Air King 9166 20" WholeHouse Window Fan

It has metal skirts and its noisy and rattles. I also have a 16" which is a lot quieter but less rugged built.

The simple fact is the quality of the Air King 20" whole house window fan has been decreasing in quality for the last 30+ years--the length of time I've been using them. My uncle gave me a USED one he was no longer using in the early 1980's. It worked great for another 15 years--with very quiet and smooth operation. When it finally gave out in the mid/latter 1990s, I bought another Air King 20" and it again worked great--with very smooth, non vibrating operation. About 15 years later my son bought an old large house w/o ac during a hot summer. I gave him my Air King 20" for quick relief and then purchased another new one for myself in about 2014. I put it in the window, turned it on, and couldn't believe how poorly it performed. Particularly, the great amount of vibration and noise--which continually gets worse. I basically only use the low and medium speeds--the high speed vibration of out of balance blades is just too noisy and disturbs us--and likely the neighbors. When at my son's house I occasionally just turn on his Air King 20" (the old one I gave him) just to experience how good the Air King product used to be--smooth as silk. His fan is way older than mine, but runs better and likely will outlast my 'new' one. They used to cost about $100.00 more (as I recall--about $250.00), but I'd pay the extra any day for a good quality/performing product. Not sure what I'll do when the 'new' one burns out. I'm always on the lookout for a company to come out with a good one. The idea of a whole house fan is a great-idea-we often need not turn on the central ac and save $. So, there is a market for them--but for a quality product!

0:000:00This video is not intended for all audiences. What date were you born?JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930312020201920182017201620152014201320122011201020092008200720062005200420032002200120001999199819971996199519941993199219911990198919881987198619851984198319821981198019791978197719761975197419731972197119701969196819671966196519641963196219611960195919581957195619551954195319521951195019491948194719461945194419431942194119401939193819371936193519341933193219311930192919281927192619251924192319221921192019191918191719161915191419131912191119101909190819071906190519041903190219011900SubmitAdobe Flash Player is required to watch this video.Install Flash Player First thoughts was impressive, looks well build and easy to mount. I made a frame to mount it to that I can place in the windoframe without damaging the window casing. I brought it inside and turned it on. Low was great, quiet and move some air. I decided to crank it to max and that's where my disappointment started. This thing shook the window so much it could be felt dow stairs. I will call lasko (the company listed on the motor) and see what they can do. I would rather not have to send it out because of the size of the box but if they do something worthwhile I will update the stars.What a pain to try and balance the blade, got close but for the price of this. STAY AWAY, not worth the hassle and frustration when you want to use it as designed. I'm looking for an external supplier to buy a new balanced blade from but with a 10mm shaft, it's hard to find one for a 20 inch fan

I got one of these fans, it has been working fine until last night. Love the performance, hate the quality!The fan was ordered on May 26, 2016 - It has been used for one summer, this would be its second - and the fan motor has completely separated from the housing (see attached images).Would like to get the fan operational again. The fan really moves some air when it is working. Last night I thought the cat got sucked into it or something - turned out that the fan motor separated from the cage, thank goodness it was on low! man what a racket! Really hope the manufacture will stand behind this fan that is literally just over a year old! I sent them an email, will update this post as I hear from them.

If you live in a place where night-time temperatures drop (we're in the high desert of New Mexico) this is an absolute necessity. We mounted it in a window in a location remote from our bedroom (in the laundry room) and when we go to bed, turn on the fan and open a window in our bedroom. Very powerful, but a little noisy, so keep it as far away from where you are as possible. In exhaust mode it creates a negative pressure in the whole house so you just open a window where you want to let the cool night air in. We haven't used the air conditioner at night at all last summer. Very cost-effective if the air cools down at night. Also, it's a very secure installation - we mounted it inside the window, so when we leave we just close and lock the window and the house is tight.

