Ceiling Fan Speed

[Joey Jones]

I know these fans have a winter and summer switch which reverses the blade rotation...up for winter, down for summer. But what about fan speed? On high speed I seem to notice cold air in the chair I always sit in. Perhaps medium or low is the best settings for these fans? Any comments welcome

 

[Highbeam]

In the summer, the goal is to blow air onto your body to evaporate your sweat to cool you. You want max air flow for this so use the highest speed and blow down so that you feel the currents. The fan is not cooling the air down, just moving it to make it feel cooler on your body.

In the winter, the goal is to mix the room air to maintain a constant temperature from floor to ceiling without blowing air onto your body to cool you. You want minimum necessary air flow for this. This is also the main reason to blow into the ceiling in the winter since you are less likely to feel the draft when it is spread out along the walls.

In the winter I run the fan on the lowest speed which is quite low and only uses 6 watts. This speed is enough to rid the room of the thermal stratification.

 

[Joey Jones]

Very good Highbeam, thankyou for your post

 

[Hogwildz]

Each setup will have its own optimal speed.
Myself, I am a notch below the highest setting in winter or summer. Which is 5 settings.
I do revers direction between summer & winter. With 3 story high ceiling and big open loft, I need the higher setting to gain the circulation.
Experiment and see what works best for you.

 

[SlyFerret]

I run the fan in my stove area on low, moving the air up toward the ceiling. It's just enough to stir the air around and help funnel the warm air upstairs via the peaked ceiling.

-SF

 

[Redox]

Each setup will have its own optimal speed.
Myself, I am a notch below the highest setting in winter or summer. Which is 5 settings.
I do revers direction between summer & winter. With 3 story high ceiling and big open loft, I need the higher setting to gain the circulation.
Experiment and see what works best for you.

Ever tried down in the wintertime? I know other disagree with me on this, but with that much ceiling height, down might work better and let you use a lower fan speed.

Chris

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Here's another twist. My wife like to dry clothes near the wood stove. When she is doing that, we turn the fan so it is blowing down on the clothes and up in speed. After she is done, we reverse the fan and turn the speed down. Just another money saving chore is how we look at it.

 

[Valhalla]

My fan is almost directly above the stove. This winter I will try the down direction to move the higher temp air down from the 14' ceiling and slowly circulate the air around the stove and out the room.

Any thoughts team? Great subject, thanks.

 

[Joey Jones]

Here's another twist. My wife like to dry clothes near the wood stove. When she is doing that, we turn the fan so it is blowing down on the clothes and up in speed. After she is done, we reverse the fan and turn the speed down. Just another money saving chore is how we look at it.

Good green thinking....Maybe I spread out a clothes line next to my Ryobi splitter in Living Room...

 

[ClydesdaleBurner]

Here's a different view on the subject. I was under the impression that the reverse ceiling fan (blowing air up) helped speed up the natural heating/cooling effect in the room with the stove. As the natural process is for warm air to rise, hit the ceiling, spread to the walls where it cools and drops back down the walls to the floor. So you get that kind of circular flow - up-across-down... The fan blowing up speeds up this flow, moving the air on the ceiling to the walls faster and then down to the floor faster. In essence allowing for heating of the room quicker.

I remember reading that someone said a fan blowing down in the room with the stove will just disrupt that "natural" flow of the warm air. However, similar to the fan in the summer, blowing the warm air down on your skin will warm you, just like in the summer blowing the air on your skin cools you. But you might not want to blow the warm air down if nobody is in the room.

Does this make any sense?

 

[Joey Jones]

Here's a different view on the subject. I was under the impression that the reverse ceiling fan (blowing air up) helped speed up the natural heating/cooling effect in the room with the stove. As the natural process is for warm air to rise, hit the ceiling, spread to the walls where it cools and drops back down the walls to the floor. So you get that kind of circular flow - up-across-down... The fan blowing up speeds up this flow, moving the air on the ceiling to the walls faster and then down to the floor faster. In essence allowing for heating of the room quicker.

