Ceiling Fans: Do you leave yours on all the time in summer?

[bbbamI]

I have no choice to leave them on, especially the one in the Master Bedroom. DW leaves it on high all night because of the damn hot flashes and I feel like I'm sleeping under a Helicopter.

........ummmm, hmmmm......

 

[Buckeye]

Can't remember who told me this but the saying goes, "Fans cool people, not rooms." We only turn on fans in the rooms we are occupying although, I admit, we leave it on for the cat when we go out. She lays right underneath it and catches a breeze. I know she positioned herself there on purpose because she doesn't sit there anymore since the temperature has dropped about 10 degrees. I guess the saying we follow is, "Fans cool people and pets, not rooms."

 

[Rambler]

I leave them on only when we are home, and only in the room we are in (or the ones we are going in and out of as we do our chores. I just wish I could get DD to turn off her fan and lights when she leaves the house. She's away at university now, so I only have the problem during visits.

Our home is only 5 years old, and we put ceiling fans in all the rooms except the formal dining and living room. We do use them in the winter as well to keep the warm air circulating as we use a wood stove for as much of our heating as possible, and it really helps. I may try using the a/c fan this winter to see if that helps with the heat distribution.

R

 

[Midpack]

Only when home, in a room we're in, and we feel it's necessary. So I couldn't vote as our answer was somewhere between the last two choices. We have setback thermostats set very low in winter and very high in summer so I can't imagine running fans or anything else unless needed.

 

[JOHNNIE36]

I use fans only in the room I'm in because my power company told me this is the econonical method. Air movement over the body is the cooling effect. The fan does nothing for the room if you're not in it. However, DW has a bad habit of leaving fans, TV's and lights on when she leaves the room. I'm thinking of installing timers.

 

[Silver]

We have ceiling fans in every room and use them only when we are in the room, with one exception.

My DH and I share an office and both have fairly large computer systems, so that room becomes very warm easily. The ceiling fan in that room remains on always just to keep air circulating a bit.

 

[Orchidflower]

This has been a good post for me. I learned a thing or two for sure and am now leaving my a/c on all the time (but a notch higher in temps) and turning off all ceiling fans when I am not in the room. Thanks, guys, for the lessons...who knew?

 

[Sue J]

We have ceiling fans in all the bedrooms. I use them in the warm weather only. I don't like to feel the down force so I keep them all reversed so the cool air from the floor is pulled over you rather than air pushed down from the ceiling.

I've always kept the fans on all the time during warmer temperatures. Now that you mention that they only cool people, not rooms, I'll have to consider this next year. But I've always felt that if you leave them running it helps circulate the cooled air throughout the room and evens out the temp in the hallways and stairs. I can see that in an empty closed bedroom it may be a waste of electricity but not if the door is open. If I have 2 bedrooms and a hallway wouldn't ceilings fans help circulate between the spaces?

I also leave the furnace fan running when the AC is on. If I turn it off then some rooms away from the thermostat have too big of a temp swing. Especially the kitchen. Leaving the fan running smooths out the temperature variation between rooms.

Our house is from 1955 and was not designed for AC, only heat. The registers are all at the floor level. We added the AC in 1993 and it took some trial and error to get it all balanced so that it's comfortable in all the rooms. We just had all the windows replaced from leaky aluminum framed single panes to double paned Low E vinyl windows so I'm sure it will all be much different now.

I could easily get used to turning the fan on and off only when I use the room. Getting others here to do that would be tough. They can't even turn lights off or close cupboard doors. It's maddening sometimes! If I'm out and come home I can walk from room to room just turning off lights and bathroom exhaust fans.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Silver, I know what you mean about the office heating up. Whenever I go in our small office to work on the computer, at least 4 of the 5 dogs also want to lie around in there with me, heating the room even more. The ceiling fan and the one vent cannot compete with hot dog breath.

73 545--you have my sympathy. I would freeze to death if I had to have a top speed fan going all night.

 

[freebird5825]

I turn all of them on, when I am home, for better air or heat flow.

I do turn them off every 5-6 hours to allow the motor to cool down. All it takes is 15 minutes off to give it a break and hopefully extend the service life.

All of my fans are Hunters. You get what you pay for.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Mine are all Hunters but two, which are Casablancas. They all came out of a salvage job on one of the resort islands nearby before we built our house. The house was a teardown and we took out everything that was still working. All were installed in the 1970s, I guess, and still ran like clocks.

 

[SarahW]

We turned ours on when we moved into the house 16 years ago. They're still on.

 

[mews]

The ceiling fan and the one vent cannot compete with hot dog breath.

Somehow, Nords' description of the tradewinds effect was ... um ... more poetic I wonder if BTU calculators have a column for HDB ?

Ta,
mew

 

[Sarah in SC]

Mews, LOL--I just realized that that was "hot dog breath" as in the smell from having eaten the grilled cousin of bacon.

I really meant to say the hot breath that emanates from the 5 dogs sleeping in our room. Not that it is any more poetic, though!

 

[Blackwoodt]

I turn the one on in the bedroom at night because I like the air movement, and the 'white noise' it creates. I just change the fan direction in the winter so that it's not blowing directly on us.

 

[jazz4cash]

We keep ours running 24/7 except when a family member shuts them off (and gets yelled at). We have high ceilings which comes into play in the winter due to heat layers as mentioned. The heat transfer analysis provided only considered conduction (heat trasferred by contact of two surfaces) and not convection (heat transfer by actually moving the air).

When the blades rotate clockwise, air is being pulled down from the ceiling and concentrated into the center of the room. Concentration of the air increases velocity and provides more cooling effect. We usually run our fans on medium to high in the summer.

When the blades rotate counter-clockwise, air is being drawn up from the floor in the center of the room and dispersed across the ceiling and down the walls. Dispersal of the air decreases velocity so the cooling effect of air movement is less noticeable in the winter season. Dispersal of the air is due to distance from fan to ceiling (vs distance to floor). We run our fans on low in the winter.....extra low would be better if there was such a setting.

 

[Retire2013]

Be aware that leaving the AC fan on full time will increase the humidity level inside your house. Once the compressor cuts off, air blowing across the coils will transfer the moisture condensed on those coils (think of the moisture condensed on a glass of ice water) into your house. If you live in Arizona this might not be a problem, but it might be uncomfortable in the deep south.

Also, if your A/C unit and ducting are located inside a very hot attic area (like mine), leaving the fan running soon begins to blow not on moist air but moist and warm air into the house.

I say leave it off.

Dear reWAHOO, Now I am worried. This may seem too ignorant but how do I find out if my A/C unit and ducting are in the attic? The compressor is outside near my deck, the thermostat is on the first floor (ground level), but I don't know where the "ducting" is? How/where should I look? Please help.

 

[REWahoo]

Where are your vents located? The ducting will be in the space above them if they are in the ceiling or below them if they are in the floor.