The 24 inch fan is $180, the 30 inch fan is $220 and the tandem is $400. I can get a $100 Dolar rebate on any of them from the local power company

When I renovated my current house, my contractor though I was a little cuckoo when I insisted on the installation of a whole house fan.

I went with a Tamarack Technologies HV Series whole house fan. It moves a smaller volume of air than many other fans, but it's quiet, has insulated automatically opening doors on the attic side, and is quite effective. When temperatures drop in the evening, I open windows, turn on the fan and the entire house cools down in about 20 minutes. I've been very pleased with the system.

I'm debating getting one of those but don't think I've found anyone who actually owns one.

My fan is placed in a central stair hall at the highest point in the house. I also elected to go with a custom wood grill which is painted to match the ceiling. The standard metal grill isn't very attractive.

I'm on my 2nd house, with my 2nd Triangle Engineering fan. Very quiet, very high quality construction. This second one I have is actually a custom 6-blade fan made for a company out here in Sacramento, California called Fanman. Triangle's fans have 2-speed motors.

The 36" fan on low moves 7,660 CFM (290 watts), and on high does 11,224 CFM (580 watts).

3 friends have also installed Triangle Engineering fans after seeing how mine works.

In the attic, the fan stood on end and wood slats neatly curved boxing in the louvers ... thing was taller than I was. Super quiet except maybe the rattle of shutters opening or closing on start/stopping. Moved tons of air.

It had multiple pulleys on a freely pivoting motor with gravity and weight of the motor swinging holding the belt tight.

Was quick and simple to change the speed, but you had to run up the attic stairs to manually move the belt over a notch.

Who has a "Ghost" installed? How loud is it? I thought that since the motor is up in the attic it might be a little quieter than some of the other fans.

Rob

These things move more air than any other brand. As an example: the 36" belt-drive model sold at Lowes & Home Depot moves 6,900 CFM on its highest speed. The 36" one that Triangle makes moves 10,600 CFM.

I just put one of these in last week and am so taken with it that I'm evangelizing for Triangle now.

These things are much higher quality than the other brands too -- these are made with very heavy-gauge solid welded steel (as opposed to the thin, flimsy metal - often aluminum - that other brands use). They use a very solid motor made by Emerson, the best of the top three motor-making companies (the other two being Fasco and A.O. Smith). They come pre-framed on a wood frame for installation, AND they have sponge-rubber noise-dampening material between the fan and the frame, so they are much quieter than the other brands. Also, Triangle holds a patent on an automatic belt-tensioning system these things use, so you don't have to worry about getting the tension right when you install the fan (or in the years thereafter as the belt loosens up).

Also, they come in more sizes than the other companies -- from 24" all the way up to 48" blade diameter (which moves a ridiculously whopping amount of air; no one else makes one that big).

They're sold online at Southern Tool amongst other places that ship nationwide, so they're available wherever you live.

Also, Triangle re-brands some of these as a private label for Dayton, which is the "store brand" of Grainger - so if you have a Grainger store near you (check your phone book or their website), you can buy one there. I will say this, though - Grainger/Dayton makes their own shutters, and those shutters are much better than the one Triangle makes. Triangle makes great fans, but crappy shutters. Luckily, they're sold separately -- so buy a Triangle fan and Dayton shutters; money can't buy better products.

They also re-brand some for a company out in San Francisco called "Fanman" (a/k/a "Delta Breeze").

A word to the wise -- these fans move a lot of air, so make sure to install at least the recommended minimum amount of attic exhaust space (gable vents, soffit vents, roof vents, some combination thereof, whatever works for you) - if you don't have enough, the fan will operate at reduced capacity, and there will be a backpressure which will cause the shutters to rattle when the fan is in operation (any time you hear whole-house fan shutters rattling, you know there isn't enough exhaust space). Oh, and one other thing -- only buy a belt-drive whole-house fan, don't EVER buy a direct-drive model...the direct-drive models are at least five times louder, they sound like standing on an airport runway next to an old prop plane getting ready to take off.

Several of the dedicated whole-house fan installing companies have chosen to use Triangle fans; that should tell you something. These companies want satisfied customers, so they use Triangle and only Triangle.

Refer to http://www.trianglefans.com/wholehouse.html for more info

I recently bought a Masterflow 30 (30bwfs) exclusively to replace a warn motor in a 10+ year old Air Vent SP302B fan motor.

I've not swapped out the unit yet, and in fact I'm planning on keeping the fan itself if possible. I can say the Masterflow model is lighter and constructed of cheap sheet-metal. The Airvent unit is at least painted. The shutters, I actually like the Master Flow shutters a little better. They are lighter, sheet mental construction, but have a gasket on each Shutter. The Air Vent unit is heavier, but after removing it for the winter 8 times it fell apart.

With the belt drive units, you can replace the motor even if they are $200 or 60% the value of the whole thing. The Air Vent uses a very standard furnace motor easily found online, and wow I needed both the motor and shutters making total replacement a little more economic.