Josh
United States
All my sins are of omission
Snob of the People
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Can I get a witness to the genius that is the mid-century tech known as the attic fan? I'd never heard of an attic fan until we bought our Beatlemania house (built 1964).
Ever feel like it's a bit warm in the house, but you don't want to kill the sloths in the Amazon rainforest, a creature so slothful that it pees on itself, leading to colonization by algae on the sloth's belly? Me too! You need an attic fan, the version of AC before AC existed, or before Americans knew anything about sloths (Brazil had no nukes, so we didn't really care).
Basically the attic fan is a bigass centrally-located fan that pulls air through and out of your house. It creates a tremendous amount of air movement, and it's not fakey AC air, it's refreshing outside air. By imagining you house is a space station with airlock zones, you can ventilate discrete portions of your abode. It's great! The attic fan will slam a door with impressive finality, and can even rid a house of the hell that is the smell after you cook fish and really botch it.
Why is the attic fan not widely-known, and even feted? Why is there no postage stamp celebrating the attic fan? I can only imagine dark conspiracies among the freon cartels, or those that loathe the sloth, or perhaps loathe Brazilians in general, to which I say "for shame." FOR SHAME.
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Rudy
United States
No too far from Philly
Pennsylvania
...but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind,
...and reaching forth unto those things which are before,...
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I grew up having an attic fan in the house. The best was running it at night after a hot day and feeling a cool breeze throughout the house. It sure made sleeping bearable.
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♪ Isaäc Bickërstaff ♫
United States
Greer
South Carolina
Entropy Seminar:
The results of a five yeer studee ntu the sekund lw uf thurmodynamiks aand itz inevibl fxt hon shewb rt nslpn raq liot.
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So you are an attic fan fan?
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Jason Sadler
United States
Olney
Maryland
From the Halls of Montezuma...
...to the Shores of Tripoli...
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Would you say you fanatical about attic fans?
Edit: let this be a lesson on replying quickly in the thumb race.
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JessA
United States
Southwestern
Michigan
That's MRS. McFoxFace to you!
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Hey I'm an attic Fan FAN!!! We put in an attic fan when we added a second story on the house.
We do not have central air, but with our dandy attic fan, we don't really need it.
(okay there are usually two nights every summer that don't cool off at night and on those nights I curse the heavens and wish for a/c)
But, otherwise, Attic Fan FTW!
You crank it up when it cools off at night and the house stays cool for the day. It's awesome to stand in the door and the fan will pull the air through so fast that your hair will blow back.
LOVE our attic fan!!
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Josh
United States
All my sins are of omission
Snob of the People
-
Jess, I just need to say that you are great human being, and I totally grok where you are coming from. That is all.
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I will not rest until Biblios is in the Top 100. - Steve Oksienik
United States
Howell
Michigan
Well I been watchin' while you been coughin, I've been drinking life while you've been nauseous, and so I drink to health while you kill yourself and I got just one thing that I can offer... Go on and save yourself and take it out on me
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I rented a house once that had an attic fan. It was incredibly awesome in the summer.
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Kelley E.
United States
Sacramento
California
He went that way
I used to have AP. Now I'm not sure.
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Out here we've always called it a "whole house" fan but same idea. I've not seen them in most of California because it doesn't get blazing hot but here in Sac it gets hot enough that they are popular.
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Welcome Rolling Stones
Latvia
Bullshit
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I WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FANS!
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Randy Cox
United States
Clemson
South Carolina
1024x768 works just fine - Don't Wide the Site!
Missing old BGG
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When I was a kid, that was the only way to "cool" the house. Open windows and turn on that loud sucking contraption. Bring in all the pollen and crap (well, some got filtered by the storm window screens, but not enough).
My current Nixon house (built 1968) has an attic fan I've never used. My wife turned it on for a second when she moved here, so it apparently works.
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Josh
United States
All my sins are of omission
Snob of the People
-
AAAAAAAND Randy Cox arrives to be a total downer!
Ladies and Gentlemen, Randy Cox!
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David K.
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
-
Where's the Microbadge?
Possible mouseovers
"Fan of Attic Fans"
"Attic Fan Fan"
"I Love Attic Fans"
"I'm a Big Attic Fan"
"Fan-Attical"
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Celina
United States
University City
MO
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I love our attic fan. Burned dinner? Smoke filling the house from toast that's too "done" No problem! There are a few days during the spring when the green haze drifts down from the trees and I don't use it, but otherwise I try to get through to July without the AC.
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Quinn Munnerlyn
United States
Carrollton
Texas
Location: 3' from my actual position.
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We had one in our place growing up. It was indeed awesome, and noisy.
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Fraser
Australia
Melbourne
Back in the days when there were less maps we played every map back to back
Ooh a little higher, now a bit to the left, a little more, a little more, just a bit more. Oooh yes, that's the spot!
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This seems appropriate:
TISM in Play Mistral For Me wrote: But as a Mistral employee once told me
You're only as good as your fans.
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Adrian Hague
United Kingdom
Bristol
Bristol
RAWKET LAWNCHA!!!
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If you put the fan into reverse does it turn the whole house into a hovercraft?
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June King
United States
Unspecified
Bring me her heart in this box.
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We just got a new one at the end of last summer. It's noisy as hell. And I didn't notice any difference since the house has always had one.
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fightcitymayor
United States
Pennsylvania
"This is a really weird game, and you’ll find that most people will not want to play this."
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Ludocrazy wrote: It's noisy as hell. This.
And ugly too.
And technically, it's a "whole-house fan." An attic fan is just those chintzy fans that mount to your roof to vent the attic. Not the loud mid-century behemoths that drag filth all over the house that you speak of.
