Ceiling Fans

[73ss454]

Hey Rich, what's Dan's fans?

 

[brewer12345]

http://www.dansfancity.com/whydans.htm

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

http://www.dansfancity.com/whydans.htm

Yeah -- what Brewer said. We have had very good experience with them including our outside fans.

The trick is to run them on high about 10 minutes before you plan to use the room, then back to medium or low after that. This gets the hot air that's stuck near the ceiling into the room and evens out the temperature. The low setting is enough to keep air moving and cooling you while you're in the room.

Pretty effective til about June 1 around here, then it's AC all the way. Come late September, fans are often enough for us in the main areas.

 

[Nords]

The trick is to run them on high about 10 minutes before you plan to use the room, then back to medium or low after that. This gets the hot air that's stuck near the ceiling into the room and evens out the temperature. The low setting is enough to keep air moving and cooling you while you're in the room.

We had a fan guy suggest that during hot weather without air conditioning we run our ceiling fans to push the air up instead of down.

His logic is that pushing the air down creates an airblast curtain (like the doors of some businesses) that interferes with the tradewind ventilation through the house's open windows. Pushing the air up moves it along the ceiling (where the hot air wants to go anyway) toward the edge of the room and the windows, where the breeze blowing through the room will suck it out.

Our ceiling fan in our cathedral living room also blows the air straight up toward the exhaust duct of our solar-powered roof fan. When the ceiling fan starts blowing upward you can feel a noticeable rise in the airflow through the room.

I guess people have to look at their room ventilation and figure out which direction the ceiling fan helps speed up the flow instead of interfering with it.

 

[farmerEd]

I haven't even bothered installing my window a/c units since putting cieling fans in all the bedrooms...for those few hot nights they really make a difference.

My vote would be to spend extra money and buy good to great quality ones...not the $19.95 specials at walmart...first summer in the house I installed 6 of the el-cheapo units (which look nice enough) and kept asking people "How can they build a cieling fan in China, ship it over here and sell it to me for only 19.95 and still make a profit?"...the next summer as I was ripping out the old ones and putting up the ones I should have bought in the first place I answered my own question....

The trick to installing cieling fans by yourself is to make a little "S" shaped hanger about 10 inches long out of an old clothes hanger to suspend the cieling fan on from the mounting bracket while you are connecting the electric..then once the electric is hooked up you can secure the motor to the bracket...took me a few installs to come up with that trick.

 

[73ss454]

Thanks for all the info guys. Next time it's Dans fans all the way.

I did buy good fans and hope they last for while.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

We had a fan guy suggest that during hot weather without air conditioning we run our ceiling fans to push the air up instead of down.

Oddly, our "fan advisors" told us to do that during cool weather in order to displace the hot air from the ceiling to the room, on low to keep air currents low at living altitude.

I guess there's no consensus in the fan industry.

 

[Martha]

What I have heard is consistent with what Rich says. In winter/cool weather, run the fan so it blows up. This circulates the warm air down into the room and does not create a breeze, which cools the skin. In summer, run it downward so it does create a breeze.

My bet is that Nord's situation is different because of the interaction of the tradewinds.

 

[sgeeeee]

We had a fan guy suggest that during hot weather without air conditioning we run our ceiling fans to push the air up instead of down.

His logic is that pushing the air down creates an airblast curtain (like the doors of some businesses) that interferes with the tradewind ventilation through the house's open windows.  Pushing the air up moves it along the ceiling (where the hot air wants to go anyway) toward the edge of the room and the windows, where the breeze blowing through the room will suck it out.

Our ceiling fan in our cathedral living room also blows the air straight up toward the exhaust duct of our solar-powered roof fan.  When the ceiling fan starts blowing upward you can feel a noticeable rise in the airflow through the room.

I guess people have to look at their room ventilation and figure out which direction the ceiling fan helps speed up the flow instead of interfering with it.

We have 4 ceiling fans and three of them are most effective when they blow downword, but the 4th definately moves more air when it blows upward. My DW showed me this one day. I explained why it made more sense to blow the hot air down. She had played with the switches experimentally and demonstrated for me. She turned the fan on and switched the direction making it pretty clear I was full of hot air.

Our house has floors and ceilings that are at different levels in almost every room. I think the difference in how the fans work has a lot to do with the location of our a/c vents and the shape of the ceilings. But as my DW has already demonstrated, I don't really know what I'm talking about.

 

[73ss454]

I gotta tell ya, you guys got me confussed. I think I'll just leave the fans off till we get the correct answer.

Come on Nords I know you know.

 

[REWahoo]

I think the difference in how the fans work has a lot to do with the location of our a/c vents and the shape of the ceilings. But as my DW has already demonstrated, I don't really know what I'm talking about.

I couldn't agree more. No, not that you don't know what you're talking about, but that room size, ceiling height, location of vents, fan size and fan speed all factor into the equation.

When it comes to fans and AC, my theory is that air movement, no matter what direction it comes from, makes you feel cooler. We have all our fans blowing downward, except for the fan over the eating area. Don't want my steak and potatoes to cool off before I can eat them...

 

[Nords]

I gotta tell ya,  you guys got me confussed.  I think I'll just leave the fans off till we get the correct answer. 
Come on Nords I know you know.

I'm a mile wide and an inch deep on most things, but for our house I'm a mile deep too.

So if you don't use A/C and can open windows on all four walls of the house year-round, then have the fans push the air up while you enjoy the tradewinds blowing red dust through your domain. And be ready to scramble for mauka showers.

If you have A/C or winter then you'll have to adopt SG's approach: have your wife do it experiment with what seems best for each room.

 

[sgeeeee]

. . . If you have A/C or winter then you'll have to adopt SG's approach:  have your wife do it experiment with what seems best for each room.

Give me credit. I had to admit she was right.

 

[OAG]

Hey, guys (and gals) RTFB (or read the ******* book) that came with the fan. Little (mostly black) switch on side of the round part just below the larger motor housing. Up in the winter and down in the summer. I know, no one reads the book. Down cools you off from the breeze effect and up pushes the cooler air up into the warmer (heat rises) air in the room and, because once it goes up high enough, it comes back down along the walls and circulates the hot air downward without the breeze effect. Of course this is one of those Computer on Computer off type of things where you do what you want to or in this case what is comfortable for you.

How about Air Conditioning -- do you leave the fan on all the time or only have it on "automatic" where it only runs when the air is being cooled?