What to Keep in Mind When Shopping for Ceiling Fans

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One of the most ubiquitous, and most useful, housing fixtures is the simple ceiling fan. As they are incredibly useful for keeping rooms at a comfortable temperature, ceiling fans are a staple fixture in houses around the world. But ceiling fans do more than just keep the air circulating in a room; they are now pieces of art on their own, capable of acting as a centerpiece to tie a room’s aesthetics together. With varied styles and a multitude of different types, you have a lot of options when it comes to picking the right fans for your house. However, with so many options, it might seem somewhat daunting to go hunting for the perfect ceiling fan. To help ease your decision making and give you some advice, here are some points you should keep in mind while shopping.

What to Keep in Mind When Shopping for Ceiling Fans

Ceiling Height, Fan Size, and Location

Since ceiling fans obviously hang from the ceiling, it’s important for you to pick a fan that not only fits the room size-wise, but also doesn’t hang too low or too high from the ceiling. When it comes to the size of the fan, it needs to be proportional to the space it’s going to occupy. So if you’re getting one for a small room, you’ll need a smaller fan compared to what you’d get for a large living room or great room. According to Lowes, Energy Star provides a simple table you can reference regarding room size (in square feet) and fan diameter:

  • Rooms up to 75 ft. squared – a 29 to 36 inch diameter fan
  • Rooms from 76 to 144 ft. squared – a 36 to 42 inch diameter fan
  • Rooms from 144 to 225 ft. squared – a 44 inch diameter fan
  • Rooms from 225 to 244 ft. squared – a 50 to 54 inch diameter fan

Also, since fans don’t actually change the temperature of the air, they just keep it circulating, you can stick them in just about any room you want, including the porch, and you won’t regret your decision since a fan is useful year round.

For ceiling height, Lowes provides another table you can use;

  • 9 ft. ceiling – 6 inch downrod
  • 10 ft. ceiling – 12 inch downrod
  • 12 ft. ceiling – 24 inch downrod
  • 14 ft. ceiling – 36 inch downrod
  • 15 ft. ceiling – 28 inch downrod
  • 18 ft. ceiling – 60 inch downrod
  • 20 ft. ceiling – 72 inch downrod

Fan Blades

Since the main function of a ceiling fan is to circulate air, it makes sense that the blades, the tools responsible for actually moving the air, should be near the top of your ceiling fan criteria list. But a fan’s blades aren’t just a piece of a functional machine designed to circulate air, they are the largest and most dominant piece of a fan, so how they look is important as well. While you’re likely to find fans with anywhere from three to five blades, the choice of how many blades you want shouldn’t be an issue of effectiveness, as, according to Home Tips, the number of blades doesn’t have a large effect on performance. However, more blades means the fan will use more energy when operating.

Besides the number of blades on a fan, there are a lot of additional options when it comes to fan blades. They can come in lengths ranging from 30 to 60 inches, they can be made from wood, acrylic, constant-density board, and other materials, and they can be painted, carved, or veneered.

Fan Accessories

Some of you might be wondering why fan blades and fan accessories weren’t clumped together. There’s a good reason for that. A ceiling fan is not a fan without blades, but a fan can still work perfectly without any sort of additional lights, pull chains, remotes, or any other doo-dad you want to stick on it.

There are a lot of aftermarket kits you can use to modify ceiling fans. There are light kits on sites like Lumens so you can have ceiling fans with lights, you can get different sized downrods to adjust the height of the fan, and you can get various forms of control mechanisms. There are three methods you can use to control your ceiling fan; regular pull chains, remote controls, and wall controls. Each method is pretty self-explanatory, a wall control is like a light switch or knob, a remote control is a handheld remote that can have varying ranges, and a pull chain is just that, a dangling chain to change rotation speed.

Energy Use

While the functionality and aesthetics of a ceiling fan are important, the energy efficiency of a fan is becoming more and more critical, especially with the environment and energy issues looming large in today’s world. It isn’t particularly difficult to find an energy efficient fan, usually all you need to do is go to your local hardware store and look for a fan with an Energy Star sticker or some other energy saving agreement. Going energy efficient can drastically benefit your wallet as well as the environment; Home Depot states that Energy Star fans can save up to $170 in energy costs over its lifetime. If your fan has a light, changing to Fluorescent, or even LED lights can save money and energy.

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