I remember reading that someone said a fan blowing down in the room with the stove will just disrupt that "natural" flow of the warm air. However, similar to the fan in the summer, blowing the warm air down on your skin will warm you, just like in the summer blowing the air on your skin cools you. But you might not want to blow the warm air down if nobody is in the room.

Does this make any sense?

I think it is a 50-50 toss-up. Myself I can see the heat come down the walls when I have ceiling fan set in winter (up) position. Not on walls but in front of big windows...there is a distinct ripple in front of glass and I know this is heat coming down walls

 

[Valhalla]

Yes, natural flow is that heat rises. However it may not be where we may, or may not want the heat to go. I'm trying to maximize the airflow around my stove and move the heated air at the 14' ceiling and further into the living space. The new convention of a fans use may be purely where we want the air flow to go! Up or down, for hot air or cooling. It depends on the application of its use.

Great subject. To be continued, now back to my wood pile! Thanks.

 

[InTheRockies]

I think the results may vary based upon ceiling height and room volume, too. I don't have cathedral ceilings. I find keeping the ceiling fan in my great room, where the stove is located, on medium speed with the blade direction set to push the air down helps keep the temperatures in the house up. (I also use a small fan sitting near the floor to blow cold air from the bedrooms/bath area in to the great room.) After reading this thread yesterday, I changed the direction of my fan and the temperatures in my house fell slightly (1 1/2 degrees). I reversed the direction again to push the air down and temps went back up. So I think we all may have different experiences and need to go with what works best for your own space.

 

[Highbeam]

The normal heat plume rising from the stove is directly vertical and then hits the ceiling and spreads in all directions like a palm tree. Cold air is drawn along the floor to the stove and this creates a circulation. Unless your ceiling fan is directly above the stove, the celing fan is not accelerating this particular air flow path, it might even be distrurbing it.

If the typical ceiling fan is set to blow up and is sitting in the center of the stove room it is actually blowing air along the ceiling towards the stove plume and acting to keep that hot air near the stove. The ceiling fan is sucking up its own vertical shaft of air parallel and in competition with the stoves heat driven plume.

All of this to say that the fan only acts to stir up the air and keep the room evenly heated. There is little or no extraction efficiency to be gained by the typical ceiling fan installation.

Oh and air currents always cool the body. The evaporation of your surface moisture absorbs energy. Unless you are being blown on with a superhot air above 98.6 degrees.

 

[jqgs214]

Now add a blower to your insert or stove and highbeams assumption of heat rising directly above the stove is mute. Best guess here is experiment do do what works for you.!

 

[bonesneeze]

If you think about baseboard heating they are placed on the outside walls. The heat rises from them "coats" the outside walls with heat. I have one bedroom upstairs with two outside walls where they placed only one baseboard in the room and on an inside wall. That room is the coldest in the house...and it does get cold. It could be because the wall insulation is not up to par there but I think the heater placement adds to the effet. If you have the ceiling fan pulling up and and circulating warm air down on the outside walls it should create the same effect....heating the outside and therefore "cold" walls. I'm hoping that is how it works for me this winter anyway!

 

[RedRanger]

I`m thinking as slow as possible. Too much draft just seems to chill these old bones too brutally.

 

[Redox]

Yes, draft is a problem, unless in a wood stove. :cheese: The point I am trying make is that 3 or 5 speeds, up or down, high fire or low fire, no situation is the same. Try them all, at differemt times of the day and realize that no one condition is ideal. Maybe you reverse the fan in the evening and slow it down when the room is cold, but experiment and see what works for you. Down works well when there are no humans in the room and helps spread the heat around late at night. Up generally works better for draft control, but may not spread the heat around as well, especially if you have high ceilings with no flat walls to push against. (lofts and balconies). Anything is better than off, IMHO.

Chris