Last week, one of our competitors issued a “news release” hinting—well, stating actually—that our AirScape 1.7 puts out somewhere between 40% and 100% less air than we advertise (how do you put out 100% less? read on…)

Their news release claims to have test results that show our fan putting out far less air than their similarly-rated unit, and NO AIR AT ALL under a moderate static pressure load of .07”.

While I’m hesitant to even respond to this silly allegation, I thought it best to go on record: This is not only unfounded (nobody we know has seen the “test results” they offer, and not for lack of asking), but for anyone that understands the principles of airflow, it’s just downright silly.

In the course of the development of our new 3000 CFM AirScape 3.0, we asked EBM (one of the world’s most sophisticated fan manufacturers) to test the AirScape 1.7 WHF at their R&D facility in Farmington, CT. Results confirm that the AirScape 1.7 delivers 1745 CFM (nominal) and 1350 CFM at .07” static pressure. This almost exactly matches our own “in-situ” measurements. And unlike our competition, we’re happy to post the results publicly.

Here’s our 1.7 mounted in the EBM test facility.

And here’s a graph of the test result:

Now for those of you who are not HVAC engineers, don’t be alarmed when you notice that the airflow drops to zero. (This does not back up our competitors claims!) The methodology for this type of test is to keep increasing the static pressure far beyond any normal tolerances until the equipment simply fails—it’s like a stress test for air movement equipment. On the chart you will see that the 1.7 airflow drops to zero at around .27”—way, way beyond any normal operating environment for this type of equipment.

Whole house fans are designed to work in typical attic environments—they are not designed to perform against significant static pressure. This is why it is important to have enough attic venting, so the attic air has little resistance to being pushed out.

We’re really put off that our competitor would use such cheesy and deceitful tactics (But not surprised really as they’ve played number games before in their misguided marketing efforts.) Bottom line is: We’re thrilled with the real-world performance of our 1.7, and so are thousands of AirScape customers around the US. And, yes, Tamarack, we actually DO have the test results to prove that :-)

Posted by Neil Smith on Apr 2, 2008