Growing up we had one and for half the year they seem to be really effective in our area.

I'd like to put one in my current home but I don't think I have a real suitable location. The way our house is built means that the only real crawl space is over the garage. The house is 2 story and th rooms upstairs have sloped ceilings that follow the roof lines, so whilebi haven't been up there, I suspect there isn't any crawl space at all.

The one place there is a tiny little bit is above a walk in closet in an upstairs bedroom. There is an existing panel door for access what little space there is.

Now, there is attic space above the garage (no living space over the garage) that we can access via a gold down ladder in the garage. Obviously there isn't much point in a whole house fan in the garage besides evacuating the hot air in attic, but again, it's not over any living space so I'm not even sure it's important to try and get that hot air out.

So I guess that leads me to this question, can these fans be mounted on a vertical wall? There is one place upstairs (at the top of the stairs on the landing) where on one side we have living space and the other side of the wall is the above garage attic. The ceiling at this landing where thevshsred wall is, however, only 7' max.

If any of that makes sense can someone tell me if this is a viable place for a house fan?

In our upstairs loft there are a pair of windows up nice and high. About 8' off the floor high. I have secured an old box fan in one of those windows blowing out and it actually does an admirable job of creating air movement if I open a downstairs door or window, it just doesn't do anything about the attic hot air. Oh, and the wife isn't wild about a 30 year old box fan wedged into a perpetually open window held in with a jimmy-rigged bungee cord.

are there any windows , anywhere, upstairs or down, in the house that no one will likely need to use, ?

the only window we had was out on the enclosed back porch, so dad put up an 20 inch diameter squirrel cage and a 3/4 horse motor .

it took three pulley wheel tries to get it right , but it was wonderful in the hot and humid eastern iowa summers

Our former FOP Lodge was an older 2 story home before we bought it. Whole house fan mounted upstairs just over the stairwell. When activated, it sounded like you were cleared for take off. And you could definitely feel it pulling cool air in through the lower level windows. It worked well. I would guess newer ones are less noisy.

Whole house fans are great for two to three months of the year around here, fall and spring. You suck the cooler evening air in the house and it is very effective when you have days like now. 80° daytime and 60° at night.

They require space above them (try reading installation instructions on any model), not sure of clearance. Your house also must have gable vents, roof vents, soffit vents, and/or some combination of places for massive amounts of air to blow out of attic. You may not have enough venting to allow it to suck/blow air from lower level out roof with your construction. Ideally it should be placed at the top of your stairs or upper hallway.

I love those things and it seemed like everyone had them when I was growing up. The problem with them is that they suck the outside air in which is a problem if anyone in your household has allergies.

The reason I don't have one though is because your house will also need to be dusted way more often since the window screens are not fine enough to stop much of anything.

I am considering one and had a preferred distributor/installer come and do an inspection to see if it would work and what the cost would be. I was impressed with his inspection and where the intake vent should go and which way the blower would point in the 'attic' space. It will work, a little over 2k to do it.

Other companies just gave me an estimate over the phone with out checking if it would even work.

I think the safest thing is to get the installer out for a free estimate to see if it would really work in the space available.

If it say "Whisper Quiet" in its title - it ain't quiet at all.

Mine (both first and the replacement) are so loud you cannot have a normal volume conversation when it's running.

We had an attic fan when we lived in Wisconsin. Not good if you have allergies, but effectively cooled the house within minutes. The home had no Air conditioning.

One word of caution, if it is operated by a light switch, never turn it on in the winter with the fireplace going. You will be impressed with how quickly the residence fills with smoke. The light switch was taped off after that until the summer months.

Put a 36 inch in my last house, but not in my current house yet. I have installed several for others in the past.

I don't see why you couldn't put one in a vertical wall. The biggest concern to me would seem to be it would require a grill for safety if within reach.

All the other issues like exhaust area and make up air of course would be the same.

Seems some googling is in order for vertical oriented whole house fans.

I saw one installed where they put the fan at the end of a horizontal long boxed in duct, made it quieter. They also had it direct vented to the outside with the same duct, no idea why but it worked great.

Here is one a homeowner built a box for and mounted vertically to prevent cutting his trusses.
http://www.instructables.com/i...ws-away-our-AC-bill/

and another option
https://www.wholehousefan.com/quiet-cool-qc4700/

I'm unsure about a wall installation but I don't see why it couldn't be done?

As far as noise, I installed a 30" one in one of our homes back over 35 years ago and it's still working. I believe I ordered it from Sears at the time and I bought it with a variable speed control which also incorporates a timer. I start it on high (which is a little noisy) to open the louvers then slow it down which makes it inaudible unless you're very close and it still moves a lot of air.

The front of my house is pretty much glass and faces west. Returning to a hot house after work, before I retired, prompted me to research whole house fans. This is pretty much an August/September problem, as the sea breezes don't pickup until sundown. I spent half the year deployed overseas back then, never got around to following though.

Yes vertical mount whole house fans are available. Some newer models of whole house fans suspend the fan/motor assembly from the rafters and duct to the wall/ceiling intake to cut down on noise.

Vertical Airscape install

Tamarack

Site showing several of the different brands/styles.