Installed a whole house fan thinking it would cool things down, but it just brought in dust storms
I live outside of Phoenix and got a whole house fan installed last June. Figured it would be perfect for those 100+ days when the sun goes down. First night I turned it on, within 20 minutes the whole house smelled like dirt and I was sneezing nonstop. The dust here is no joke. I had to install a MERV 13 filter right over the intake vent and now it works way better, but I still have to clean it every week. Anyone else in the Southwest dealing with this?
Wait, so your whole house fan doubles as a free dust delivery system too? That's what I call a feature, not a bug. Seriously though, I've heard that whole house fans in the desert are like inviting the outdoors in for a sleepover. You're basically running a dust farm with a built-in sneeze trigger. Glad the filter helped, but man, cleaning it every week sounds like a whole other job. Guess it's either that or roast night after night, right?
MERV 13 is the move out here for sure. I'm in Tucson and my whole house fan just turns into a vacuum for dust bunnies. Ended up putting a screen over the attic vent too, helped a ton. Still gotta clean the filter every weekend though, it's a pain.