So I am looking to replace a completely unreliable whole house fan I installed 10 years ago. This fan's brand name is "Whisper Quiet" and is anything but quiet or a whisper (think, you will not be able to talk in a normal voice when it's running).

Because of the noise level and the fact this fan would randomly start and stop (it was remote controlled) to include both replacements, I became rather jaded about the whole house fan concept - until now.

I am considering a belt driven, two-speed chain-pull controlled fan similar to this: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ma...er-WHFS24M/100018252

For a quick spec:

House is 1,670 sqft
Attic has 2 - 3 sqft of gable venting.
Attic has ~800 sqft of "floor" area
The fan will be located close to the center of the house in a loft which shares its ceiling with the living room.


The house's design limits my options on where to install the fan (limited to attic) and I'd prefer to NOT install it in one of the two upstairs bedrooms. Being about 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean pretty much negates all reasons for A/C (I am not a snowflake and understand that in the summer it gets hot and in late summer (like this week) it gets humid. My wife an I welcome real life.)

So the main question concerns the noise level when the fan is running. If the fan is louder than normal (I am expecting ~50dB), would increasing the venting area (through a whirlyball (or whirlybird, depending on terminology) help decrease the noise level?

Mhy thought is to install the fan first then, if needed, add a couple whirlyballs.

Any thoughts and/or insight will be greatly appreciated. Anybody willing to install a couple whirlyballs with me watching will be met with beer (AFTER the install ) and a rib eye steak dinner (measured by the Sig Forum coin) for him/her and significant other..

TIA

This message has been edited. Last edited by: LS1 GTO,

How os the fan installed? We once had a ceiling fan with louvres (sp) recessed in the attic. When the fan came on, the louvres opened. Maintenance included dry lube of the louvres and fan motor, and adjustment of the belt. Without these steps, it was noisy.

The initial fan I installed is a dual fan type (10" diameter each?) in a box. The box installed between the joists.

When the fan turns on, a split, insulated door open above the fans. The doors act like an insulation barrier - they do open, I can hear and see the action.

In most cases, unless you move the fan blades away from where you can see them, you'll still hear them.

While more expensive, you might look at something like the Quiet Cool fans (also shown on the Home Depot site).

I had my furnace/AC changed out early this year, and the old insulation removed and replaced. What is funny is that the house doesn't cool down quite as quickly now. This can, in some cases, be due to heat left in the walls. Some systems are designed to run at a slower speed over more hours to keep the air flow going and migrate the heat from the walls out at the same time.

Here is a link to the manufacturer's site so that you can evaluate the best option for you.

https://quietcoolsystems.com/

we have a 30" one installed in the ceiling. I put it in our kitchen which is in the middle of the house.... of course it makes noise but it is more of a 'white' noise and since it is away from the bedrooms is not a problem at night... My wife loves to turn off the A.C. and open all the windows and suck in the outside air at even the hint of it getting cool around here... ours is running right now.... Sunday morning Sept1st at 6:00 a.m.

I installed a 30" unit probably about 40 years ago. My brilliant father made a little shaft with a small wood block on the end. (probably about 2 1/2" x 2 1/2") By turning on the fan and inserting the wood block between the louvres and quarter turning it, the louvres were almost perfectly vertical. This made the fan run a lot quieter and it moved a lot more air.

I rented an older house with a huge louvered fan mounted in a hallway. Once turned on, you could stand in front of any window and feel air being drawn into the house. In summer, about 30 minutes of evening use would cool the whole house. I loved it and would install one if I ever own a house again.
Drawback:
The fan reminded me of a C-130 during taxi. The house was cleared for takeoff!
But a small price to pay!
Newer whole house fans are much quieter.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
I rented an older house with a huge louvered fan mounted in a hallway. Once turned on, you could stand in front of any window and feel air being drawn into the house. In summer, about 30 minutes of evening use would cool the whole house. I loved it and would install one if I ever own a house again.
Drawback:
The fan reminded me of a C-130 during taxi. The house was cleared for takeoff!
But a small price to pay!
Newer whole house fans are much quieter.

Sounds like the Whisper Quiet currently installed. If I switch on power to it, it will randomly start and stop at all times of the day or night.

Several decades ago Texas A&M had a fairly large facility that was perhaps unique in that they did R&D and developed standards for fans. Evidently they have moved on and following some search effort I see that they have merged with similar minded folk in Kaleeforneeya. Their current endeavors, which might be helpful, may be pursued at

https://www.hvi.org/

which is the web site of the Home Ventilating Institute. There is more here:

https://esl.tamu.edu/reel/

Make sure there’s ample makeup air available when using one of these such as opening a window or two. New houses tend to be pretty tight with little to no leaks and older house owners tend to seal the shit out of their windows/doors to eliminate drafty openings.