If this fan was balanced, it would be a great fan. Unfortunately it isn't balanced and is getting louder every week. It is beyond the return window so I'm left with a $155 fan that I can only use on its lowest speed or its going to tear itself out of my window frame. It could have been great if the quality control at Airking had integrity. If you buy this fan, make sure you return it within 30 days if it rattles much or you will regret it.

This is a high performance fan. I have been using the fan for over 6 months in near continuous operation varying the speed from low-to-high and using it as an intake and exhaust fan. I have placed it in windows and even used it as an attic fan in my garage. Recently we had a someone in the house try to burn-up our toaster up and filled the whole first floor with a fog of smoke. Turned the fan on in a 2nd floor window on high, cracked a 1st floor window, within 5 minutes the smoke was gone. The smell took longer but I needed an ionizer for that.I monitored the amps/watts consumed and my unit actually runs more miserly than the specs. I was expecting performance to be down as well but surprisingly my anemometer confirmed the factory specs!The unit I ordered was missing the mounting hardware and I really did not notice until a few months had passed. When I contacted the manufacturer, Lasko, inquiring about ordering the missing parts they offered to send to me at no charge! Wonderful way to do business. So I ordered another one for my mother's house.Very pleased with the item, and the customer support. The shipping and delivery was seamless. While I didn't get all the parts, when I did notice the customer support was outstanding.

I had an older Air King--same size; slightly different. The last one would still be working fine (after twenty years) had I not dropped it out a window (difficult to do, but I'm a talented man). The new one works fine; creates a nice breeze through multiple windows on high. At night, we put it on low and open just the bedroom windows. We're very comfortable. It's a bit loud, but we're rarely in the same room (my office) when it's on high. We expect that this will last more than twenty years (I'll be more careful), but we're not sure that we will.

I was hesitant about buying this product. Was actually looking at a whole house fan on my ceiling. My house is shy of a 1100sqft and I set this fan up in the back room. So I set it up on exhaust and the highest level and I cracked the windows open in the living room and kitchen and yup you can feel the breeze coming in through the windows. It really does bring the out side air inside. The house feels really cool. I also turned on the intake side and yup it really blows air into the house. It's really worth it for the price. If you are in a budget trying to stay cool for the summer this could really help you out. It hasn't really got hot just yet I tested this out at about mid 80 degrees and it feels really cool in the house. It is a bit noisy but that's why I have it towards the back of the house and not in our living room window.

If you are here reading this, you probably already understand the premise. These big fans can create negative pressure inside your house by blowing out. You fire this thing up, then open windows elsewhere in your house to essentially create powerful, artificial cross ventilation, rapidly exchanging the hot air of the day inside your house for the cool night air outside. In the shoulder seasons, a fan like this can eliminate the need for A/C, saving you huge money on your electric bill. We even run it occasionally on a warm winter day to just replace all the stale air in the house.This thing is no joke. It is big. It is heavy. It feels almost industrial. You will need to think carefully about how you install it in the window and you will be putting large screws into the window frame to keep it stable and in place. Once you install it, you are likely leaving it in place permanently. (You install it so you can open and close the window as needed, without needing to remove the fan.) You also need to make sure wherever you are installing it is not near things like window shade cords, drapes, etc. as it is easily powerful enough to pull stuff like that into it if it got too close. You want this in a bare window with nothing near it.Once you kick it on, you can probably just tolerate being in the same room with it on low. On high it is absurdly loud, and even on medium it is quite loud. In other words, do not install this in your bedroom and expect to sleep next to it, it is just too much fan for that.But it works, and works well. It moves the kind of volume and creates the kind of negative air pressure you need to fairly rapidly change out the air in even a very big house. Mine is in an upstairs, spare bedroom. On cool evenings, I open a couple of windows downstairs on the other side of the house, and crack open a window or two in the master bedroom, then fire this beast up and kick on the various ceiling fans around the house to stir up the air. Then I LEAVE THE ROOM and let this thing work its magic. In my good sized house, it takes maybe an hour or so before the hot stuffy air inside has been replaced with fresh, cool outside air, equalizing the temperature inside and outside. Then I go back upstairs and turn the thing off, restoring my house to quiet.What do I like: the power, and the fact it has now held up for several seasons. I've had a rattle or two I needed to fix but that was due to errors in my install. The fan and housing itself is well made.What do I not like: mainly the fact that it is so noisy. You could run it on low in another room and tolerate leaving it on all night. But I normally run it on medium and shut it off before bed.

