Do Attic Fans Help Cool the House? How Much Will an Attic Fan Cool House?

Attic fans are built to be installed in the attic to help ventilate the space, remove heat and moisture, and allow cooler, drier air in. It is one of the most practical ways to prevent moisture increase and the growth of mold and mildew while also keeping the area cool and comfortable.

Many have often wondered if there’s more to having an attic fan in your attic, in terms of overall benefit to your home. Attic fans can’t be powerful enough to cool an entire house, can they? So, is it possible that they help cool the house? If yes, how do they do it?

There are several types of attic fans with different capacities. And although size is a factor, it doesn’t matter how large an attic fan is, it cannot by itself cool an entire house.

Do Attic Fans Really Cool Down a House?

Not directly. Attic fans are not built to cool down an entire house. However, when you consider the ripple effect, attic fans do have a role to play in cooling down your home.

Think of it this way; without an attic fan, such as the Broan-Nutone Galvanized Gable Attic, your attic’s temperature will rise to unbearable levels and cause the air conditioner to work harder than usual.

Inversely, an attic fan will help give access to the outdoor temperature, keeping the attic cool and helping to ease the pressure on your air conditioner.

You should note that the attic fan will take up some of the work that the air conditioner is meant to perform, helping to ensure efficiency, lowered energy cost, and a generally cooler home.

So, while the attic fan will not directly cool your home, it can help your AC and other cooling appliances work better.

Also, an attic fan is one way the home can get some kind of ventilation, especially if the house lacks sufficient windows for outdoor air to come in. This can help remove some of the heat that moves to the top of your house and replace it with cooler air.

Will An Attic Fan Help Cool My Upstairs?

Yes, it can. Attic fans can help reduce the temperature upstairs, which means slightly cooler air in the area.

Typically, the temperature in your attic can rise to almost 130 degrees in the summer and this can be pretty hot if you don’t have any means of cooling things down.

The reason is simple; heat inside your home has nowhere else to go except up. Hence, upstairs can be pretty hot without ventilation or a cooling appliance such as an air conditioner.

An attic fan will not make the rooms or space upstairs as cool as an air conditioner or air cooler would, but it will certainly help to reduce the temperature and humidity significantly.

How Much Does an Attic Fan Lower the Temperature?

An attic fan can help your attic temperature drop by as much as 50 degrees, especially in the summer. What this means is, if your attic has a temperature of 100°C, running an attic fan can bring that down to around 50°C.

This will not only help to keep the overall temperature of your home down, but also allow you to take up your AC’s thermostat by more than a few degrees, up to 10° in most cases. However, you’d need to leave the attic fan on for at least 6 hours to achieve that much result.

This shows that you can really help your home in the summer, save yourself some bills, and give your HVAC system some respite by using an attic fan.

Can You Run AC and Attic Fan Together?

Certainly, you can. In fact, it is wise to do so. There are a lot of benefits attached to running an attic fan and an air conditioner simultaneously.

First, your AC doesn’t have to run at a very low temperature which requires more work, meaning the pressure is reduced.

Second, this also means reduced electricity costs. By removing hot and humid air from the attic, the attic fan is helping get rid of a lot of heat that would have otherwise been left for the AC to deal with.

That’s not all, your air conditioner is also likely to last longer if it doesn’t have to work so hard. This is also coupled with reduced maintenance costs on the unit.

Also, with the air conditioner working, the burden on the attic fan is reduced. You won’t have to worry about heat moving up from the main house to the attic because the air conditioner already takes care of the heat in other parts of the house.

Final Words:

So, do attic fans help cool the house? Well, not in a direct way, but by reducing the temperature in the attic and allowing cooler air in, the attic fan can help make a difference in the temperature of the entire house and help your air conditioner work better.

So, in the long run, the attic fan does help with the cooling of the entire house. It is also wise to run the fan along with your air conditioner so that they can complement each other.