Find Out How Ceiling Fans Can Enhance Your Home’s Cooling Efficiency

Ceiling fans can add a touch of elegance to your Orlando home and improve your home’s energy efficiency. Installing a ceiling fan in each room that is frequently occupied is an investment that will pay off in increased comfort for your family and lower energy bills.

Ceiling Fans and the Wind Chill Effect 

A ceiling fan that is turning the right direction for the summer cooling season will make occupants of the room feel like the temperature is several degrees cooler than it actually is. This is because of the wind chill effect, the same thing that makes windy winter days in northern latitudes feel so miserable.

Moving air increases the speed of evaporation from moist surfaces such as your skin. Moisture on your skin absorbs heat as it evaporates, so you feel cooler when you are in a room with moving air.

The Right Ceiling Fan Directions for Cooling and Heating 

Look for a switch on the side of the fan’s rotor housing, or on the remote control, that changes the blade direction. By setting the fan so the blades turn in the right direction for the season, you can save energy by moving your thermostat up several degrees on hot days and down several degrees on cold days.

During the summer, you want the fan to blow air directly down from the ceiling. To do this, the blades should be turning counter-clockwise from your viewpoint looking up at them. Even though this blows warmer air directly down from the ceiling into the room, the air movement creates enough of a wind chill effect to make the room feel cooler.

When it is cold outside and you want a room to feel warmer, you need to reverse the direction of the ceiling fan blades so they are turning clockwise. This washes warm air from the ceiling down the walls and onto the floor without creating a significant wind chill effect in the middle of the room.

Just remember, the wind chill effect only works when you’re in the room, so be sure to turn fans off when not in use.

Call us at Rinaldi’s Air Conditioning for more energy-saving tips or for help selecting and installing a ceiling fan in your Orlando home.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Orlando, Florida and surrounding areas 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 Resource guide.

Credit/Copyright Attribution: “Kornthong Jamsrikaewgif/Shutterstock”