So, in summation: Boo! 
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Aloha!
United States
Kalamazoo
Michigan
Meega, nala kwishta!
AAGH! YOU'RE TOUCHING ME!
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Jatoha wrote: Hey I'm an attic Fan FAN!!! We put in an attic fan when we added a second story on the house.
We do not have central air, but with our dandy attic fan, we don't really need it.
(okay there are usually two nights every summer that don't cool off at night and on those nights I curse the heavens and wish for a/c)
But, otherwise, Attic Fan FTW!
You crank it up when it cools off at night and the house stays cool for the day. It's awesome to stand in the door and the fan will pull the air through so fast that your hair will blow back.
LOVE our attic fan!!
How bad was adding a second story? The wife and I have discussed doing that a few times.
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JessA
United States
Southwestern
Michigan
That's MRS. McFoxFace to you!
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cold_fuzion wrote: ]How bad was adding a second story? The wife and I have discussed doing that a few times.
It was cheaper than adding on the ground floor.
Our contractor had a huge argument with his business partner half way through our project, so it took twice as long since he had half the crew. He was supposed to be done in July. He got done in October.
Also, we had a tornado the day after they removed the roof and it blew off the tarp and dumped a torrential amount of rain directly into our house. (That was a fun moment, I was home alone with a one year old and a three year old screaming their heads off while water poured in from above.)
-BUT other than that....
It was really not bad, we could still live in the rest of the house while they worked on the upper story. The house was very hot in the summer with no roof, but it was livable. We are very happy we did it in spite of the stress of remodeling.
---edited to add---
If you go this route, definitely get a whole house fan!!!!
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Hammock Backpacker
United States
Columbus
Ohio
Hot Coffee...Mmmmmm
Go Take A HIke!
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cold_fuzion wrote: How bad was adding a second story? The wife and I have discussed doing that a few times.
About 8 years ago we added another first floor family room and above that a new master and bath giving us 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and I've never regretted it. But...it cost as much as the original house 
Some of the addition cost was having to rework the layout of a lot of the upstairs and we went the extra mile and had the woodwork, doors, and hardwood floors (we have no carpet) milled to match the rest of the 1929 house. The architect was darned expensive as well but everyone says our house looks like the entire thing was built in 1929 rather than it looking like somebody bolted a modern (and ugly imho) box on the back of it.
And, yes, we put in a whole house attic fan in the main upstairs hallway. It is loud, BUT, I love it. We have central air but we use the fan on cool nights instead.
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Geeky McGeekface
United States
Manassas
Virginia
It's time for baseball, people! Pitchers and catchers report soon and the national pastime is with us again!
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Jatoha wrote: Also, we had a tornado the day after they removed the roof and it blew off the tarp and dumped a torrential amount of rain directly into our house. (That was a fun moment, I was home alone with a one year old and a three year old screaming their heads off while water poured in from above.)
Wow, that sounds almost biblical! I can't imagine going through something like that. Had you been on the Geek at the time, you would have been sporting a "Fan of Job" microbadge!
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JessA
United States
Southwestern
Michigan
That's MRS. McFoxFace to you!
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Larry Levy wrote: Jatoha wrote: Also, we had a tornado the day after they removed the roof and it blew off the tarp and dumped a torrential amount of rain directly into our house. (That was a fun moment, I was home alone with a one year old and a three year old screaming their heads off while water poured in from above.) Wow, that sounds almost biblical! I can't imagine going through something like that. Had you been on the Geek at the time, you would have been sporting a "Fan of Job" microbadge!
It was indeed one of those unforgettable moments.
I still feel bad because I yelled at TomA when he got home. He had left to play softball shortly before the storm hit. We were not aware of any warnings. His game was cancelled and he came right home, but it wasn't fast enough for me.
So, imagine the poor guy walks in the door to find his wife drilling holes in the ceiling (to let the water pour through so it wouldn't soak into the plaster) with his kids sobbing and clinging to her legs, the whole house is drenched, including the beds and furniture.
And then he gets yelled at by me, "Where were you???" *sob*
At any rate, we all made it through. I lost some treasured books in the process, but everything else survived.
AND
To bring it all back on topic....
We got a whole house fan out of the deal, so it was worth it!!!
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William Bekking
Canada
Kanata
Ontario
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JoshBot wrote: Can I get a witness to the genius that is the mid-century tech known as the attic fan? I'd never heard of an attic fan until we bought our Beatlemania house (built 1964).
Ever feel like it's a bit warm in the house, but you don't want to kill the sloths in the Amazon rainforest, a creature so slothful that it pees on itself, leading to colonization by algae on the sloth's belly? Me too! You need an attic fan, the version of AC before AC existed, or before Americans knew anything about sloths (Brazil had no nukes, so we didn't really care).
Basically the attic fan is a bigass centrally-located fan that pulls air through and out of your house. It creates a tremendous amount of air movement, and it's not fakey AC air, it's refreshing outside air. By imagining you house is a space station with airlock zones, you can ventilate discrete portions of your abode. It's great! The attic fan will slam a door with impressive finality, and can even rid a house of the hell that is the smell after you cook fish and really botch it.
Why is the attic fan not widely-known, and even feted? Why is there no postage stamp celebrating the attic fan? I can only imagine dark conspiracies among the freon cartels, or those that loathe the sloth, or perhaps loathe Brazilians in general, to which I say "for shame." FOR SHAME.
I've never heard of an attic fan before. At the risk of showing some ignorance, is it not similar to leaving the bathroom fans on? Is an attic fan more efficient? Less noisy?
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Marc P
United States
Seattle
Washington
Go Huskies!...oh, well
-
Attic fans are loud, but also awesome. I wish my current house had one.
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