If your home has ceiling fans, they can provide some major benefits year round. Whether you’re heating your home or running your air conditioner, proper ceiling fan use can help keep your home at an ideal temperature, while lowering your energy usage. So how can you best implement your ceiling fans, and what types of use should you avoid? Here are some helpful tips.
Moving Air
Ceiling fans might make you feel a little cooler as the air they move hits perspiration on your skin. But they don’t actually do anything other than create movement. And if you’ve ever used a convection oven, you’ll know that moving hot air around can actually cook things faster.
However, using a ceiling fan in combination with your heating system or air conditioner, and making sure it spins in the direction you want it to for the effect you desire, can help with temperature control.
Excessive Use
If you’re not home all day, your ceiling fan shouldn’t be on. When you do get home, having it on for a few minutes will achieve the result you’re looking for, so there’s no need to use electricity all day to run the fan. In fact, this can make things at least a tiny bit worse if you’re trying to cool your home. Running an electric motor actually creates some heat, so a fan that’s running all day in an empty house will just give your air conditioner more heat in the home that it has to remove.
Ceiling Fans for Heating
If you’ve ever seen a hot air balloon, or a large bird of prey lazily circling on a warm updraft, you know that hot air rises. That means that when you heat your home in the winter, the coziest place will be right up by the ceiling.
Unfortunately, most of us don’t spend a lot of time up there. How can we get the warmth back down where we need it? Make sure your ceiling fan is set to spin clockwise. This will push the warm air downward. You may even find you can set your thermostat a few degrees lower now that your heat isn’t accumulating out of reach by the ceiling.
Ceiling Fans for Cooling
In order to maximize the cooling that your air conditioner provides, you can simply use the opposite approach from the heating method. Set your ceiling fan to turn counter-clockwise, and it will pull air up from below.
This helps to distribute the cool air, without pushing any of the hotter air from the ceiling back down onto you and provides that cooling breeze we mentioned. Again, you may be able to adjust your thermostat by several degrees and take a little pressure off your air conditioner without decreasing your comfort at all.
Ceiling Fan Troubles
Is your fan making a strange noise? Wobbling wildly when you use it? Turning more slowly than it used to? Failing to turn on? It’s time for ceiling fan repair in Pelham, AL. Our team will get your fan in tip-top shape for you, so you can enjoy all these benefits.
“Your experience is what matters most!” Contact Douglas Cooling & Heating today for help with all your heating and cooling needs.
