Money Well Spent

We finally did it - we got a whole house fan. We've only been talking about if since we bought the house. A whole house fan is a fan that's installed in your ceiling, and when turned on pulls all the hot air out of our house into the attic. It has several benefits. Not only does it suck the hot air out of your house, but the force of the air into the attic pushes most of the hot air out of your attic as well. The fan also draws in cooler air from outside (when turned on during the cooler parts of the day). It works well on days that cool down. As a benefit, we're hoping it will lower our A/C bills in the summer when Colorado is amazingly hot. We had one in our rental when we first moved to Colorado. It worked well when we'd open all the lower story windows and turn in on in the evening or the morning. The trouble with that one, as with much of the house, was that it was old and cheaply done. The sound of the fan being turned on was akin to the sound of a jet landing in your hallway. It was so awesome that it was right in between the kid's rooms (sarcastic emphasis added)! Such fun when you have a one year and three year old. This one is also right between the kid's rooms, but it is a much quieter model. Even I might be able to sleep when it's on. Well, maybe when it's on low.....

Brian's hoping for a hot day so we can test it out! I'm not. We've got the rest of spring and summer and fall to test it out. I wish we'd had one in California. It would have made our fairly uninsulated rentals much more bearable!

Here's the nice hold they cut in our ceiling.

And, here's my attic (I know you've always wanted to see it!)

All the while, our driveway sort of looked like a spare parts yard.

Here is the final result. Looks pretty good, does it?

What it looks like when it's open.