Back in the late 1980's I had a house in NOLA that was built in the 1920's. Absolutely no insulation. It had a whole house fan installed in the attic but the motor had been pulled out. When I bought it I got a new motor and fabricated window screens. The fan blades were 5 feet in diameter. Thing was huge. At that time, the only attic access was through the fan louvers in the ceiling. The unit could swing away for access. I installed a pulldown stair in the hallway.
When that fan came on the blast of hot air at the front porch, which is where the vents were (see the photo), would drive off a solicitor no problem. It really did cool off the whole house as long as each room had a window open.
But there were drawbacks, like dust and crap coming in from outside. Also bugs, leaves and lizards getting stuck to the outside of the window screens when the fan was running. Sometimes litter from the street also. If it got cold in the winter, the cold air came down from the louvers. Also the heat just went out them.
But the worst was one time I had a bunch of papers I was working on sitting on the kitchen table, which was right under the fan louvers. I was in the living room and my daughter decided to flip on the fan. Those papers got sucked up through the louvers and sliced up quite a bit and were strewn all over the attic.
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