For many home owners with big rooms they have to decide how to go about cooling their rooms with ceiling fans. Many people think that having a big room rules out the possibility of using ceiling fans. This article aims to give some information on the use and installation of ceiling fans in big rooms. This means that we don’t want to simply consider the actual fans but also think about other aspects such as installation and power consumption.
The first thing to think about before we go on is to consider the size of the room or rooms involved. This is the most important aspect because ceiling fans are designed to cool a certain area of room depending on their blade size. As you would expect the longer the fan blade then the more powerful the effect of the fan rotation and the larger the room that can be cooled. Don’t forget that when we talk about cooling, we are not really talking about a reduction in actual room temperature but more the apparent lowering in temperature due to air movement.
As well as longer blades there are different motor powers available. The larger the power rating of the fan then once again the greater the apparent cooling effect. Larger blades will require a larger motor. So there is an overall trade off between the size of room and the cost of running the fan with regards electricity.
What size of room are we talking about when we are using the term ‘big room’? The figures that are usually specified by manufacturers is that blades of 3 feet or 36 inches are required in order to ventilate a room with an area of 100 square feet. For larger areas then you need to consider larger fan blades.
The other possibility to choose if the room is big enough is to install two ceiling fans. As long as they are reasonably far apart then they can work in tandem to produce a better cooling effect. Obviously the cost of installation will be increased as will the cost of running the fans. A good idea is often to use ceiling fans that can be controlled via a remote control. This almost always results in cost savings because the user is more likely to reduce the speed of the fans if it is comfortable to do so. A wall mounted control means having to get out of your seat and this is something that people want to do too regularly, particularly when the weather is hot.
