On a show in the second week of September, Clark said that either Sam’s or Costco (I don’t remember which) is now selling at a discount a fan that can cool a single room by six degrees. He never specified which fan.
Anybody know anything about this? Does the fan really actually cool the air? Consumer Reports said that those tower oscillating fans just blow warm air; they don’t actually cool it.
If it really works, what is the specific make and model of the fan? Which store sells it?
This could change my life. We live in the deep South. My wife insists on cranking the central air conditioning to 72 degrees every night so she can sleep. We cannot localize it to our bedroom, so we end up refrigerating the entire house for 8 hours. If this fan works, I could save thousands of dollars per year.
Evaporative coolers have a fan, and can lower temperature by up to 30 degrees. But there is a huge caveat; they work best in dry climates. In humidity they lose their effectiveness.
As said above, fans circulate air, and if circulating the air where a person can feel it, tends to make them feel cooler. In open concept homes, keeping ceiling fans on in all the rooms circulates that breeze through the home. In homes with closed off rooms, that doesn’t happen. Because my home is very open, I keep my ceiling fans on throughout warmer weather.
I didn’t hear the episode, but I have a quiet cool whole house fan that does an excellent job of cooling my house in the summer months. It’s a strong, quiet attic exhaust fan that sucks in cool air at night through the downstairs windows, and then shuts off in the daytime to preserve the cool. It works well in a climate where the night temps are a lot cooler than the daytime temps. Where I live I don’t have to use my AC at all, even on 90 degree days, if I close my windows to keep the heat out and store the cool (65 degree) overnight air. The inside temp never gets above 76. Saves me lots of $ in electric bills.
No fan alone can actually reduce the temperature in a room by six degrees. Standard fans simply move air around the room, and make you feel cooler through skin evaporation. Some specialty “evaporative” or small portable AC units can lower the temperature to an extent, but common fans just move air around and a full six degree temperature drop is unlikely - and certainly under humid circumstances. In your bedroom, a combination of a portable AC unit or window unit along with a fan could equal comfort for a night without cooling the whole house down all night. In general, fans are fine to claim comfort, but not as an actual substitute for cooling.