durable, cleanable, quiet whole-house window fan?

June 16, 2019 9:27 PM

I want to put a large fan into my kitchen window to blow hot air out of the apartment and draw cooler outside air in through other windows in the apartment. Looking for product recommendations and advice for removing the inevitable layer of kitchen grease.

My apartment is 12000 cubic feet, so sfgate recommends a 6000 cfm fan. Seems unlikely I'll achieve that with anything meant to pop into a 27.5" wide window, so I'm happy to settle for 2000-3000 cfm.

Any recommendations for a 2000-3000 cfm fan that fits into a 27.5" wide window?

My front-runner right now is the Air King 9166F whole house window fan (specs), but I don't really know this space and I'm concerned about all the negative reviews mentioning premature failures and excessive noise.

Another concern: I'm going to put this in the kitchen as an exhaust fan, which means the air going into the fan will be laden with smoke and aerosolized cooking grease.

Is there anything like a grease trap for window fans? Or, failing that, how do I clean the grease off the fan?

I realize a range hood is what I really want, but I'm in an apartment and the best I have is a recirculating thing. :-/

posted by meaty shoe puppet to Shopping (5 answers total)

I think you are asking for a professional-grade piece of equipment, designed to be maintained rather than used up and thrown out.

I have the Air-King 9166F - 1/6 HP. I think it is very well made, easy to clean, and easy to maintain. Mine is not context-free quiet, but quiet for what it does.

If you look at the PDF of the product manual, you can see that essentially all the parts are replaceable, which is a good clue as to how possible it is to take it apart, clean, and put back to together again.

So, I think that this is a cleanable fan.

You are right though that if there's a lot of grease, you are describing a problem solved by a range hood.
posted by Glomar response at 2:58 AM on June 17, 2019

I came in to recommend an Air King fan. I have had a couple of them and I love them. After a house move, we no longer had a need for a brand new one I'd just bought, and I subsequently kept it in the attic for 10 years because I didn't want to part with it. I finally sold it last month.

I used to have one with a thermostat (mechanical/rotary), which was fantastic for leaving on overnight, but last time I looked (10 years ago) I couldn't find that.

Be careful with the dimensions. You list the width of your window, but you also need to worry about the height. The fan you linked to is 26.25 inches tall. That would be for a big old window, and if your opening is 27.5" wide, I doubt it's tall enough.
posted by intermod at 5:40 AM on June 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

I used the the Air King 9166F that you mentioned. I bought it 8 years ago and ran it hard from end of May to end of September. Worked very well, never a need for A/c (which I despise). A tad noisy, but you don't notice it after 10 minutes. Get one with a thermostat.
posted by james33 at 6:32 AM on June 17, 2019

I have successfully used baking soda, sprinkled on a damp sponge, to clean grease off of things like oven hoods, stove tops, etc. It does require wiping afterward with a damp cloth, but it works surprisingly well. You could also mix some Dawn dish detergent with water and put it in a spray bottle and spray your sponge with that.

I usually take my box fan apart every Spring and Fall, then carefully wipe down the blades with a damp paper towel, as dust and grease accumulate and make it less efficient. I use a chopstick to attack dust bunnies that cling to the grate, then wipe that down as well. Helps to put it on the coffee table and watch TV while doing it, less tedious that way.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 7:55 AM on June 17, 2019 [2 favorites]

I don't know if this will help, but I use a cheap, thin air filter designed for an HVAC unit with my window fan to catch dust/pollen/yard debris from coming through the screen. I swap the filter out a couple of times over the summer months. If you could trap kitchen grease with an appropriately-sized filter on the interior side of your exhaust fan, maybe the fan itself won't need as much disassembling and cleaning?
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:00 AM on June 17, 2019 [1 favorite]