The house I grew up in had this fan. I remember every time it got turned on the whole house shook. It was loud but did a great job of moving air. During the summer it got used alot so I can never forget the sound of it running.😊
oh man my parent's house has this. There's nothing that brings more summer nostalgia than this fan shaking the whole house, sucking in cool night air from all the open windows. Heaven.
The house I grew up in (built in 1969) had this exact same fan. I always thought it was really great, and on a spring/fall day there was no need to run the AC in Georgia. Things stayed plenty cool with it running. The only downside is that it would slam doors and ours only ran at one speed, which was full blast lol. So that was LOUD.
Ohhhh....I bought an older house about two years ago. And I noticed it had two switches in the hallway. One for the hall light and the other mysterious switch I didn’t know what it was at that time. I didn’t notice it when I was looking at the house before purchasing it. One day I was curious and turn on the mystery switch in the hallway. I almost shit my pants. I thought my roof was opening up. Lol. It’s just an attic fan. Guess I didn’t notice the strange square shaped thing in the hallway either...hahaha...wonder what other secrets my house has....🙂
I agree, too much central air units replacing these fans. My parents bought our house (which my mom still owns) in 1983, and the previous owners had installed this exact same fan. It is still running very well nearly 35 years later. My mom did install three wall unit air conditioners, but she does not use them very often. However she uses the fan a lot.
That's funny..I said holy shit when he turned this bad boy on.. Thought I was gonna get sucked threw my phone..lol..You could fly a small plane with that thing...lol
As a Stephen King fan I now imagine an oversized fan like this randomly surprise-appearing behind doors without protection grill, for example when you go to the toilet at night.... :D The concept is awesome, I never heard of a house fan so far. Computer builders really appreciate this house fan ventilation concept inside the tower, and in houses that´s even better because it forces the cool summer night air in without the cost of air conditioning.
These are not found in all parts of the country, it depends on the climate. Unless you have cool dry nights, these aren't very useful. We used to have that around here, but not so much the last few years.
I had one of these in the house I grew up in (born in 82, our house was from the 30s), I used to love playing with this thing, feeding it strips of paper 😂
I moved into a different house recently and just figured out that it has one of these. We had someone doing drywall work and some painting upstairs. I came home from work that night and stood in the doorway wondering the 5 why’s about this otherworldly fan noise reverberating through the house. My jaw must’ve hit the floor when I wandered upstairs and saw the open shutters in the ceiling. Very cool. And funny that I had no idea, but the older gentleman doing the drywall knew enough to figure it out.
I was scared of these as a kid. I went over to a friend of my parents house and they had one upstairs. I wanted to play in one of the bedrooms which you had to walk under this fan to get there. I ended up getting my dad to come and shut it off. I was maybe 8 years old back them. Now I just say crank it up. Weird how when you're young you're scared of some things then you outgrow it.
My aunt had one of these, and I was afraid of it as a kid. Her hallway was kind of dark, so I couldn't see the fan up there, just blackness between the metal shutters, but it was loud, and I knew those big blades were spinning in the darkness. I attribute the fear to the fan scene in Willy Wonka. When we bought our first house, which was built in the mid '50s, it had one installed, which looked old enough to be original to the house. I never turned it on, mainly because I wasn't sure how safe it'd be to operate an electrical device that old, but maybe a little bit of it was the fear I had of these things as a little kid.
So I don't know if anyone else experiences this, but I have a weird phobia of in-built fans. Like the ones above the stovetop. Looking at these kinds of fans unsettle me. I don't know why.
I'm a grown woman and I have an attic fan in my house. Every time I have used it I still feel scared for some reason. Just looking up at that big black void and seeing those big blades turning gives me the creeps. It's almost like a mouth opening up and it will suck you up and chop you up. I know that my fear is silly, but I can't help it..
My house has one these, When i turned it on out of curiosity (without any windows open) It made a very loud humming sound, It was so incredibly strong that it opened one of the doors in the kitchen. Amazing
Resurrected the 1960’s Hunter whole house fan in my attic that was abandoned since 1997. The belt was completely perished and the motor needed a front bearing but the project was totally worth it. Took a standard A62 drive belt and the bearing was a common part, hardest part was pressing the old one out. Love the fan though, turns nice and slow to stay quiet but moves tons of air. Mine is either on or off though, no time control or variable speed.
These are great for cooling if you live in an area that cools off outside at night. The project you did was time and money well spent, that repaired until will be far more reliable and perform better than any unit you can buy today. All the ones of today are high speed and very noisy.
