[Willy702]

Originally Posted by lvoc

In Southern AZ they use the swamp cooler extensively. My mother lived in a outskirts tract on the east side of Sierra Vista and every house had a central swamp cooler tied to the AC system. You ran only one at a time of course but you could pick which at any time.

I wonder why not here? That is higher by a lot so it may be a more moderate and maybe even a drier climate....and it does get much cooler at night.

They don't have the heat island effect and are 2,500 feet higher elevation than Vegas. Whole different situation. I am sure they keep the A/C for July and August, but drier times of the year the swamp cooler probably works very well there.

[ScoopLV]

Originally Posted by Willy702

They don't have the heat island effect and are 2,500 feet higher elevation than Vegas. Whole different situation. I am sure they keep the A/C for July and August, but drier times of the year the swamp cooler probably works very well there.

It works well here, too. That is, if you can deal with 85f. I'm actually fine all the way up to 90f. My last three residences: Nevada, Florida, Egypt. I'm OK with hot. I'm quite used to it.

One of the most comfortable buildings I've ever been in was in the middle of the Sahara desert. It was a riad in Morocco. From the outside, it looked like a plain stone building, just like all the rest of the buildings in the medina.

Inside, it looked sort of like this:



The Berbers know how to deal with the desert -- tall, tall houses (for maximum shade and the heat chimney effect) with an open roof, and water features in the central courtyard to provide evaporative cooling.

If I was forced to live here permanently, I would buy property on the extreme west end of town, up against the Spring Mountains, and build one of these.

[tiger08]

Originally Posted by lvoc

In Southern AZ they use the swamp cooler extensively. My mother lived in a outskirts tract on the east side of Sierra Vista and every house had a central swamp cooler tied to the AC system. You ran only one at a time of course but you could pick which at any time.

I wonder why not here? That is higher by a lot so it may be a more moderate and maybe even a drier climate....and it does get much cooler at night.

I just replaced a couple piggyback coolers in a beautiful custom home out near you guys a couple weeks back. The wife of the house hates a/c, so I installed a couple of high end coolers in place of the old Goettl coolers.

[ScoopLV]

Thought I'd resurrect this thread to see how the "cool evening breezes" thing is working out for everyone now that we're at the end of June, 2013?

[gentlearts]

Attic fans mean different things to different people. We have had a fan which was in the ceiling of the second floor and which sucked air through the house and out into the attic. Even in Ohio, the times we used it were very limited, since we used geothermal (cheap) air conditioning in the summer.
Here in Georgia, the attic fans are in the roof and used to suck hot air out of the attic spaces, in order to keep the attic cooler. They operate on a thermostat, and seem to help stuff stored in the attic from melting.

[tadtam]

I love the cool breeze. Turn the A/C down to 60 and run the ceiling fans while drinking your mint-julep

[ScoopLV]

Originally Posted by gentlearts

Attic fans mean different things to different people. We have had a fan which was in the ceiling of the second floor and which sucked air through the house and out into the attic. Even in Ohio, the times we used it were very limited, since we used geothermal (cheap) air conditioning in the summer.
Here in Georgia, the attic fans are in the roof and used to suck hot air out of the attic spaces, in order to keep the attic cooler. They operate on a thermostat, and seem to help stuff stored in the attic from melting.

But this thread was posted in the Las Vegas forum. From June until September, an attic fan is about as useful as heated car seats, ice scrapers and window defrosters.

[Kaiminani]

For y'alls information, the correct terminology is:

Whole House Fan = giant fan (in the range of 6000+ cfm) mounted in the ceiling that sucks air in windows and blows into the attic, normally run when outside temps are lower than inside temps - very useful under the right conditions for cooling a whole house, hence the name.

Attic Fan = little dohickey fan (in the range of 150 cfm) mounted in a roof vent that sucks air in from other attic vents and blows it out - theoretically cools just the attic space during mid-day highs to help keep heat from radiating into the air-conditioned rooms below. In practice they are rarely worth the electricity they use, and are frequently counter-productive because physics is complicated.

[lvoc]

Originally Posted by Kaiminani

For y'alls information, the correct terminology is:

Whole House Fan = giant fan (in the range of 6000+ cfm) mounted in the ceiling that sucks air in windows and blows into the attic, normally run when outside temps are lower than inside temps - very useful under the right conditions for cooling a whole house, hence the name.

Attic Fan = little dohickey fan (in the range of 150 cfm) mounted in a roof vent that sucks air in from other attic vents and blows it out - theoretically cools just the attic space during mid-day highs to help keep heat from radiating into the air-conditioned rooms below. In practice they are rarely worth the electricity they use, and are frequently counter-productive because physics is complicated.

Actually the problem is they often are not dinky little fans. But can move 1000 to 3000 CFM. Mine can.

The literature however makes a compelling case that they are dull if internally powered and probably consume more power than they save.

The solar powered one are probably better but may not be cost effective.

After looking at it carefully I am going to turn mine off.

[ScoopLV]

Is your attic fan controlled by a thermostat?

If so, what temperature is the thermostat set at?



I have ours set at 115f. Except for the most extreme days, the fan isn't running ALL THE TIME. Our power consumption went down as soon as we installed the fan, so I'm quite happy with it. It moves appx. 1,000 cfm. The solar-powered fans are too anemic to do anything in this environment.

The ideal solution would be an inside/outside thermometer that turned the fan on whenever there is a difference of X degrees.