Don Vandervort, Head Homeboy, has written more than 30 DIY home improvement books, been a segment host on HGTV, served as MSN.com's home improvement expert and written countless magazine articles.
An introduction to key considerations for buying a ceiling fan
Despite many recent advances in energy-saving technologies, a child of the Industrial Revolution is still one of the most sensible solutions to home comfort: the ceiling fan. Ceiling fans have been a simple but charming supplement to home cooling and heating for more than a century.
Thanks to this popularity, you can choose from scores of styles, configurations, sizes, materials, finishes, prices, and accessories. Here we offer information to help you choose the best ceiling fan for your home, and we offer help for installing and maintaining it.
The best of today’s ceiling fans benefit from better motors, materials, finishes, and controls than their ancestors.
Ceiling fans make sense Why this lasting popularity' Certainly charm is a factor. A fan fixture can bring distinction to a room. And for some people, the steady, quiet whirl of paddles evokes the romance of bygone days of sultry summer afternoons. More important is the fan’s practical side. It makes a room more comfortable and lowers energy bills. By forcing warm air downward in the winter and stirring up breezes in the summer, it decreases demands on heating and air conditioning systems, operating on just pennies a day.
During the summer, using a ceiling fan in conjunction with an air conditioner will allow you to set the thermostat higher without a noticeable difference in comfort. A fan’s breeze will make a 79-degree room feel more like 72 degrees. By raising the thermostat, you can save up to 30 percent on your air conditioning bills, depending on your home’s construction and where you live.
In the winter, a fan can recirculate warm air that naturally rises in a room and is trapped at the ceiling. Simply turn it on in the reverse direction (most have reversible motors). By bringing warm air down into the living space, the furnace is needed less.
Ceiling fan controls Most fans are mounted at a ceiling box where a light fixture was formerly located. Typically, the light switch is replaced with a control that allows various fan speeds and—if the fan includes lights—light settings. It’s important that this control have a capacitor design and be made by the same manufacturer as the fan to eliminate buzz and hum.
Fans located at an electrical box that isn’t controlled by a wall switch can be operated by a pull chain or, with some brands, a remote control.
Casablanca’s Intelli-Touch remote control is very sophisticated. This control features programmable light and fan settings. It even automatically adjusts fan speed to suit changes in room temperature and turns the fan light off and on in an irregular sequence when you’re away from home.
Ceiling fan installation All fans should come with complete ceiling-mounting kits. Though techniques vary by manufacturer, the job of hanging a fan is quite similar to that for mounting a new light fixture. Most fans require some assembly, and all demand support that’s strong enough to hold their considerable weight. The junction box must be labeled “suitable for fan support”; otherwise, you must retrofit a new box onto the ceiling. For places where there is no box, you can buy easy-to-install fan supports.
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