The benefits of ceiling fans don’t stop at better air circulation, improved air quality and keeping moisture levels down to combat mold.
As an added bonus and boost for your HVAC system, learn how you can use ceiling fans to help both cool down and heat up your home.
Cooling
Although a ceiling fan doesn’t work to cool the entire home, it does help to turn it on while spending time in specific rooms.
The secret is to run your ceiling fan counterclockwise on either a medium or high setting, to help you feel cooler in hot weather.
When the ceiling fan is rotating counterclockwise, the blades move air downward. The higher the speed setting, the more you can feel the breeze and the cooler you feel.
According to the energy.gov website, using a ceiling fan and air conditioner together allows you to turn the thermostat up as much as 4 degrees with no noticeable change in comfort levels.
The breeze created by the ceiling helps you feel cooler so you can turn up your thermostat to save both energy and money on your energy bill, depending on how often you run the air conditioner.
While a ceiling fan doesn’t lower the room temperature, it enhances how cool you feel in the room. The breeze created by the ceiling fan moves air across your skin and heat away from you, making you feel cooler. It’s much like the wind chill factor our neighbors to the north experience who feel colder when wind speeds are higher.
It’s counterproductive to let a ceiling fan run if no one is in the room because the heat from the ceiling fan motor might actually make the room warmer.
Heating
During cooler months, you do just the opposite. Run ceiling fan in a clockwise direction on a low setting.
Because heat rises, a lot of heated air rises towards the ceiling of your rooms instead of staying nearer to the floor and in the open living space of your rooms.
What the ceiling fan does while in a clockwise rotation is to push the air near the ceiling up and out, circulating heated air down and into the open spaces of your rooms.
What was once wasted heated air near the ceiling is now being more efficiently circulated throughout your home.
This lets you lower the thermostat which again, saves energy and money on your energy bills.
Unlike using ceiling fans to cool down individual rooms while spending time there, you can run ceiling fans to help heat up your home whether you’re in the rooms or not.
Another question that comes up is if it matters whether heating vents are near the ceiling or on the floor. Since heat rises towards the ceiling regardless of where the vents are located, you’ll still get the benefit of circulating warm air regardless of heat vent location.
An added benefit of using a ceiling fan for better hot air circulation is that the action of air directed downward helps keep heated air from rising into and escaping through the attic.
Conclusion
For other ways to get up and running with more energy efficient systems and to save money on your energy bills, call the HVAC pros at Dale HCS in Santa Rosa.