The Fourth Day of Christmas

...my true love gave to me,

four attic accesses,	three ceiling fans,	two thermal zones,

...and a big fan to cool the whole house.
Any guesses on what was planned, and what just happened to evolve?

We did plan on improving our attic access, but not this much. We had included adding a pull-down ladder to make the attic easy for seasonal storage. As we progressed, our builder recognized that shear walls cut off some access, and so two more were added. Then, the building inspector noted that the opening for the pull-down ladder was about 1" too small in one dimension to meet the code for being able to move the furnace in and out of the attic. That meant a fourth access was needed. Out of the four bedrooms in the house, only one of them has no hole in the closet ceiling!

One goal for the remodel was to have light fixtures in each bedroom. The house had been built before this was common. And, while air conditioning was also in the plan, we both wanted ceiling fans as an alternative in the bedrooms we expect to use most. At a friend's house in early summer, we found a really attractive fan model with a low profile to fit our ceilings. When we found it came in oil rubbed bronze to match the door hardware, we knew we'd found our pick for the three bedrooms in the west.

We did always plan doors between the more public great room and the more intimate living room. As we neared the final stages of planning prior to groundbreak, the heating subcontractor had an insight. He realized that with careful arrangements of the return ducting, we could have two thermal zones, increasing our flexibility for heating and cooling.

We picked up the idea of a whole house fan from our builder's other dog friendly project. That owner noted to us how using the fan in the summer evenings helps to very quickly cool their house, exchanging the warm interior air for the cooler exterior air. The idea went straight onto our design list. In our project, our builder craftily located the fan where it can draw air from both thermal zones, and remain unobtrusive.

With all the green cooling alternatives between ceiling fans, dual zones and a whole house fan, I'm really looking forward to all the benefits of a cool house in the summer of 2009, with much lower than usual power bills.