Git nekid!

+1 on the whole house fan.

The trick is to run it early in the morning to cool the house way down, and then turn off during the day. Turn it on again at dusk to cool the house down again before going to bed. It also helps to install a timer switch so that you can have it turn off after you go to bed, and/or on again before you get up in the morning.

They are loud though...

Shoulda bought a heat pump instead of that furnace then you would have the cooling and heating covered.

LAX paid for it - they wanted to charge me $8000 to upgrade the system they were going to install to include AC. The unit is however sized to add AC to it apparently. They replaced my forced air heating with this new furnace, the replaced all of the ventilation as well with insulated vent pipes. While it hasn't been perfect and has failed a couple of times due to minor installation issues it performed very well over the winter here and saved us a great deal of money in heating expense.

the idea behind the insulation program however is to protect us against the noise from LAX. They did the work in our house starting in August of last year, it was supposed to take two weeks to complete but wasn't complete until December. That is a whole other thread...

They gave us a great setup in the winter but did virtually nothing for us for the summer months.

When they moved the runway 55ft closer to us the impact on the noise in our house was significant.

I don't mind the idea of a whole house fan and in fact I'm going to request that THEY pay for it and do it since things are now a few degrees hotter but if they won't I will do it. I don't want AC really because then I will use it...

Or a temp switch. But. you have to remember to open the windows either way.

As far as being loud, you can install the fan up and away from the louvers. My kitchen hood blower is in the attic. No noise to speak of. Also, depending on the house design, gable fans in the roof space are very effective in reducing heat gain during the day keeping the attic cooler. No outside air into the living space.

I install windows for a living and keep up on this stuff. Most houses have a window package that is less than 5% of the total energy package. A bit more on slab.

We grew up with whole house fans. I read somewhere that if the temp outside drops 10 degrees in one hour (like it does in So Cal between 6:30-7:30), it takes the inside of the house approx 4 hours to do the same on its own. Something about insulation and the actual heat that has been absorbed and stored in the walls, ceiling, floor etc.

With the WH fan, just crack a window near you, turn on the fan, and you will benefit from a breeze of from the cooler outside air.

Anyone have a brand or model they can recommend?

That's correct, a house is a huge heat sink. Some are big enough to actually be stable in many areas (of the house, not the region in which they are built).

we rented a old farm style house with OUT A/C in miami
it did have a 4 foot attic fan that did wonders to cool the place
the house was built in about 1890 and was real heavy built

attic heat is a killer , super insulate, and vent plus a fan and for the roof paint it white
as tiles or shingles if even a little dark soak in the heat

LAX paid for it. That is one of the things that kills me about govt. Nothing against you Mikester, but I'll be LAX was there long before you bought. Now they're paying billions to double/triple pane houses and insulate them and then they pay for A/C cause you want to keep the windows closed due to the noise. (Yeah, I know you want A/C anyway, cause it gets hot). Lawyers filed class action lawsuits over the noise and we the Los Angeles taxpayers and anyone flying through LAX get to pay for insulating and cooling thousands of homes. Happens near Van Nuys, Burbank and John Wayne (Orange County) airports.

You know what - John Wayne, Van Nuys, Burbank and the others can kiss my a$$ really. They won't take any of the traffic of LAX so LAX has to expand and the homes who live around it and have to deal with them making the airport bigger and moving runways closer to us get to deal with it due to so many other folks saying 'not in my back yard.'

Well, I say 'Okay' to LAX (like I have a choice) but they moved that southern runway 55 ft closer to my house and I really didn't think it would matter much I mean really - 55 ft right?? Well I'm surprised that it matters so much because the difference was nearly night and day. When one of those heavy 747-400s or a loaded down FedEx DC-10 takes to the air, well I can certainly tell. The worst offenders are the small jets. We were lucky (yeah right!) that the move put us into a higher priority zone otherwise we would likely still be on the waiting list.

The facts regarding LAX expansion are clear - the residents around it suffer. Is it fair when there are quite a few airports that could be expanded instead?

John Wayne?

Ontario?

Palmdale?

Burbank?

Long Beach?

Hello?

Instead we as a region depend on LAX nearly 99% for air travel needs. So when something bad happens to LAX if I am still here afterward ask me about it and I will say "I told you so." Instead of expanding LAX we should be regionalizing like mad so that our infrastructure could handle something bad that is likely to happen. I also believe that regionalizing successfully will help deter a terrorist attack. If we make it so our infrastructure can handle LAX going down for the count what incentive is there to wipe it off the map?

So yes, LAX and the FAA paid for my windows.

