ceiling fans

[obsessed penguin]

To get the most heat for your room, should a ceiling fan be mounted higher or lower ?

 

[Ashful]

Assuming you're asking about a 2-story room or cathedral ceiling, just mount it to what looks good. The purpose of having it is to circulate warm air that would otherwise be trapped at the ceiling, eliminating stratiphication, and I cannot imagine mounting height will have a major impact on the fan's ability to do that job.

 

[obsessed penguin]

I actually mean sitting underneath it

 

[mark cline]

In the winter , you reverse the fan so it pushes the air up to the ceiling , then it pushes the warm air down the walls . So mounting height is not a big concern, what ever looks good. If you have a cathedral ceiling , like I do at 26 ft, you would want it up nearer the ceiling , but not hugging it.

 

[Gonetruckin44]

Should be a button on side of fan to allow you to reverse the blades

 

[BrotherBart]

Or not.

 

[Dieselhead]

Mine does it by remote control!

 

[Sprinter]

Get it as high as practical but if your ceiling is vaulted, don't get the blades too close to the ceiling or the fan may start to wobble because the air flow (pressure) isn't even over the whole span. I balanced my blades for downward flow at summertime but when directed upward, it wobbles some so I keep it at medium speed which is fine.

Directing the air flow upward seems to work best overall because it causes the air to flow over the ceiling and down the walls and it isn't drafty sitting under it.

 

[Kevin Dolan]

Mine does it by remote control!

I have tried the remote for the fan but it keeps turning the tv on, too much technology!

 

[BruceNorEast]

Welcome Obsessed Penguin,

I'm not sure if you got your answer.

If not, try providing more information about your setup and what you're trying tho do.

 

[WiscWoody]

I used a six foot down rod with my fan on a twenty foot cathedral ceiling blowing upwards in the heating season. It works great.

 

[bbeals]

Not sure who posted the "Stratification" , but I had to look it up and did not find anything relevant to it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratification. This is by no way shape or form gospel and nothing that you have to take as such. I agree that air movement will provide better performance of your wood burning stove, I also agree that fans help with that a lot. Here's where I am a little bit different. I have read all of the literature on sites like this, from fan manufacturers, and then, well I tried them all for myself in my environment. What we found was, that while reversing a fan sounds like a great idea, but think for a moment what you are doing? Burning wood, right? So for the entire winter, any soot, smoke, ash, etc... is going to blown onto your ceiling. What we found and again, this is not scientific other than it works for us....We leave our ceiling fan in the stove room on low and blowing down, all year long, 24X7. Good news is, I only repaint the ceiling every 5-8 years and the house is comfortable. Try both and decide what works best for you and your family. We found that the reversed ceiling fan = repainting ceiling every year. Enjoy the burn.

 

[WiscWoody]

If I had that much soot, smoke, ash, etc. floating around in my house I'd get rid of the wood stove altogether. I didn't quit smoking and then turn around just to get emphasima from a heater! I've been running my great room fan reversed for the last four winters now and I can't see any soot or otherwise on the textured ceiling.

 

[bbeals]

If I had that much soot, smoke, ash, etc. floating around in my house I'd get rid of the wood stove altogether. I didn't quit smoking and then turn around just to get emphasima from a heater! I've been running my great room fan reversed for the last four winters now and I can't see any soot or otherwise on the textured ceiling.

Wish I had the same story. Do you think I made it up? We run whole house hepa filters and high quality filtration through the furnace (which runs blowers even when it doesn't burn fuel). I just can't see spraying a white ceiling with any type of dust particle. Not saying your experience hasn't been different, but I remember repainting that ceiling and I am not fond of that.

 

[WiscWoody]

Wish I had the same story. Do you think I made it up? We run whole house hepa filters and high quality filtration through the furnace (which runs blowers even when it doesn't burn fuel). I just can't see spraying a white ceiling with any type of dust particle. Not saying your experience hasn't been different, but I remember repainting that ceiling and I am not fond of that.

No I didn't think you made it up. Just saying what my experience is. Running my fan down in the winter gives me a chill when the indoor humidity is only 23% and its 68 in here. And believe me I would not like painting the great room ceiling! I had to assemble sections of scaffold just,to hang the fan and they were in here until I got the down rod from a seller on ebay. I live many miles from any big box store.

 

[Sprinter]

I did quite a bit of experimenting with my ceiling fan the first season with several thermometers around the place Frankly, it didn't make a whole lot of difference in our place whether the fan was blowing up or down as far as heat distribution although it is some better with upward flow. The biggest factor for me was that blowing down causes an unpleasant draft but not so when reversed.

Not running the fan at all did allow a significant stratification but having a layer of warm air up around head level was not such a bad thing. It can feel pleasant in fact with some radiant heat at just above head level.

I'd say experiment with it and determine your own preference. Every place and everyone is different.

I haven't seen any indication of my ceiling getting dirty, but I can certainly see how a fan might do it eventually even if the stove is perfectly clean. I do know that my fan blades have to be cleaned pretty often, so maybe the ceiling would catch some dust too. I'll keep an eye on it.

 

[Ashful]

Not sure who posted the "Stratification" , but I had to look it up and did not find anything relevant to it.

I posted that word, thinking anyone reading would know what it means. It simply translates to, "hot air stays up high, cold air stays down low." Get up on a 14 foot step ladder in your room with the cathedral ceiling, and you will notice that it's much warmer up by your 16 foot ceiling, than it is down by the floor. A ceiling fan circulates the air, thus mixing the warm and cold, and countering this effect. It's a big word, but not exactly rocket science.

 

[Beer Belly]

My Wife put the ceiling fan in the bedroom blowing down (furthest away from the stove, and up 6 steps...split level ranch), she feels it blows the hot air down onto the bed, and pushes the lower cold air, out into the hallway......happy Wife, happy life....whatever shes sez / wants

 

[WiscWoody]

I've thought that maybe someday if I notice dust on the texture above the fan I'll use a air compressor and tape a open hose onto a stick to try to blow the dust off. The texture was mixed with paint so it's fairly strong. To vacuum corner cobwebs I looked for extra vacuum wand extensions at the local dump where they keep thrown out vacuums. It takes so,etching like ten of them plus me holding the hose above me to reach the peaks.

 

[Ashful]

To vacuum corner cobwebs I looked for extra vacuum wand extensions at the local dump where they keep thrown out vacuums. It takes something like ten of them plus me holding the hose above me to reach the peaks.

Video, please!