mac10688

I'm living in an apartment with a Chinese roommate during the school months. During the summer he tried turning on what I think is called the house fan. You know that thing on the thermostat that says "Auto" and "Fan on". I looked it up and I read that running the house fan with the AC wastes money. He just wanted to move the air around so I told him to open a window.

Now it is the summer and besides smothering me with 78 degree heat he also turns on the house fan. I'm upset enough that the apartment is 78 degrees but the fan is driving me up the wall.

Does anyone know where that fan is pulling air from? Because I thought it was pulling it from outside which would mean he has the heat set super high and pulling in the cold winter air. Am I right? Let me know your thoughts please so I know what I'm talking about when I confront him soon.

CallMeVilla

Your post is Dec, 2010 . . . In KY, that would be WINTER, not Summer, as your post says (?)

As I understand it, the FAN setting recirculates the interior air in a forced air system. No AC or heat is added. Honestly, a floor fan would be better in the Summer and less expensive. In the Winter, why would you run a FAN without heat anyway?

Turn off the FAN for the whole place. Get zone comfort in Summer or Winter. Save money.

nealtw

In house with a cool basement the fan will draw cool air and spread it thru out the house. the down side is you have warmed the basement. why did you say your room mate was Chinese. Would this have different if he was Japanize?

oldognewtrick

[QUOTE=nealtw;52728]In house with a cool basement the fan will draw cool air and spread it thru out the house. the down side is you have warmed the basement. why did you say your room mate was Chinese. Would this have different if he was Japanize?[/QUOTE]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's someones inability to communicate.

kok328

Depending on the type of system and ductwork you have, there are 3 sources of air when having the fan in "ON" mode.
The first makes a large percentage of the air source is simply the return air ducts (commonly known as the cold air return ducts).
The next source of air when in this mode is from any natural leaks in the return air ducts.
The last source may be of some concern here (if your system has this option) and that is a fresh air makeup inlet in the return air ducts. This would be a duct/hose that comes directly from the outside and connects to the return air duct. This would add fresh air but, when your not running heat, it would draw in & distribute whatever temp the outdoor air is.

j-brew

I believe she is referencing his ethnicity because he would be cold blooded. Meaning he is not used to using heat indoors. I have a friend that married a Chinese lady and they go to China once a year (shin-jun). He has told me they turn the heat on before he arrives to make the house a toasty 45 degrees F.
To answer the question you did not ask I would tell the roommate if he wants to pay the electric bill he can control the fan/temp in the house. Otherwise you will have to work out a plan to have sweaters/sweats be used indoors.

nealtw

j-brew
I believe the question was about running the fan in the summer time.
I find your explanation of the Chinese lady fine because it had a part in your story but when people just thru in not so helpful things like color race or what ever, they often don't realize that it is just a bad habit. I think it is great that for the most part we have no idea who the people are in a site like this and for most of us I hope I can say {we don't care}

mac10688

Oh wow I made a big error in my original post too. It is now the winter not summer.

I'm sorry but I threw in the fact that he was Chinese because 1) after asking 10 other chinese people what temperature they prefer, they all say high 70's and all of them thought 68-70 was too low. 2) It is hard for me to talk to him because his English is pretty poor. Maybe I should have left the chinese part out, but I was really upset when I made this post because I had just turned off the heat at 2 in the morning because I woke up sweating.

kaytav

I don't know why we get really late answers on this forum, i mean this forum has good piece of number of members but yet active members are really few, i have seen many threads being empty...