What does a whole house fan cost to run?

Run the numbers on your own use

Change any of these and the figures update. The defaults are the typical case described above; your rate is the input that moves the answer most.

Why this is lower than the number you will see elsewhere

Almost every published answer to this question multiplies the rating on the label by the hours the appliance is switched on. For a whole house fan that gives 160 kWh a year, or $29.

A fan at a set speed draws continuously while it runs.

The arithmetic, step by step

Nothing here is hidden, so you can check it or change it. Working in the order the formula runs:

1. 400 W — what it draws while it is actually drawing. This is the rating on the plate.
2. × 100% — the share of its in-service time it is really pulling that. A fan at a set speed draws continuously while it runs.
   That gives 400 W averaged across the hours it is on.
3. × 4 hours a day × 100 days — Run for a few hours after sunset to flush the day’s heat out of the house.
   400 × 4 × 100 ÷ 1,000 = 160 kWh a year.
4. × 18.34¢ — the US average residential rate for June 2026.
   160 kWh × 18.34¢ = $29 a year.

Change any assumption in the calculator above and every figure on this page moves with it. The two that matter most are your rate, which varies 4× across the country, and the hours — the duty cycle is a property of the appliance, but the hours are a property of you.

How sensitive is that number?

A single figure invites more confidence than it deserves. Here is the same appliance under assumptions either side of the default, so you can see how much of the answer is the appliance and how much is the guess about how you use it.

Everything else held at the default. The spread here is the honest error bar on the headline figure.

What it costs per hour, day and month

At 18.34¢ per kWh, the US residential average for June 2026.

The thing worth knowing

Used correctly this is one of the cheapest cooling tools there is: it replaces the entire volume of hot indoor air with cooler outdoor air for roughly a tenth of what air conditioning costs. Used incorrectly — during the day, or in humid weather — it pulls hot wet air into the house and makes the air conditioning work harder. The rule is that it only helps when it is cooler outside than in.

Against central air conditioner

It is the cheap alternative. Open windows on the far side of the house from the fan so the air actually crosses the rooms you want cooled. In numbers: a whole house fan costs $29 a year on these assumptions, and central air conditioner doing a comparable job costs $421 — a difference of $392 a year, or $3,916 over ten years at today’s rate.

Both at 18.34¢/kWh, each on its own standard usage assumption. Ten years is roughly the service life of either.

What it costs in your state

The appliance is the same everywhere; the rate is not. Running this whole house fan costs $84 a year in Hawaii and $21 in Nevada — a difference of 4×.

Cost of running one whole house fan for a year, by state. Residential average price, EIA June 2026.

Other heating and cooling costs

• Electric furnace

  $1,653 a year

  Whole-home resistance heating in a cold climate.

• Heat pump (heating)

  $423 a year

  Whole-home heating in a mixed climate.

• Central air conditioner

  $421 a year

  A 3-ton system in a hot-summer climate.

• Dehumidifier

  $228 a year

  A 50-pint unit holding a basement at 50% relative humidity.

• Electric baseboard heater

  $218 a year

  One 1,000 W baseboard unit in one room. Most homes have several.

• Heated towel rail

  $193 a year

  Left permanently on, which is how most of them are used.

Questions

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, June 2026. U.S. Government work, public domain.

How every figure on this page is computed · Where the data comes from