Heavy metal and plastic materials. Fits 38 inch window with 1.5 gap around opening.3 speed setting on reverse and intake. Plugs onto 3 prong outlet. Does not appear to interfere with any other items on breaker. Recommend mounted install to prevent falling and child safety. Powerful pull of hot air out of house. Using one fan at the moment in 2nd floor window facing east. Takes approximately 20 minutes to cool down floor from 90 to 84 degrees. At 84 degrees with one other window open o. 1st floor; the house feels more like a warm 78 degrees although thermostat says 84 degrees. You can definately feel air pulling and circulating through thr entire house. Curtains on 1st floor pulls in direction of fan in the reverse position. Personally, compare to last year it is thus far thr best solution to getting hot air out with trying to forxe cool air from AC unit to co down entire house. My recommendation is...use King fan to get hot ait out for about 30 to 45 minutes then use AC. AC will work less harder and save money. In addition, this unit can be attached to a timer or Belkin remote switch to access turning on and off remotely.Reminder: Use a mounted position to keep from falling out window and for child safety.

I was so happy to find this unit as I had a whole house attic fan in my previous house and loved it. In my new house the attic fan was not possible so the Air King 9166F was a perfect alternative. I didn't want to mount this to my window frame on a permanent basis and didn't want to use the metal side extenders either. Instead I mounted it to a half inch piece of plywood then added a bolt latch on each side so I can easily take it out of the window anytime I want. That way it just leaves the small catches on each side of the window which I can paint over if I want. I've downsized so my house is pretty small and this fan can easily pull outside air from any window even on the lowest speed. The instructions say to open the windows 1 to 3 inches but I still get great air flow at double that and sometimes I open the window all the way. As far as the noise the fan creates, I have hearing issues so I'm not the best person to ask however I had a friend with excellent hearing check it out. We compared the fan on high speed to the noise made by my air conditioner and she concluded that the noise level was just about the same with the exception that the AC had a higher pitch making it seem slightly louder than the fan. As far as the cooling, well I'm in heaven every night as that cool fresh air blows from one end of my house to the other. I would definitely buy this fan again.

Good "window alternative" to a Whole House Fan, not as loud as I'd read, however I put it in the utility room, so doesn't matter. Moves a lot of air and the price is reasonable. I only gave it three stars as the box contained a fan-period. No instruction, no warranty, no screws, NADA. I installed it and works fine. I tried to call air king and never got to a human being, will try again later in the week, would like to register warranty at least.The preceding was written in 2016 when I initially received the fan. I'm now updating and rated at only one star. We only used it lightly in preceeding years and not at all last year. This year was/is much hotter and actually started using about 10 hours per day. After about two weeks of this use, it died. I called AirKing in an attempt to find out if there were any parts available, after quite a while on hold, was offered the option of leaving my name and phone number and they'd call me back, they never did. Also sent them an email asking the same thing-no response.Having had it awhile, I noticed a very significant design flaw, the forward/reverse/speed switch. e.g. If you have it on "low" and want to shut it off, it has to move through "medium, then high" to off. As it is moved through these positions the motor tries to speed up or slow down causing undue wear on the switch and motor. A simple on-off switch in series would resolve that.Since this one died, and it was hot, brought in a 24X24 box fan I keep out in my workshop and placed in the window. Moved a lot of air, not as much as the AirKing, but comparing $20 to $144 I'll stay with the box fan. You do have to physically turn it around for "reverse" but that hasn't been a problem. If you're considering this, consider a box fan or two instead.

