Venting hot air from upstairs hallway into attic

We live in a two story townhouse. We don't have central AC. We have windows units. The problem is the entire second floor gets pretty hot in the summer months. The rooms with the AC can counter that put the hallway can be a sauna alot. We have an attic fan that pulls air out the attic. I've considered adding a whole house fan to the hallway ceiling but I was wondering, what if I just put a large grill, like ones used for AC returns in the hallway celing. Wouldn't the roof attic fan pull the heat thru the celing grate and out thru the attic. Sometimes I open the attic stairs and I guess that sort of helps but its located in a closet in the hall so I have to also leave the closet door opened. Just wondered if a simply large rectangular hole in the ceiling with grate and damper (so I can close it in the winter) would actually work?

Thanks in advance,
Adam

Adam,
If you do this you will be pulling your conditioned air from the house and expelling it through the attic. Yes, your hallway will become cooler but your window units are going to be working overtime to keep up with the constant air flow out of the house. Your attic fan can be pulling conditioned air out of your living space as well. Any unsealed penetrations into your attic space will allow the attic fan to pull conditioned air out of the living space. These unsealed penetrations can include: gaps around electrical wires and plumbing, non-air tight insulation contact rated ceiling lights, electrical ceiling boxes and your attic hatch.

Have you looked at your attic insulation? It is pretty cheap and easy to increase the R-value of your attic insulation. I would look at insulating your attic stairs with something like this: http://www.stairwayshop.com/Attic_S...{keyword}&utm_campaign=Attic - Bing - JumpFly

To improve your overall comfort you might look at installing a mini-spit HVAC system in your townhouse. These would allow you to get your windows back, be more efficient and get some conditioned air into the interior parts of the unit.

http://www.mitsubishipro.com/en/professional/products/cooling-only-systems

They are available as a cool only option or as a heat pump which would heat and cool. If you don't have AC, do you have baseboard electric? If so, where are you located? A heat pump model may be a good bet for you and allow you to only use the baseboard electric on the coldest days.

Adam,
A cheap solution would be to leave your upstairs room doors open and put a $20 box fan in the opening to move air from the bedrooms into the hallway. Another possible solution would be a portable AC unit with the exhaust sent up into the attic. http://www.homedepot.com/p/LG-Elect...-with-Remote-LP0815WNR/205649871?N=5yc1vZc4m4

Long term going with the mini-split system will be a huge improvement to your home and should increase its value. Unlike your window units the mini-split would be considered part of the property and not "personal property". When I built my first home, a modest townhouse in the mid-1980's baseboard electric was standard. I opted to go for the heat pump option. Best $2500 I spent on that house. My neighbors that went with the baseboard electric were hating life in July.