How Ceiling Fan Direction Impacts How Comfortable You Feel

In the Coastal Bend’s warm climate, it’s easy to think of a ceiling fan as something that helps you stay cool. In reality, you can use the fan to stay more comfortable in both summer and winter by simply changing your ceiling fan direction.

Enjoy a Cool Breeze in Summer

On the motor housing of the ceiling fan, you’ll find a small switch that changes the direction the fan blades spin. When it’s hot out, the ceiling fan direction should be set to counterclockwise. The angle of the blades when they spin this direction push air downward to create a breeze. That breeze blows over your skin and increases sweat evaporation, your body’s natural cooling mechanism known as the wind chill effect.

A ceiling fan can make you feel several degrees cooler, and it does the job with a lot less energy than an air conditioner. That means you can raise your air conditioner’s temperature setting to save energy while still staying just as comfortable.

Fans make your body feel cooler, but they don’t lower the air temperature. When you leave the room for more than a minute or two, turn off the fan to save energy.

Feel Warmer in Winter

When the cool weather moves in and you need to turn on the heat, set your ceiling fan’s blades to spin clockwise and switch the fan to the lowest speed setting. This helps prevent warm air from collecting at the ceiling.

Spinning clockwise, the ceiling fan blades draw air upward. As the cool air from under the fan rises, it pushes the warm air near the ceiling outward and down along the walls. The fan continuously circulates the air in the room this way, distributing warm air from your furnace or heat pump and helping to maintain an even, comfortable temperature without hot or cold spots.

For more pro tips on staying comfortable efficiently, including the impact of ceiling fan direction, get in touch with us at CCAC, Inc. We proudly serve Corpus Christi area homeowners.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Corpus Christi, Texas 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.

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