TOP 5 – Things to consider before installing your WHF

(1) Sizing – Size is important when it comes to a whole house fan since air movement is what will be cooling your home. You want to move just enough cool air to grab heat as it radiates out of the building materials. If you don’t move enough air the heat will radiate faster than it can be removed. Check out our Sizing Calculator to determine which WHF is right for your home

(2) Attic venting – The whole house fan will be forcing air into the attic….. it needs a way to escape. If you don’t have enough attic venting the performance of your WHF will be reduced. This is because the majority of its work will be put towards pushing air out of the attic instead of pulling fresh air in through your open windows. Each AirScape model has a certain amount of venting required so it can operate optimally. Use our Attic Venting Calculator to determine how much venting you have.

(3) Location – Is important. Ideally you would install the WHF at the center of the house at the highest point. If your home was a two-story square building with equal window distribution you would mount the unit in center of the attic floor, enabling you to open all windows equally to achieve even cooling. Offsetting the unit one direction or another will change how you open windows. This is not an exact science and will take some trial and error to determine how best to open windows to optimize the cooling in your home.

(4) Attic clearance – Not all attics are created equally. It is a good idea to determine the amount of attic clearance before purchasing an AirScape. All of our models have different clearance requirement. Check out the installation manuals for exact install dimensions.

(5) Power – Is there power in your attic? Every AirScape model comes with a ten foot power cord which we recommend plugging into an outlet instead of hard wiring. You should also take into consideration the amp requirements for the AirScape you are installing.

AirScape Bathroom Exhaust Kits

AirScape bathroom exhaust kits are available now!

You can have it all….. great air movement and low noise. Traditional bathroom fans are noisy and don’t move enough air to properly ventilate the bathroom area. AirScape bath kits include high velocity inline fans that are remotely located using acoustic ductwork to minimize fan noise.

For more information click here (www.hvacquick.com site)

Correctly Wire Your Wall Switch

This is a brief reminder of the proper location for wiring the wall switch to your AirScape control board. We have noticed that sometimes people, even licensed electricians, wire the wall switch to the auxiliary actuator terminal (red crossed out circle). Wiring at this incorrect location will blow the 3 amp circuit breaker on your unit and possibly damage your control board. Regardless of your experience level we recommend looking at the wiring diagram in the instruction manual before wiring the wall switch. The correct wiring location is indicated by the green circle with check mark.

Related Posts: HOW TO WIRE THE WALL SWITCH

Unique and Challenging Installs – introduction

Did you find your install particularly challenging because of your attic configuration? Did you have a unique install that went beyond the traditional install method? Or are you just proud of your DIY project? If you answered yes to any of these questions we would love to see your installation photos. Hopefully, your unique or challenging install will help someone overcome an obstacle in their installation or just show them what’s possible beyond the norm. With that being said, we are starting an ongoing blog series on unique and/or challenging installs. This series is open to both home owners and installers.

So, if you feel that your installation could be helpful, please send your photos and answers to the questions below to: experts@airscapefans.com

What was the most challenging part of the installation?

On a scale of 1 to 5 how difficult would you rate this installation? (1 easy – 5 difficult)

What advice would you give to someone doing this installation?

How much of a “Do-it-yourselfer” are you? ( 1 what’s a hammer? – 5 fix everything myself)

building simulation-part1


Typical House Energy Flow (click to enlarge) courtesy of Arron Acosta and Cy Hoadley-Kilbourne, MIT

If you’re contemplating an energy upgrade to your house or commercial building, perhaps someone has mentioned the concept of a building simulation, or doing an energy model.  Such a process has been part of the commercial HVAC world for some time now.
As the name suggests, a building simulation involves the use of a computer to simulate the building’s energy performance.  The goal of performing a simulation is not only to predict how much energy a building will use over the course of a year, but also to compare alterrnative designs. We can also look at some measures of comfort within the building.

With all this data, it’s clear that a simulation can be very powerful for helping make decisions. As you might guess, authorities that regulate energy compliance as well as those that give out rebates want to see this kind of analysis done to make sure they are spending our money wisely.

The ‘sankey’ diagram above illustrates the complexity of the energy flows into and out of a typical house.  Based upon a description of the building input by the user, the building simulation software calculates all the energy flows into and out of the building. Not only does the software model the building envelope, but it models the interactions of people, infiltration, and even exotic things like trombe walls. After doing all this, the software has to predict how the building equipment will perform. Everything from furnace efficiency, daylighting controls, through daylighting controls is simulated on a 24hour/365day basis.

The pay-off is not to predict the exact energy use of any one particular house, but instead to look at alternate ways of building, different equipment, and even alternate control strategies.

Over the next blog postings, I’ll keep you in the loop on our progress.

Executive Summary:

Financial analyst is to Spreadsheet AS   Engineer is to Energy Modelling