When I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles, I never saw a ceiling fan in my friends’ houses. We called them “swamp coolers” and they appeared as props in movies set in the deep south or Casablanca.
While I never saw a real one as a kid, ceiling fans date back to the late 1800s, when they were originally powered by water. In 1882, Philip Diehl, the German-American inventor of the motor for Singer sewing machines, adapted his sewing machine motor for the ceiling fan. Electric ceiling fans grew in popularity and were quite common both in the United States and abroad in the 1920s. Movies from the 1920s often feature them in restaurants and hotel lobbies.
However, between the 1930s and 1950s in the US, fans fell out of fashion. Hence my lack of experience with them as a child (which dates me as a Baby Boomer!) However, with the oil shortages of the 1970s, we began to wake up to the cost of electricity and fans experienced a renaissance. Since the 1970s, its popularity has gone up and down, but it has been on the rise since around 2000, when energy conservation became a priority again.
energy savers
Ceiling fans do not cool the air like air conditioners. Instead, they move air and help people feel cooler in the summer. Many people don’t realize that they can also be used to help us feel warmer in the winter and thus save electricity throughout the year.
In summer, a ceiling fan creates the same effect as a breeze. It helps evaporate sweat from the skin and cools it down a couple of degrees. For the cooling effect, the blades must blow air over people, usually turning counterclockwise when viewed from below. The blades should rotate with the upturned edges facing forward.
Most ceiling fans have a button to change direction. If your fan has this button, you can use it to warm your family in the winter. Hot air in a house rises, so the fan can be used to bring hot air down from the ceiling to people. Press the button to reverse the direction so that the downward edges of the blades lead. On most fans, the blades will rotate clockwise.
Now the fan will suck the cold air from the floor up to the ceiling, pushing down the warmer air near the ceiling towards the people. At the same time, the fan does not blow on people, so it does not create a wind chill effect.
Fan motors use less energy than air conditioners and furnaces, so every degree they cool or heat is “bought” for less. Using ceiling fans is a great way to stay comfortable while saving electricity and money. However, turn them off when no one is in the room because there is no benefit to moving air around an empty room.
Decorative Fans
Fans come in a variety of colors and styles, such as wood or faux wood blades. Ceiling fans come with lights and without them. To save even more electricity, some come with a dimmer control for the lights. The lower the lights, the less electricity is used. You can pick up your own ceiling fan at a lighting store and install it yourself or hire a qualified electrician.