As you and your family get ready to spend more time indoors during the upcoming winter season, it’s common to think about the quality of your indoor air. Poor indoor air quality can lead to a number of different issues like allergy flare-ups and excessive fatigue. One item you may want to consider to help with your indoor air quality is a ceiling fan.
Circulating Air
Many homeowners invest in ceiling fans for both the aesthetic appeal and their ability to help their home feel colder during the summer months. At their very basic operation, they’re designed to help circulate air within a room. The beauty of this constant circulation is that your ceiling fans can help reduce the concentration of pollutants in your air. These airborne pollutants can include things like allergens, dust, and even pet dander.
Keeping Moisture in Check
One commonly overlooked benefit of how fans affect indoor air quality is with respect to moisture. The constant movement of air helps to dry out surface moisture. With less humidity in the air, mold and mildew are much less prone to developing inside your home. Because mold and mildew growth can wreak havoc on your allergies, asthma, and respiratory symptoms, a ceiling fan is a perfect way to help minimize your symptom flare-ups.
Fresh Ventilation
Another way that ceiling fans can impact your indoor air quality is by enhancing the ventilation of fresh air. Whenever you open windows or doors, ceiling fans will be able to pull in fresh air and help remove some of the stagnant air inside your home. They can also do wonders for helping to reduce unwanted indoor odors.
A Note on Comfort
Many people opt to invest in ceiling fans to help supplement their HVAC systems throughout the year. A ceiling fan can be great during the summertime to force air downward and onto your body. This breeze helps to evaporate sweat that is on the surface of your skin, which naturally cools down the body. When you feel colder in your home, you can set a higher temperature on your thermostat and your air conditioning system can run less often.
A ceiling fan can also be beneficial during the winter months. When you set it to spin in a clockwise direction, the blades will force hot air at the top of your room upward. The air will travel and hit your ceiling and be pushed out towards your walls, where it will travel down the wall into your floor. This circulation of hot air helps to reuse your heat so that you don’t have to consistently run your heating system to stay warm.
Regular Cleaning Is Necessary
If you’ve ever had your ceiling fan running for days on end and then turned it off, you’ll likely notice that it will have dust and other debris stuck to its blades. Unfortunately, if you simply ignore the dust and turn your fan back on, it’s going to disperse all those airborne pollutants back into your indoor air. For this reason, it’s important that you regularly clean the blades on your fan to prevent the spread of unwanted airborne contamination.
Other Great Benefits of Ceiling Fans
While ceiling fans are great for helping to enhance the quality of air inside your home, their benefits don’t stop there. Ceiling fans are a great way to reduce your utility bills throughout the year by better controlling your overall comfort while at home. For example, running ceiling fans in the summertime can be a great way to help you feel cold and reduce your usage of your air conditioning system.
Many ceiling fans come integrated with overhead lighting. You can be great for providing more light for the various rooms throughout your home to brighten up your space. Many ceiling fans even come with smart technology so you can enjoy things like changing light colors, setting timers, and so much more.
Another massive benefit of ceiling fans is they don’t take up much of your living space. Because they’re mounted on the ceiling, you don’t have to worry about tripping over them on the floor like you would a stand fan. Plus, ceiling fans are a great way to add an aesthetic pop to your living space.
Managing Indoor Air Quality
While ceiling fans can certainly help you manage your indoor air quality, they shouldn’t be the sole source of your management practices. Properly maintaining the air filter in your HVAC system is going to have a tremendous impact on the air quality level inside your home. Be sure to keep up with regular filter changes every two to three months.
If you have a lot of family members living in your home or multiple pets, you may want to consider adding an additional air filtration system to your HVAC system. Realize that controlling indoor air quality is all about using different tactics to control various aspects of the quality level. For example, a ceiling fan is a great way to help disperse air while an HVAC filter is ideal for trapping unwanted airborne pollutants.
Choosing Ceiling Fans
It’s highly beneficial to consider adding ceiling fans to the main rooms throughout your home, like your living room and bedrooms. To ensure that your ceiling fan is effective at doing its job, it’s important that you get one of the appropriate size and type. Ceiling fans can be rated for normal indoor use and for use in wet rooms like a bathroom or laundry room. You want to ensure you’re getting the appropriate type of fan as fans rated just for indoor use aren’t going to stand up to wet environments.
In general terms, smaller rooms that are around 80 square feet can benefit from a fan that ranges anywhere from 29 to 39 inches. Larger rooms with around 200 square feet could benefit from a fan between 42 and 52 inches. Any rooms larger than 200 feet will likely need multiple fans or a very large fan of 56 inches or more. As a general rule of thumb, it’s a good idea to allow at least 18 inches of space between the wall and each fan blade.
Ceiling fans are available in a few different mounting options depending on the specific height of your room. If your room has a ceiling height of around 8 feet, it’s best to go with a low profile or flush-mounted ceiling fan. This helps to ensure that the blades stay up and out of the way so that everyone can be safe when maneuvering around the room. Rooms with a ceiling height of around 9 feet are best for your standard downrod setup. Rooms with a ceiling height of 10 feet or more will likely need an extended down rod to function appropriately.
Reliable IAQ Service
Davis & Green provides reliable indoor air quality services to Richmond, VA. Our HVAC technicians will help with all your plumbing, heating, air conditioning, electrical, generator, and handyman needs. Simply call us today to book your next service appointment.