Mikester, Forgive me, I don't know your specific situation, and I believe things can easily change from tolerable to intolerable with a change at the airport that you had zero input on. I guess my point is that if LAX had bought a bigger area decades ago they would not have these expenses now. My perspective is people who bought around the BKK landill in West Covina, CA in the 80's and then complained about the smell. Why did they buy there? Well most of the time it was cause they could buy a very affordable house 1/8 mile from a dump. Same thing with people who buy a house near the freeway and then insist the CalTrans put up a sound wall.

Hugh, my comments were not directed at you directly but folks who don't seem to understand generally. I build networks for a world wide company and if I didn't build resilience (the ability to fail) into those networks I wouldn't have a job. I always look at these things but when it comes to our basic infrastructure, ports, air ports, road ways, freeways - it doesn't seem like our leaders in SoCal are considering these needs. Instead they pander to the 'NIMBY' folks and those with an existing situation get it made worse.

Yes, I moved to LAX knowledgeable in what the sound of Jets is exactly. I grew up on Air Force bases that flew KC135s and KC10s which are basically military versions of civilian aircraft. I am also familiar with the sound of small jets (F-16s, 15s, 4s, etc...). 20 years on AFB's you get the ability to tune out jet noise. So when we made the decision to buy here 5 years ago it wasn't as bad as it is now. We did sign up for the RSI program then but since we were in a low priority zone and there was virtually no money for the project at the time we did not expect to hear from them any time soon. Plus, we would be required to pay 20% of it. Then they moved the runway and put the money into it and that got things moving but now things are worse than they were before for a lot of folks.

I hope Westchester is able to fight this, we just had an election and I didn't vote for anyone who allowed the LAX expansion to roll over them.

I lived in El Segundo as a kid. LAX traffic flew right over my school. After a couple months I literally couldn't hear it. I remember once looking up at the belly of a 747 and wondering why I couldn't hear it, though I could hear everything else around me. The mind is strange.

The problem for you, I think, is that with the windows open comes the LAX noise. My impression, maybe wrong, is that to avoid the noise you have to keep the windows shut all the time. Will a "whole house fan" work with all your windows tightly closed?

If $ permits, I think you should spring for A/C if your wife is going to be home with the baby. It'll be a lot more comfortable.

True, for the whole house fan to work the windows must be open. But the idea is just to get the house temp down - would I have to run it for an extended period of time or just say 20-30 minutes to get the house cooled off?

We don't mind opening the windows for a bit, it's a trade off. The RSI program is fairly lame in this respect because they do a great job for us during the winter but leave us totally hanging during the summer. The documentation says they strive to keep the house as cool as an open window would. Our furnace can move the interior air around but I think that is fairly worthless...so far we have only had a few hot days (last weekend).

High bypass turbofans generate a lot less noise than the old turbojets. But a lot of companies don't really care about the noise. Insulating the cockpit is cheaper than changing the engines on a cargo carrier. And paying the noise fines is cheaper than changing the engines. And insulating your house, is cheaper than paying for all those engines to be changed.

On the topic of the house cooling, try a couple of window fans. Open the windows and run the fans when the air temp is equal to, or lower than the outside (they make these thermometer things). Close the windows in the morning. No use of the stove, or the oven, or dryer during the day.

Or pay to have A/C installed. When momma ain't happy, no one is happy. And I know momma.

In Western Mass, we did the above and supplemented with a couple of window A/C units. If you don't need them much, take them out of the windows and store.

And no matter what, install an attic fan with a temp switch. Most of the sun factor heat gets into the attic. This will take the hot air out.

Mike, does your furnace have a "vent" mode, where is pull air in from the outside? This might be a whole lot cheaper than adding whole house A/C.

I don't know if it has a 'vent' mode but I'll look into it. I've seen how it is plumbed and I don't see how it could. It gets the air for heat from inside the house.

Gwen actually doesn't mind the heat as much as I do. She grew up in Arizona...of course I grew up just west of Palm Springs so it isn't like I don't know the desert...

"Shade devices would help. Either vegetation (trees) or awnings of some sort over the primary points of heat gain (windows)."

I'm with Jeff on this one. If there's heat gain from south-facing windows and you can't wait 10 years for that tree to grow, I'd consider an outdoor shading system like an awning or ext. window shades. It's easier to control interior temperatures if the heat gain is reduced as much as possible, preferably from the outside.

That's heat. Humidity is related, but the only way to reduce humidity levels is by treating with conditioned air, A/C. A small window-mount A/C unit in an equally small room to habitate during the more brutal hours of the day might be the answer. That or plan frequent visits to the local movie theater, mall or frozen food section at the local grocery.

How bad can it be at the beach you lucky bastard. :)

Sherwood

Here is a way to keep dust and pollon out if you have allergies:
http://www.natlallergy.com/product.asp?pn=1155

John_AZ