We live in the top two floors of an old brownstone in NYC. It gets CRAZY hot on our top floor, which is really the attic of the house, but where we have our three bedrooms and one bath. It's also poorly insulated. The front two rooms have dormer windows and the back bedroom and bathroom have only skylights. There is also one window on one side of the house (the wall on the other side is against neighboring building's wall).
We are very low on cash or I would install a mini-split system. Researching whole house fans, they seem like a great option for us, but I can't figure out how we could do this if we live in our attic. Also our stairwells from 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th floors are pretty open.
The ground floor and 2nd floor of the building have separate studio apartments; we have our door on the 2nd floor landing, so the landing is also part of our living space.
I hope someone has an idea, I can't find anything about this on the web!
Best Answer
I love whole house fans , have now installed them in 4 houses and 2 garages. As noted they can only reduce temperature to the outside temperature. But that works well with a night temperature below 70F and a day temp above 80F , running an hour or so in the morning. Ideally you need to install it in a gable for your situation. You may want an insulating foam panel to put over the louvers when the fan is not on as louvers leak air. I recommend a belt drive as the direct drive turn the fan faster making significantly more noise. As noted , windows need to be opened to let air in,; window adjustment also lets you focus the cooling.