Do they still build houses with those big evacuation fans in the attic?

My attic had a fan in TN, but I don’t know if it was the type of fan you are talking about. The house was built about 9 years ago.

Probably so, depending on the part of the country. My grandparents had one, too, and so did my folks when I was very young. It really worked, but when air conditioning came in, as primitive as it was, wow! what a difference!

My other house had one. It was built in the 50’s. I loved that fan. It was huge and loud, but it circulated the air and we didn’t have to turn the air conditioning on until later in the summer. I bet they stopped putting them in houses since most have central air.

They definitely still build houses with exhaust fans in the attic. My grandmother’s house had one like this: http://www.coarsegoldheating.com/airconditionerservice/attic-exhaust-fan.jpg It was in Vegas so it got pretty hot. I’ve seen them put in things like that on house-building shows, so I know they still exist. Though I’m sure there are also “greener” ones available as well. Often central AC doesn’t go into an attic if the attic is nothing more than a storage space. At least, it doesn’t in any of the houses I’ve lived in or known well.

My dad’s parents’ house had one like this, the “ghetto” version of an attic fan: http://www.nachi.org/forum/attachments/f18/18752d1203438493-attic-fan-p2170014.jpg

We had an apartment in the 70’s that had one. It was great on a cool night in the summer. But that was in New England and it cooled off at night.

When I worked in home improvements at Sears we sold them.
I have also seen smaller versions that are solar at Costco. They were designed to retrofit in a house with no fan. Sears called them “Whole House Fans.”

Our 40 year old house has a whole house fan built into the heating/air conditioning system.

The house in which I grew up, outside NYC, had one in the attic. We had to leave the stairs (they pulled down from a trap door) down.

At some point, each of the three bedrooms had its own AC unit, but the attic fan took care of all the public spaces. It sounded like a space shuttle just after launch

I yanked one of those big fans out of a house I was doing work in and made a wicked porch fan with it. That baby can move some air. It is a Sears&Roebuck model. They do work well so as long as the humidity isn’t oppressive it would be a good way to circulate house air.

I have one in my attic, otherwise in the summer the air in the attic would just sit and heat. The passive vents just couldn’t keep up by themselves.

Yes @syz. I actually had one of these put in my house. Ours is called a Cardiffair. Not sure if it’s a bit more sophisticated than the one in your Nanna’s house but the principal is the same and they work. My CA cool the place down and keep some insects at bay. I have my Cardiffair running most of the year and use it in preference to the air con. We also have AC. When the humidity is really, really high the CA pulls in wet air so it’s not very practical. Similarly, if it’s absolutely roasting outside it just sucks very hot air in so we turn it off and pur the AC on. Other than that it’s my main form of cooling and it’s cheap to run.

The house that we bought in 2010 has a “whole house fan”. It was built in 1987, so I don’t know how popular these fans are nowadays, but I can tell you that it works great! So well, in fact, that we never bothered to install AC, even though most of our neighbors have AC.

Here we get only 2–4 hot spells each summer, each lasting 2–3 days, so the whole house fan serves us well. Our house is fairly well insulated, so even on hot days it can be hot outside yet remain reasonably comfortable inside until about one hour before sundown. Then as soon as the sun sets, it starts to cool down, so we open several windows and start up the fan. In about 30 minutes, the house is noticeably cooler. So it’s only uncomfortably warm for an hour and a half on hot days, and if we happen to be out of the house during that time, it doesn’t affect us at all.
The only drawback is that the fan very noisy.

When my folks bought a new house, which was made in 2005. It didn’t have one, it was in California so that’s probably why. But me and my dad built one anyways just in case, with a switch that is easily accessible. We’ve probably used it less than a dozen times since.

I had them in my kennel. I ran them all night, one in each wing. It cooled the kennel sufficiently that I rarely needed to use the air con.

I have never lived in a house in Australia that had one but I sure wished I did, especially in the NT where it did cool down at night. That is good @Bellatrix that you have one. I think they are great.