans will make you more comfortable even though they don’t actually cool the air.

Let’s turn our attention to cooling your house.  One way to cool your house is to use an attic fan.  Anyone who has had to go into the attic in the middle of the summer knows that it can be 50% warmer than your living space. That means that the heat blanket (heat index if you want to use a fancy term) is actually heating your house up along with the sun outside.  An attic fan is an effective way to exhaust the heat.  Run manually or via a thermostat, removing/exhausting the heat from the attic naturally provides some cooling to the house.

The BEST way to create air flow beat the heat and save money is to use a whole house fan to cool your home.  Whole house fans are installed in the attic space.  When the outside air is cooler than the inside air in your home, open some windows, turn on the fan and SHAZAMMMM your house becomes cool at a fraction of the cost of using air conditioners!!  But wait there’s more (!!!) …not only does your home cool BUT your attic also cools off too.  As the heated air from your home exhausts into your attic, the hot air in your attic escapes through the venting thereby cooling your attic as it cools your home. Taking the place of an attic fan.  Two benefits for the price of one!

One last thought, when considering a whole house fan be sure to take into consideration the following, sizing the fan properly for your home, energy consumption and most importantly energy efficiency via insulated doors that seal off the attic space from your home when not in use.

So if you can’t afford the convertible for evaporative cooling, check out a whole house fan!