I bought this fan to offload my HVAC when the weather is nicer outside than it is in. I have a rather small house of 800 sq. ft. and this thing is slight overkill, but on low it exchanges the outside/inside air with a nice even gentle flow in just a few minutes. My favorite thing, is on a nice evening, freshen the inside air for sleep time. I don't like a fan blowing on me, and this is fantastic for that, and it lasts all night long. The only caveat I see so far, is that it does have a pulsing vibration on the higher two speeds, but on low, not so bad. So, in my case the vibration doesn't really come into play, but might for someone else.Update: Now that I have had this a few days, I solved my vibration issue on the higher speeds. I simply tweaked the mounting screws slightly to support the fan better, and now the problem is gone. It probably isn't everyone's solution, but mine now goes thru all 3 speeds smoothly. I bumped it up to 5 stars for that reason. Now, will it hold up ion the long run? Time will tell. I do hope so, as this thing pushes tons of air, and is a great alternative to the expensive attic mount type. The cheapest I found those were $450, and that did not include running wiring, and installation if necessary. Also, this unit puts almost 50% more air than that unit.

Ok, Ill try to keep this short. I have seen a lot of people complaining about how loud this fan is. I will honestly say it is not quiet. This is a great fan. Probably one of, if not the best window fan out there available today. I grew up with fans running in my bedroom, so I am perfectly fin with the noise level of this fan. Is it higher than some other fans, probably. But it is also much, much stronger of a fan, and probably moves 10 times as much air all the quieter fans. My fiance loves it and it is right above out headboard. She said the same exact thing as me, and she actually likes the sound because it drown out any other noise and makes her sleep better. And it has saved us money because we do not need to turn our air conditioner on yet. And it is almost June. I have always had to turn it on by now. It is heavier than most other window fans, but this is more like a whole house fan really. And it is quieter if you have enough windows open. It needs for you to have enough open for air intake, so it does not put a strain on the fan by trying to pull air when there is no air to pull. You will need a little do it yourself brains, and a little know how with some minor tools to mount it. My set up was a bit harder than most im sure, as it did not fit the window just right and had to improvise. But that was my own fault. I had to have this fan because it moved the most air and I wanted to save money on my electric bill by not running the AC as much. I even removed the steel mounting brackets and used heavy duty anchors in the wood trim around the window, and put a really nice thick rubber gasket seal all the way around it so it is air tight, and sucks some serious air through my house. Even on the lowest setting you can feel air moving around the first floor, and it is in a second floor window. And put this sucker on the high setting, and there is a breeze coming in all the windows. Its great! It moves so much air that if you let the door get too close it will suck it shut! So if you can handle fan noise, and wont complain when you know it is a high power fan that moves some serious air, then this is for you. If you want a very quiet window fan, then by one of those cheapos that barely move any air at all, and you will be happy with how quiet it is. But then you will not be happy because they move 1/10th the amount of air this one does. If you purchase this fan, knowing it moves some serious air, and has a high power motor, and is going to be louder than those cheap weak window fans, and then complain and leave bad reviews, then that is a pretty crappy thing to do. And if you are not handy at all, and cant mount it, dont complain about how hard it is to mount. Its a heavy duty whole house window fan not a 3 pound cheap piece of junk. Half of the units frame is plastic, and the other half is metal. Measure you window accurately, and read the specs to make sure it will work for you before you waste you time. Or you can modify things and make it work like I did because I had to have it. But I give it 5 stars even with the fact that it is louder than all those cheap ones. I wanted a fan that would move some serious air and this is probably one of the last ones that you can buy of this quality. Now you can look it up on youtube and find some pretty strange guys doing reviews on it and testing it in animal costumes, but they actually really knew about fans and gave it 5 stars also. I almost forgot. The fact that it has low, medium, and high, and even better that it can exhaust air out of the house, or you can just twist the switch the opposite direction and the fan will run in reverse and pull air straight into the house without turning the fan around, also with low medium and high.Buy it.