Problem: Hot summer nights that make it hard to sleep
Solution: Plywood and Fan in the Attic access opening
This idea works great in the San Jose, California area and in any area where the night are generally cool. Most nights in our area are a lot cooler then our Summertime day temperatures but it is not always easy to get the cool outside air in the house. One solution (I rejected) was to use a whole house fan. These fans suck air out of the house and blow air into the Attic space. These fans help in at least two ways, one the really hot air is pushed out of the Attic and two the air sucked from the house creates a vacuum that allows you to pull in cool outside by just opening a window. If you open a window on the opposite side of the house from the fan location you can pull that cool air all through the house.
The problem is that it can be a bit pricey if you have someone else install it, and the noise on most of those fans is so loud it makes you crazy. One day I had the idea of doing this on the cheap (and quiet) by screwing a regular old house fan onto a piece of plywood and sticking that into our attic access hole. To my surprise it worked better then I could have imagined. The fan noise is much less then the typical whole house fan and we cool most of the living space by opening just one window on the opposite side of the house.
Several of our friends have used our idea with box fans, high speed floor fans, and attic gable fans with great success. So keep cool!
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