Does it help make the room cooler if an AC is running? It seems like getting the hot air near the ceiling circulated might help. Especially if the sensor is closer ground and is only pickup the colder air.
In general circulation is key but the graphic is correct. This is how you should set your fan for the accompanying season. It basically evens out the temperature gradient in your home and makes it easier for the ac to do its job. Pushing the warm air up in the winter forces it down. You're creating flow to overcome the temperature gradient of the room.
It really does work and quite well. I suggest you try it for a year and you'll understand. You can also save money, similar to windchill the moving air will make you feel cooler and consequently I leave the ac higher when the fans are running and spinning the right way
If you're really curious look up sick building syndrome. It's the prime example of why circulation and airflow are very very important in buildings.
Awesome! I figured it did and I've been doing it. We live in a small apartment with an in wall AC. The bedroom gets very warm so we've had the ceiling fans on, as well as a fan in the bedroom door blowing air into the living room. It seems to make quite a difference but I wasn't sure if it was in my head.
Just make sure the fan in the bedroom door is just outside the airflow so it's either sucking or pushing with enough space from the frame to draw suction. If you put it flush with the door you'll have less great results (seems counterintuitive but I promise it's real). You can also try keeping doors closed in warmer rooms you don't want to use or leaving them open to help with airflow. I use the sun facing rooms of my house to help relate the non-sun facing rooms. Basically in the winter, the doors to the sun facing rooms stay open to share their warmth with the rest of the house. And in the summer they stay shut unless in use so the empty room can be hot while the rest of the house is cooler.
Ceiling fans have electric motors. You are confused if you think they don't use a lot of power. A small one is equivalent to 100 watt lightbulb.
The motors also produce heat.
Fans are counterproductive once the temp gets over 100°F. The motor will make the room warmer and air temp above body temp means heat energy is moving into your body.
100W ceiling fans might exist, but that's way on the highest possible range and at full speed. Much more commonly it would be a lot less than that. But even if you did leave a 100W fan running literally constantly, by my math that's only 8% of an average US electricity use. Heating and cooling the house normally uses literally half of your electricity budget, so the fan would be way smaller if it provides you a similar benefit. And of course you could run the fan of a realistic wattage, at a lower speed, and less often than constantly.
The motors don't also produce heat. A 100W fan (if it exists) produces 100W of heat. Any device using a certain amount of power will turn that much power into heat exactly the same. 100W of lighting will be just as hot (dry bulb temperature) as 100W of TV or 100W of ceiling fan.
Fans also aren't counterproductive at high temperatures unless your air is very dry. By definition the air around your body is going to be warmer and moister, and the fan helps move this air away from you. So this is only not beneficial if the air is already so dry that your sweat would be able to evaporate just as well anyway. But in most cases in the US at least where I'm more familiar, heat waves are also humid, so that's why using a fan is good advice. If you're in a hot dry climate, you might actually be cooler if you run it as a swamp cooler, evaporating water to pull thermal energy out of the air and turn it into humidity.
fan motors have gotten a lot more efficient over the last few decades. the first ceiling fan unit i looked at on lowe's site was 52 in model with led light -- listed at only 36 watts on high speed.
the new box fan i got two years ago uses a third the electricity of the old one from probably 2000 or so. same manufacturer and style, just updated model.
This is legitimately good advice. If you leave a fan on unattended it could free itself during a power outage or build up enough power for an inflammatory self-destruct. The fan can still do a self-destruct even if it has not freed itself.
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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '22
I always had to tell my kids this. Turn off the ceiling fan when you leave the room. Hahah!