If you’re one of the many Northern Colorado homeowners that enjoy their AC but don’t always love the surge in energy costs that come with the warmer days, then a whole house fan has some incredible benefits. While there are plenty of ways to cut energy costs around AC, today we’ll focus more on how to fully disengage your system using a whole house fan on temperate days and months to save some serious money.
Common Questions We Get on Whole House Fans
While the use of whole house fans may sound like an obvious concept to some, many Lion Home Services customers ask us what they even are or, more importantly, why we choose to offer these in Northern Colorado.
Here are some of the main questions we get around our QuietCool® whole house fan systems:
How Does a Whole House Fan Work?
A whole house fan acts to cool your entire home by creating inward and upward airflow. This means that your system will pull in outside air through open doors or windows and cycle that airflow out of your home through your ceiling or attic.
All of this takes place without the use or need to run your standard air conditioner. Whether your home features central air conditioning, a window unit, or other forms of AC, you can safely turn those off on many days each year to leverage a whole house fan at a fraction of the energy cost.
Put simply: A whole house fan pulls hot air out of your home and creates a smooth current of low-cost air conditioning.
Why Offer Whole House Fans in Northern Colorado?
Beyond the question of “what?”, we often get questions from our customers asking “why here?” After all, isn’t Colorado known for intense summer heat and winter cold?
While there is some truth to this, Northern Colorado actually enjoys many more temperate days each year than most people expect (or remember). While those scorching hot and bitterly cold days stick out in our minds, the vast majority of our weather supports minor air conditioning.
Better yet, since Northern Colorado enjoys a relatively non-humid climate, your whole house fan will create a fresh, vibrant feeling in your home.
Why QuietCool®?
Unlike furnaces or air conditioning units, many homeowners do not differentiate between different brands when it comes to choosing a whole house fan. At Lion Home Services, we’ve done the research and happily settled on a reliable, effective partner in QuietCool® to ensure your home will receive lasting value out of your whole house fan system.
QuietCool® is an industry leader in their field and offers benefits well beyond the whole house fans found in many homes that pre-date central air conditioning. Instead, the QuietCool® works intelligently and quietly to keep your home cool at a fraction of the energy cost. Plus, it is built strong to stand up to (and even remove) pet dander — a major plus for many local homeowners.
If you want to save some money on the cooler portions of hot days, such as the evening, or turn off your AC altogether on the more temperate days, a QuietCool® whole house fan will quickly pay for itself in energy savings alone.
Using a Whole House Fan in the Fall & Winter
Summer in Northern Colorado is no joke. The blistering heat of July and August — sometimes starting in May or June and continuing even into September — really put the “desert” into our Alpine Desert climate. But as things begin to cool down, you can save a considerable amount of money on your energy bill by turning off the AC and trusting a whole house fan to keep your family nice and cool.
Our Unique Climate
As one of Northern Colorado’s leaders in home heating and cooling, we can safely say that we live in a climate like no other. Here, we can get a foot of snow that lasts on the ground for only a couple of hours, then be outside in shorts the very same day.
For those seemingly random warm fall and winter days, it can feel frustrating cycling between heat and AC. Plus, it’s not exactly great for your furnace’s health to repeatedly engage and disengage your heating and cooling.
The in-between days created by our often warm fall and winter months creates the perfect atmosphere for a whole house fan. In a matter of minutes, your home can enjoy a stream of cooling airflow that can be toggled on and off, as well as throttled up and down in intensity, without issue. If it’s too warm at 3:00 and cooling off by 5:00, you can rest assured knowing that your whole house fan is ready to go on and off again to create a great living environment.
Reduce Fall Allergies
One concern we hear from homeowners is that bringing their windows up and allowing a cycle of air from the outdoors into their home with a whole house fan will open them up to allergies, but that’s actually the opposite of what will happen.
Because of the flow of air created by a whole house fan, you’ll actually enjoy less seasonal and interior allergens in your home. Think of your whole house fan as a big vacuum sucking up all the dust, pollen, dander, and other allergens and pulling them out of your home to be safely removed to the outdoors.
Cooler Inside Today? Draw in Warm Air!
We’ve saved the best for last: your whole house fan can also work to warm your home. You may have heard of the “shake and bake” time of year here in Northern Colorado; we “shake” and shiver from the cold nights and then “bake” in the warm sun by the afternoon.
For those days, you can actually use your whole house fan to warm your home as the temperature rises by using the whole house fan to pull the warmer outdoor air into your home. Plus, this has the added benefit of keeping your furnace off as the evening approaches, which is when you’re most likely to see expensive surge pricing for gas and electricity utilities.
Learn More Today
If you still have some unanswered questions or want to know more about how a QuietCool® whole house fan system can work for your home, get in touch with our Fort Collins-based team today!
