Our building pre-dates air conditioning and actually gets super great air flow. It's designed to. It's really awesome! We get noticeable breezes in the sun room/living room, down the hall, through the kitchen and enclosed back porch. And we have a shady, tree-lined street (and no space at all to plant trees between our building and our neighbors. Not going to happen. Impossible.)
We have no attic (and there are people living above us anyway) or I'd totally push for an attic fan. My parents installed one, and it made a NOTICEABLE difference. We also have no doors that open to the outside; both exterior doors lead to enclosed stairways that lead to a "real" door, which has deadbolts and protects the building from OMG STRANGER DANGER (this neighborhood actually does have break-ins, so we are careful to keep the entryways locked).
We absolutely DO need ceiling fans in every room. Removing the weird cobbled-together ductwork will help with that because we have big ducts along the middle of the ceiling and bi-level ceilings, so any fans need to be installed on a post so they don't hit the ducts/ceiling levels. I'm sure that installing them would reduce our home's heat significantly, and they are on our to-do list above even "put in bathroom ceiling" and "obtain cooking device that has a working stove top."
The biggest problem we have is that not only does Chicago get hot, but this used to be a wetlands (and still is, in some areas) and it's really, really humid. So one sits around in the heat, and one sweats, and the sweat doesn't go anywhere or do anything except harass one and make one want to die. Or roll around in a snowbank. Or turn the AC on to 50*. Or whine a lot about how hot it is.
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We have no attic (and there are people living above us anyway) or I'd totally push for an attic fan. My parents installed one, and it made a NOTICEABLE difference. We also have no doors that open to the outside; both exterior doors lead to enclosed stairways that lead to a "real" door, which has deadbolts and protects the building from OMG STRANGER DANGER (this neighborhood actually does have break-ins, so we are careful to keep the entryways locked).
We absolutely DO need ceiling fans in every room. Removing the weird cobbled-together ductwork will help with that because we have big ducts along the middle of the ceiling and bi-level ceilings, so any fans need to be installed on a post so they don't hit the ducts/ceiling levels. I'm sure that installing them would reduce our home's heat significantly, and they are on our to-do list above even "put in bathroom ceiling" and "obtain cooking device that has a working stove top."
The biggest problem we have is that not only does Chicago get hot, but this used to be a wetlands (and still is, in some areas) and it's really, really humid. So one sits around in the heat, and one sweats, and the sweat doesn't go anywhere or do anything except harass one and make one want to die. Or roll around in a snowbank. Or turn the AC on to 50*. Or whine a lot about how hot it is.