The variable speed on this one is great, full speed is hardly ever needed with how powerful it is. These will keep going for many years to come, very good quality motors were used.
We had a belt driven one in a vacant house on the farm when I was a kid. I vividly remember being nine years old and turning it on and a wasp nest dropped out of the thing
As a child, my aunt and grandmother had these in their homes. I was terrified of them because they were loud and I thought I was going to get sucked up into the fan 😂
Dude, I could've very easily written this comment! My grandma's house thankfully didn't have one but my eldest Aunt sure did and I hated it! Strangely enough, I wasn't TOO bothered by the thing when it was ON. The problem was when it was OFF and they left the vent open , so you could see these big four blades staring back you at from this big dark void. Now that I think about it, the vent on hers was painted over so much, it had to be open and shut manually; the fan wasn't strong enough to pull it open at that point, so sometimes it'd be left open while the fan wasn't on and to my childish mind it was just....wrong LOL.
There was one the basement of a 1932 house I bought years ago. The propeller went out on my Cesna so I put the fan on there and it's been flying the plane all this time. 😉
Omg I just bought a house in VA 2 months ago has this old Sears set up. But home inspection said it was disconnected and had been used in some time. Now I'm done unpacking I wanna get up there and get this old girl running..Keep the videos or advice coming...lol
If you can get it connected, make sure both shutters are free and able to open, put some oil into the fan bearings and the motor bearings every few months, keep a good belt of proper specification on there, and it will run just about forever.
We installed ours in 1982 or so and it has made life liveable. Ours is MUCH louder than this. It reminds me of a helicopter! LOL! We got it at Sears Surplus for about $200 back then. The only problem we've had was that the switch went out and had to be replaced. We did some remodeling not long after and something fell on the vents and they have been rattling more and now one of the louvers broke and is now hanging. Not good.
@@JordanU Yes! Fixing the louver that broke free I see that it does need replacing. I need to make sure it is the right fit though. Several louvers are not hooked in as much as they were - the holes in the louvers have split, letting them come loose from the rivets. It's either take it down and add washers to each hole and then screwing the back together or replace it. What a pain either way.
In my house I first have to open windows in attic and then down in the main house then turn on the fan switch. I use to have a speed control but when I called electrician he said the fan switch burned out because the motor is to powerful for the switch. So he ended up putting a on off switch that can handle the load.
I have a sears whole house fan. Not sure which exact model, but it's similar to this. There's a one piece controller with both knobs side by side instead of 2 separate knobs. One of the knobs is cracked and won't turn the potentiometer any more, so I take it off and twist with plyers. I rarely use it any more since I don't want all the outside pollen in the house. If I could find a replacement knob, I would get it or if I could just replace the whole controller, I would. Problem is I would have to find something compatible that covered the existing hole.
We just moved and my house was built in 1948. The landlord says the original fan is in the attic but he cut the power to it. He said they are amazing devices and ours is massive. I'm hoping to see it one day.
I see a lot of comments about how loud it was. Almost the only noise ours makes is the air rushing thru it. VERY little motor noise but ours is direct drive so no belts or pulleys. BTW- Ours has a variable speed control.
Are you sure you don't have that backwards? Our direct drive model has practically no motor noise at full speed & at slow speed NO motor noise. @@JordanU
damn I didn't even know these existed. this would have scared the crap out of me when I was younger. I always had a weird phobia type things about fans, especially big ones. Not anymore though
I have to agree, I don't have a fan phobia but something about a vintage heavy metal blade twice as big as a large portable box fan staring down at you from the ceiling is kind of unsettling. Perhaps because sometimes things that look like that are enemies in some video games.
Judging from the size of the shutter and the length of the blades, I would say that it is a 30 inch fan. Belt drive whole house fans come in four standard sizes 24, 30, 36, and 42 inch. The 42 inch is a Really BIG fan and are only used for large homes. The other sizes are depending on house square feet and CFM needed to be moved.
I would guess 30 or 36.. The fan was installed when the house had no air conditioning; being the only source of cooling it was certainly not undersized..
Hello I have the same one this year when I went up to attic to install into it’s square and turned it on when I got down to room I hear like a low rattle like if the fan belt is loose. Not sure but i believe it’s original to the home a 1950 one level home. Have you had such a noise?
