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Measured Natural Cooling Enhancement of a While House Fan
Abstract
An experimental study was carried out in the
summer of 1991 to investigate the natural cooling
potential of use of a whole house fan in Central
Florida's hot and humid climate. The residential
building, in Cocoa Beach, FL, is typical of much of
the existing housing stock in Florida: a concrete
block structure with R-11 ceiling insulation. The
building was ventilated with all windows open
during the three month summer test period (June-
August). Air temperatures and relative humidity
inside the home interior along with exterior
meteorological conditions (insolation, wind speed,
air temperature, relative humidity) were scanned
every five seconds with integrated averages
recorded on a multi-channel data logger every 15-
minutes. The house was naturally ventilated during
the first half of summer. After a significant period
of pre-retrofit summer data had been collected
characterizing the building's thermal response, a 24"
whole house fan was installed. The house was then
force ventilated during evening hours for the
remainder of the summer to establish potential of
whole-house fans to improve interior comfort
conditions. The electrical consumption of the fan
was measured at both available fan speeds.
Measurements revealed that the building
interior was 3 - 6°F cooler during the evening hours
after the whole house fan was operated. However,
data also showed that nighttime humidity levels
rose: relative humidity increased from 74% to 83%
during the nighttime period where fan-powered
ventilation was used. Using the data results, an analysis was performed using Orlando, Florida TMY data to see how limits to whole house ventilation based on humidity and temperature conditions would affect the potential of such a cooling strategy.
Citation
Parker, D. S. (1994). Measured Natural Cooling Enhancement of a While House Fan. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /6660.