Using a ceiling fan in the winter

Can having a ceiling fan help keep you more comfortable in the winter? 

Our thoughts usually turn to ceiling fans when we are sitting in a stifling hot room on a scorching summer day thinking how great it would be to feel a breeze.  Somehow the thought of a breeze in a cold house in the winter seems to be a little crazy.

Think again!  When the heat is on, where does most of the hot air go?  It goes up to your ceiling and sits there while you get “cold feet” down below.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could bring down that warm air and use it to feel more toasty?

You can!  A ceiling fan will mix the air in the room so that the hot air will not just lazily hang out by the ceiling while you are freezing but it will gently waft it down toward you so you can actually feel that warm air for which you are paying so dearly.  To mix the air, you don’t need to have the fan on high where you will feel a breeze when you are underneath it.  You can just leave it on medium or low and it will gently circulate the air so that the warm air gets down to you and the cool air gets distributed evenly in the room instead of biting at your ankles.

Try this test – on a cold day, reach your hand up as high as you can over your head.  Do you feel how warm the air is up there?  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to use that warm air to warm you?

I actually use my fan more in the winter than in the summer because I live in a desert climate.  It gets quite cold at night in the winter and with higher ceilings that heat just pumps out all evening and night. The warm air never gets down to the level of the thermostat where we humans live to let the heater know that it is OK to stop burning those dollar bills for heat.

Honestly, it may sound nutty but I think of dollar bills flying through the air!  Not to mention the cost to our planet – our efforts to use fossil fuels for energy for physical work like motors and for heating is one of the major factors in destroying the balance of our planet and limiting our options for survival.

So using a fan in the winter just makes sense.  If you’ve been hesitating, put this information into the hopper and see if getting a fan will work for you.  Think of more comfort all year – feeling warmer in the winter as well as cooler in the summer!

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