My grandmom has a fan like this in her house.. But im scared to go in her attic no one has been inside her attic in decades i thought the fan was in the whole attic, had blades that could chop off someone head off just peeping inside. Also because she naled the windows shut, After my pops died, When my pops was alive they would open all the windowns and let air flow through and cool the whole house. I was always afraid to even look at the attic cause in Louisiana she talked about vudoo, snakes and stuff so I never dared to go look.. But this bring a lot of clarity to everything she said she, crazy enough, but to be honest I dont even know if their is another acces pont to her attic.......? Its doesnt even look like this, It's just a sliver blade hallway cilling. I always wonderded what that was? now I know now... A small farm house in the middle of nowhere..... Way before my time 1990... The house is basically a time capscaule to me ... I get chiils just thinking about it...?
alexthebro 265 We had a Whole house fan in our old house when I was a kid and yes I would throw paper into it or toilet paper tissue. I’m convinced that there still a pile of chopped up little pieces of paper in the attic to this day LOL
I'd like to put a predator or honda clone 212cc or even a 420cc on one of those big vintage whole-house fans. lol I wonder if it's potentially dangerous in that the fan blades might come apart from the high rpm? I would also probably make the belt really tight and add on a strong belt tensioner like from a car to prevent slippage. LOL, I have a bunch of crazy project ideas.
These blades were built very well, they'll withstand conditions above the intended use case, but you'll probably be pushing the boundaries with that much power.
@@JordanU did it in caps because it was in caps on the sticker...but was kinda debating wether to do it or not...so i did. not because i was angry or mad just fyi. I guess you already. knew that?
I have a Sears fan of same vintage and it recently quit running and have been researching the Googles to find parts for it. During troubleshooting I found that while there was power downstream of the switch, there was no power at the hookup connection on the fan motor. Went into the attic to trace the wiring and found a device such as shown in your video on a rafter above the fan wired between the fan switch and the motor. There was power up to this thing, but dead on the fan motor side. Device had an on/off switch on it that had failed. Put a jumper across it and the fan came on. This thing seems to be intended to enable automatic starting of the fan when the attic space reaches a certain temperature and also has a thermal trip switch in it to shut the fan down in event of fire. The device is a Sears part no longer available. I can use the fan without the thing, but will be looking for some sort of alternate device to wire in for fire safety.
You may be able to adapt a fan and limit switch that is intended for a warm-air furnace, if this type of switch has the range of temperature settings that you would need. These are typically used to start the furnace blower after the burner has warmed up the heat exchanger, and stop the blower some time after the burner is cut off by the room thermostat. This function could be used to turn the fan on and off for normal operation. The other function of the fan and limit switch is to cut off the burner if the interior of the furnace gets too hot, as it would in the case of a blower failure. This could be wired in series with the other portion of the switch to cut off the attic fan in case of fire.@@ralphjones6165
Not if you live in a very hot (as it gets over 90 F) and humid environment (The South East U.S. for example), still better than nothing though. They are nice once the humidity drops though.
These fan cause mom to be angry because... Son: I wanna my phone(angry in heart) Mom: No unless you do the chores Son: ok(angry in heart) Son: (Tries to close the door slowly) The fan: MY TIME TO SHINE The door: oh no fan dont make me slam... Son: Omg Mom:DID U JUST SLAM THE DOOR FINE YOU ARE GROUNDED
@@o0OBillO0o I've tried and tried,can't get the proper switch that will let the fan run at it's full potential. Tried contacting sears, emerson,nidec etc. and none can help. Very frustrating.
@@jimm2031 www.grainger.com/product/TORK-120VAC-Electromechanical-Wall-45EM03 or look at this www.grainger.com/product/DAYTON-2-Speed-Belt-Drive-Whole-House-1LXN8 and order a new timer from Grainger.
I have a very similar Sears fan, and it is a warm, muggy Spring day, and it isn't working just a sad click when I turn it on. Such a economical sway to cool my home.
We have one in our house that I installed about 25 years ago. i love it. It saves a lot of run time on the central AC. One thing I learned right away, you MUST open some windows when you run it. Otherwise, it may suck fumes from the (gas) water heater running. Someone else in the household turned it on and did't check for some open windows. Would I install one again? Definitely!
My attic fan looks exactly like that one. I thought it was a Craftsman for some reason but Sears definitely. My dad installed it before 1977. I had an electrician replace the motor but it still needs a fan. He took the broken one and never came back so I don't have a width. The circumference around pulley to motor is 60" total, 8 think. If you know the size of the belt on yours it would save me so much time. I even have the same timer/power switch, but it's only one speed.