Ceiling Fans Are a Great Way to Give Your AC a Little Break and Help Keep You and Your Family Cool in the Warmer Months.
Our summers are hot and humid and the weather can really put your Buffalo, New York air conditioner to work. Ceiling fans are a great way to give your AC a little break and help keep you and your family cool in the warmer months. A ceiling fan can help your air conditioner and increase its longevity.
What Is a Ceiling Fan?
Before we dive into how a ceiling fan can help your air conditioner, we thought it would be good to review what a ceiling fan is. A ceiling fan is a mechanical fan mounted on the ceiling of a room or space. These fans are usually electrically powered and use hub-mounted rotating blades to circulate air. As you likely know, ceiling fans come in all different shapes and sizes, so you have many options to choose from when selecting one, or many, for your Buffalo, NY home.
Philip Diehl, in 1882, invented the electrically powered ceiling fan. Ceiling fans have been around for over 100 years, and were originally invented for commercial use to cool factories and hotels. They were added into homes in the 1920s. Current research shows that more than 75 percent of all homes in the U.S. have ceiling fans today.
How Do Ceiling Fans Cool?
While a ceiling fan can help your air conditioner, it is important to remember that ceiling fans do not work the same as air conditioning and will not replace AC. Ceiling fans circulate air and create a breeze, they do not provide refrigerated cooling like an air conditioner. They simply move air in the proximity of the fan, but do not remove humidity.
A ceiling fan makes the air feel colder than the reading on the thermostat, similar to wind chill on a cold day. A thermostat, in a room with a ceiling fan on, may display a temperature that is 5 degrees warmer than what you feel the temperature truly is. The cooler feeling to the actual temperature reading is called the fan chill factor.
How Can a Ceiling Fan Help Your Air Conditioner?
When used with air conditioning, a ceiling fan will allow you to increase the thermostat setting for your air conditioner about 3-5°F, with no reduction in comfort. For approximately every degree you can move the air conditioner thermostat up, you reduce the duration of “on” cycles of the air conditioner compressor by 10 percent. This helps to cut energy consumption and prolongs the life of your air conditioner.
Ceiling fans can help your air conditioner when they are used in conjunction with it. When the air conditioner is running, ceiling fans circulate cooled air and will make you feel cooler (this is the fan chill factor we reviewed above).
Keep Cool This Summer
A ceiling fan can help your air conditioner by assisting with cooling down your Buffalo, New York home and taking some of the strain off your AC. While your thermostat may not show you a lower temperature, with the fan chill factor, you will feel it. Together, ceiling fans and air conditioning can help you reduce your energy costs and extend the life of your air conditioner.
Reimer Home Services is here for all your air conditioner services in Buffalo, NY, call us or contact us online.
Our team handles AC repairs, AC maintenance, and installs air conditioners. We work with all cooling systems and all makes and models. Our experienced techs are true experts in all things AC, from the condenser to the evaporator.