Long story short: encountered someone that used his whole house fan and didn’t provide any source for makeup air....created enough negative pressure in the house that it found air from the only place it could.....sucked air down the chimney and with his furnace running it filled his house with carbon monoxide ..... luckily his CO detector alarmed and they called us but almost dismissed the alarm because they thought it was an old detector and was a false alarm...the house had 800 ppm CO on our meters when we walked in.....two adults and two kids were about to go to bed ....they all would have been dead in a matter of a couple hours had they done that....be careful when you use these things...a hazard no one thinks about...I've seen it several times in my career.

So to the original question; does anyone know if increasing the venting area can/ will decrease the fan noise?

If you have not enough sqft or venting the fan will fight and make more noise. In that case more is quieter. If you have plenty of venting per the spec on the fan it won’t make any difference. My fan had a min sqft of venting required.

My apology for the thread drift above....thought it would be good to know.
I’m not sure if increasing the vent sizes would necessarily decrease the fan noise itself, but may help with the sound of air being moved as there would be less obstruction. I think the motor noise is going to be a constant no matter what.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
I rented an older house with a huge louvered fan mounted in a hallway. Once turned on, you could stand in front of any window and feel air being drawn into the house. In summer, about 30 minutes of evening use would cool the whole house. I loved it and would install one if I ever own a house again.
Drawback:
The fan reminded me of a C-130 during taxi. The house was cleared for takeoff!
But a small price to pay!
Newer whole house fans are much quieter.

We had one growing up and it must have been the same model. It would stand the curtains on end it was so powerful.

Really the main drawback is sucking in tons of unfiltered air so if you have any allergies forget about it. That and your wife will need a shovel to dust everything in the house.

I can still hear the sound of the vent slamming open and the whoosh of air as the fan cranked when I was a kid. I loved sleeping at night with that fan running.

If you get one of the slow rpm ones that are driven with a separately mounted electric motor and rubber belts turning the fan, they're pretty quiet. My grandfather had one in the peak of his A frame house and you didn't hear it, unless you put it at full blast and that was far from necessary.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
If you get one of the slow rpm ones that are driven with a separately mounted electric motor and rubber belts turning the fan, they're pretty quiet. My grandfather had one in the peak of his A frame house and you didn't hear it, unless you put it at full blast and that was far from necessary.

Thanks for input jimmy but, did you read any of this thread after the title?

We had them in our house in KY growing up, sure filled the place with fresh cool night air, it did have quite a bit of noise, not bad, got used to sleeping with it on so much that when the timer shut off I'd wake up and turn it on to the chagrin of my parents LOL..

Fast forward I installed one here in FL for the cooler months, it's in the garage, we close the door and windows out there, and leave the door from the mudroom open, it pulls plenty of air through the house and the noise isn't a problem since it's remotely installed.

As was said the key is to put it where it's not directly over the opening in the ceiling if you can and move it as far back from there as possible with ducting to reduce the noise similar to the Quiet Cool systems...

I think a large part of the problem of noise from house fans is the rigid coupling if the living parts to the house frame.... conventional styles call fir the fan itself to be secured to ceiling joists. Growing up the house fans we had were that style, and loud.

I now have the Quiet Cool system and it is indeed MUCH quieter. On low many people don’t even notice it.

The difference? It isn’t mounted to the house structure by rigid means. The fan itself is suspended in the middle of my attic space by straps. A duct leads from the fan to where the hole in my drywall was cut... high up in a wall, not even the ceiling.

It is very very quiet.

When I was looking at putting one in this was the only option we had... there was literally nowhere we could mount a traditional style and we had to get creative. It costs us more money, but the noise level (or lack there of) was absolutely worth it.

Hopefully we can stop running our AC daily in the near future.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
If you get one of the slow rpm ones that are driven with a separately mounted electric motor and rubber belts turning the fan, they're pretty quiet. My grandfather had one in the peak of his A frame house and you didn't hear it, unless you put it at full blast and that was far from necessary.

Thanks for input jimmy but, did you read any of this thread after the title?

Yes, What my grandparents had looked exactly like what you referenced to, but the motor was mounted directly to the bottom of the fan cage and had belts that ran up to the shaft, slowing any fan down a bit with a rheostat will help with noise more than anything. Whirleyballs in the roof will not usually and tend to create their own noise. How the fans mounted, if you use rubber isolation mounts will help the most, like thumperfbc is referencing.

Sort of like this one:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Co...24BDM-2SPD/203931021