any good way to convert attic furnace fan to whole house fan
 

Hi all,

We have a newer two-speed attic furnace/HVAC unit which currently draws the
intake from a hallway ceiling vent right next to where I would like to
install a whole house fan to vent warm air into the attic to cool the house
in the summer evenings rather than run the AC.

I thought that we could use the existing two-speed furnace/AC blower to just
divert the incoming air into the attic and have it double as a whole house
fan. I think it would require some diverter valve to send the air into the
attic rather than back through the plenum to return to the house, but this
would obviate the need to cut new holes in the ceiling, install and wire a
whole house fan, open up more ceiling space to heating and cooling losses,
etc.

Clearly it may be more work than it is worth, but I was wondering if anybody
has tried something like this.

We live in SoCal near the coast, so we have cool evenings regardless of the
temperature during the day, and it makes a whole house fan an attractive
option, particularly since we have a 5 ton AC unit with 169 LRA at 240 VAC
(clearly oversized for our needs).

Thank you,

OD

any good way to convert attic furnace fan to whole house fan
 

"old dirtbeard" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

We have a newer two-speed attic furnace/HVAC unit which currently draws the
intake from a hallway ceiling vent right next to where I would like to install
a whole house fan to vent warm air into the attic to cool the house in the
summer evenings rather than run the AC.

I thought that we could use the existing two-speed furnace/AC blower to just
divert the incoming air into the attic and have it double as a whole house
fan. I think it would require some diverter valve to send the air into the
attic rather than back through the plenum to return to the house, but this
would obviate the need to cut new holes in the ceiling, install and wire a
whole house fan, open up more ceiling space to heating and cooling losses,
etc.

Clearly it may be more work than it is worth, but I was wondering if anybody
has tried something like this.

We live in SoCal near the coast, so we have cool evenings regardless of the
temperature during the day, and it makes a whole house fan an attractive
option, particularly since we have a 5 ton AC unit with 169 LRA at 240 VAC
(clearly oversized for our needs).

One problem would be that all the dust in the air you exhaust would be going
through the furnace, dirtying the heat exchangers and/or the filters. It would
be better to duck off the duct to the furnace for a separate fan, but that would
require a way to block the flow to/from the furnace to prevent backflow.

I have considered how I could duct outside air to the furnace intake for similar
results. with the outside air being filtered on the way into the house - a much
more desirable result. Some kind of controllable duct to a gable vent could make
this possible in your situation. Air would come from the inside, or the outside
gable vent.