If you live in a region that gets a lot of heat, then AC is more than a luxury, it is part of staying healthy. On the other hand, an AC unit can only cycle through so much air at a time and can only cool the air temperature by 15-20˚ at a time. Moreover, if your home has been heating up all day, the residual heat in the structure of your home can still contribute to heat gain for hours after the sun goes down. When you put all of this together, it can take hours for your AC unit to cool your home down in the evening. In contrast, if you use a house fan to cool your house down once the sun goes down, you can save money on your operating costs. 

HVAC and House Fans

The acronym HVAC stands for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. Most people put a premium on AC to provide the cooling for their home and never even consider installing a house fan. Note that a house fan is not the same thing as a ceiling fan. While the latter is designed to circulate air around one room, the former is designed to vent hot air out of your house through the attic. Utilizing a house fan can help you in at least a couple of important ways. 

Benefits of a Whole House Fan

Workers install a house fan by opening up a hole between the ceiling on the top floor of your house and your attic. Once the house fan is placed in this hole, it can vent hot air out of your house. This will give you two main advantages over AC:

1. A house fan should be sized so that it can replace all of the air in your house in a matter of minutes. Whereas an AC unit would take hours to cool the air in your home, a house fan will vent the heat out in as few as two minutes. By opening the windows, you can replace the hot air with cool outside air providing noticeable cooling in minutes instead of hours. 

2. An AC unit has to power two fans and a compressor. This requires a lot of electricity. In contrast, a house fan only has to power one fan motor. For this reasons, a house fan will use 10% as much electricity as an AC unit will. Thus, whether you use your house fan for a few minutes to cool your house down in the evening or run it through the night to keep your home cool, you will save money as opposed to using an AC unit to cool your house through the night. 

By using a house fan, you can reduce operating costs, but that might not be the most important savings. A house fan should make it possible to use your AC unit for hours less every day, and the less your AC unit has to run, the less wear it incurs. Thus, a house fan will help to keep your AC repair costs at a minimum.