Improving Cooling Efficiency with Ceiling Fans

A ceiling fan creates a wind chill effect that enhances your comfort during hot weather. It can also boost the efficiency of your air conditioner. How you optimize the fan’s use is what determines whether you’ll improve cooling efficiency or not. Here’s what you should do to maximize your ceiling fan’s performance and achieve higher A/C efficiency.

• Only run the fan when you’re in a room – Ceiling fans cool you and your family, not rooms. Make sure you turn it off when you’re leaving a room to save energy.
• Run it counterclockwise – Set the fan to run in a counterclockwise direction. This pushes cool air down, creating a constant breeze that makes you feel cooler.
• Set your thermostat higher – The breeze that a ceiling fan creates can make a room feel as much as seven degrees cooler without affecting the actual room temperature. This allows you to raise your thermostat setting by about four degrees without affecting comfort, giving you more energy savings.
• Choose large blades – When buying a new fan, choose one with larger blades. These blades provide similar cooling at slower speeds than smaller blades. For optimal operation, install ceiling fans in such a way that their blades are at least 18 inches away from the walls and not less than 8 inches below the ceiling.
• Buy energy-efficient fans – You can save more energy by installing Energy Star-qualified ceiling fans. On average, fans that have been certified by the federal Energy Star program push air 20 percent more efficiently than regular fans.

By using ceiling fans correctly, you’ll reduce your need for air conditioning and save money. For more tips on how to use a ceiling fan to boost cooling efficiency, please contact us at C.R. Wolfe Heating & Air Conditioning. We’ve been serving the Middletown area for more than 70 years.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Middletown, New York about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about ceiling fans and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 845-367-4482.

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