I remember that there is a rule for overhead fans in our house but can’t remember which way is for summer and which way is for winter. Clockwise is for pulling air up or is counter clockwise for pulling air up?
I know that one direction is suppose to be for winter because it pulls the air up and one way for the summer because it pushes the air down, but cannot remember which is which.
Do you understand my question?
Can someone set me straight?
Many thanks in advance we are going thru a heatwave here in Toronto and it might help just a bit…
:o
You want to pull the cool air UP in the summer, and push the hot air DOWN in the winter.
We do this in our house and the difference is amazing.
By the way, I used to turn the fan off at night (fear of leaving appliances on all night) but now I keep the fan on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Out here in Nevada, they claim using the fan this way will reduce your air conditioning bill/heating bill by as much as 10-20%…and with our prices, that will make a difference.
Are you sure about that, DMark?
The way I understand it, you want to run the fan slowly up in winter to circulate the warm air near the ceiling down the walls. And you want to run ir fast and down in the summer to take advantage of the wind chill.
A fan won’t change the overall temperature of a room at all. Except to add a little heat from the motor.
Yeah. here ya go
Peace,
mangeorge
Now I’m confused but the site that Mangeorge recommended seems official so I shall try it.
Thanks for your imput.
I have a 50/50 chance of getting it right!
Gotta admit, mangeorge, that was a pretty official site from the ceiling fan manufacturer.
However, I know I am not crazy…every TV station in Las Vegas has said to to what I am doing, and they repeat this info almost monthly in litte exposes about lowering electric bills…bring cool air UP in summer, push hot air DOWN in winter.
I know it seems kinda illogical, but it works.
We have a two story home, and when I set the air to go upwards in the summer, it pulls the cool air from downstairs up.
In the winter, I am pushing the hot air downstairs where it is cool.
It works.
It seemed like such a simple question…jeez.
(DMark last seen walking down the street muttering, “iknowimnotcrazy, iknowimnotcrazy, iknowimnotcrazy…”)
The reason why you want to pull the cool air up is the same as why you want to force the warm air down.
Heat rises, cool falls, right? So you want to do the reverse, so that the air is the same temperature, whether you’re down on the floor, dead drunk (or is that just me?), or standing near the ceiling.
By mixing the air, the entire house stays at roughly the same temperature.
Never had a ceiling fan til a month ago, when I moved into a new place. The maintenance people were going through the building at that time, reversing all the fans in the complex. They set them to run counter-clockwise, blowing down, for the summer.
I live in a loft, with the bedroom upstairs, and a ceiling about 20 feet up (which is why management reverses the fans, none of us renters have ladders tall enough to do it). The one hot night I DIDN’T use the fan, I could feel the temperature getting cooler as I walked down the stairs.
My WAG is that it doesn’t matter much WHICH way it blows, and long as it keeps the air stirring, and keeps hot air from staying up, and cooler air from hangining out a floor level.
I have just returned from my, uh, walk.
I logged on to my local NBC affiliate and sure enough, the reporter quoted Lamps Plus and said to aim the air upward in Summer and downwards in winter.
However.
Nevada Power website, and all the fan manufacturers, say to do exatly the opposite. Just like mangeorge said: Summer should push air down, winter pull it up.
I am now going to switch the fan direction in my living room.
Sorry Dandmb50 for the misinformation - regardless of the good intentions behind it. My bad.
That’ll teach me to believe every stupid TV newscaster with a pretty face.
I’ve only have one fan, in my bedroom. I know that if you’re doing something strenuous, it feels cooler to have the air blowing down on your bodies. Try it both ways, and do whatever work’s best for you.
Got to get a couple more fans for the other rooms.
I think the reason you are getting mixed answers is because there are two factors here. The first is mixing air, and the second is creating a cooling effect by increasing evaporation using moving air.
In winter, having the fans blowing down forces hot air from heating devices (which would otherwise rise and stay near the ceiling) down. In summer, lifting the cool air from the floor up to face level may be an effective strategy.
In my understanding, strategies for dealing with heat vary depending upon climate. Some places have hot days and cold nights. In those places, strategies that rely on heavy building construction (for example) work because heavy floors and walls lose heat at night and then absorb it during the day. Hence colder floors, colder air near the floors, and ceiling fans that draw up cool air.
But if you live in a climate like Brisbane, in Summer it is hot and humid all day and all night, and the above strategy does not work. Mixing air just means mixing warm air with warm air and gains you nothing.
And in that circumstance, you are best off utilizing the cooling effect of a ceiling fan blowing down on you and increasing evaporative cooling on your skin. Yes, a fan blowing up is going to move air, but not as directly as a fan blowing down on you.
In Brisbane ceiling fans all blow down. They don’t even have a switch to give them the ability to blow up. It is unheard of.
(well OK, mine do have a switch for blowing up, but that was something installed by Q for when James was staying, and is not something he recommended I utilize under any normal circumstances).
Which way the fan blows has basically no effect on air mixing in any room in a typical house.
Repeat. No effect. When a fan blows down, the air doesn’t magically all end up near the floor with a vacuum near the ceiling. The air moves along the floor to the walls, up along the walls, back across the ceiling to the fan. Vice versa “blowing up”.
The only reason to switch direction is to change how the breeze feels to the people in the room. Down means a strong breeze in the center and barely perceptible one near the walls. Up means a mild breeze in the center (depends on ceiling height) and gentle near the walls. The latter is good in the summer. The former might be okay in the winter. In my experience, even in the vaulted ceiling family room, there is just too much wind in the winter even “blowing up”. It feels too chilly. Hence I leave the fan off all winter. (All 7 days of it.)
I can’t believe that there are so many posts on the SDMB claiming differences in air mixing. Sheesh.
