Tip of the Day: Clean your ceiling fans

My approach to housekeeping is akin to the “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a noise?” conundrum: I don’t mind the weekly ritual of cleaning my house, but I do cut corners where I can—if I can’t see the grime, then it doesn’t count.

I’ve often taken this tack when with ceiling fans. From below, I usually don’t notice the dust and grime on my fans. But when I recently climbed a stepladder for a closer look at the one in my bedroom it was clear I had to clean the fan. The dust and grime weren’t overwhelming—yet. So I decided to tackle this simple task before it could turn into a messy ordeal.

When you’re cleaning your ceiling fans, first find out what steps the manufacturer recommends, and then consider our experts’ suggestions below. Remember, clean a fan only after you’ve turned it off and the blades have come to a full stop. And cover the floor (and furniture) beneath the fan with a drop cloth. If the blades are lightweight, handle them with care.

• Use a long-handled, ceiling-fan duster to remove dust. (These special round brushes are sold at hardware stores and home centers.) The blade fits in the inner part of the duster and will clean both sides of the blade at the same time.

• If your fan is equipped with a light, gently dust the fixture (and the bulb, if it’s exposed) with a soft cloth.

• To remove accumulated grime, wash the blades and fan housing with a damp cloth sprayed with an all-purpose cleaner or dipped in a solution of water and mild detergent. (Learn how to make your own household cleaners.)

• Then wipe the blades with a cloth dampened with water to remove detergent residue.

• Finally, dry the blades thoroughly— dampness attracts dust.

Be careful when you’re reaching up to clean the blades if you don’t have a brush. If you need to buy a ladder for this and other household chores, see our review of ladders.—Kimberly Janeway

Essential information: Read our latest report on ceiling fans to choose the right models for your home. And learn how to stay cool without running up your utility bills. Use our Home Improvement Guide interactive to take a room-by-room tour of the top-rated appliances and most cost-effective improvements you can make to your home.

Tip of the Day: Dehumidifiers can keep your home comfortable and prevent mold and mildew

Deploying a dehumidifier in damp areas of your home is an easy way to not only boost your comfort but also to prevent a number of problems, including sickness, mold and mildew growth, and damage to your home and its furnishings.

My own “FOBFU”—find out by fouling up—lesson illustrates why it’s smart to use a dehumidifier. I stored a bunch of camping equipment in my basement, which tended to be very humid. When I went to retrieve a sleeping bag for a camping trip, I found it ruined by the damp environment. I immediately went online to read our recent report on dehumidifiers. It turns out you can get a capable model for about $140 dollars—and perhaps even less if you combine it with a rebate or tax credit by buying an energy-efficient version.

Most dehumidifiers have features such as a built-in timer, which can be useful in some situations, and a hose-attachment point to drain the water, eliminating your having to empty a reservoir. One model even comes with a pump and plastic tubing that sends the collected water out a window or up to a slop sink or other high drain. Other factors to consider when buying a dehumidifier include energy use, noise, performance in brownout conditions, and the ability to automatically restart after a power blackout.

I’ve learned my lesson. My new dehumidifier is now humming away down the basement, keeping my camping gear in good shape.—Gian Trotta

Essential information: Learn how to alleviate other basement-moisture problems. To keep the rest of your home comfortable this summer, read “How to Keep Your Cool” and our latest reports on room air conditioners and ceiling fans.

Q&A: Which direction should the blades on my ceiling fan rotate?

My ceiling fan has a switch that reverses the direction the blades rotate. How do I know which direction to run the fan during warm- and cold-weather months?

During warm weather, you should run the fan so that the breeze blows downward. This wind-chill effect—the same cool breeze you feel when you roll down the window in a moving car—will cool you.

Many ceiling-fan manufacturers and various Web sites out there suggest that you run the ceiling fan so that it blows in the opposite direction—upward—when the weather is cold and the heat is on in your home. The idea is that the fan mixes the warm air collecting at the ceiling and moves it back down to the perimeter of room, creating a higher average room temperature and less need for heat. (All of the ceiling fans we recently tested have a switch that you flip to reverse the motion of the blade.)

 

But in our past tests, we found that the draft caused by the fan can have a chilling effect on people in a room—and lead to higher thermostat settings and more energy use. So we recommend that you not bother to reverse the motion of your fan—just leave it off during heating season. Note that there might be some situations where reverse operation would be be beneficial, such as in a room with a wood stove running or a very high vaulted ceiling.

If you’re looking to lower your energy bills during cooling season, use ceiling fans and turn off your air conditioning or turn up the temperature on your A/C a few degrees and let the fan go to work. Remember that ceiling fans cool you and not the space you’re in, so turn them off when you leave the room for an extended time so as to not waste electricity.

When shopping for a ceiling fan, you’ll find old-style models that conjure memories of Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca and versions that are modern twists on an invention that first appeared in the U.S. in the 1860s. In our latest report on ceiling fans, we found that while the pricier fans did have fancier finishes, they didn’t necessarily provide better performance. What’s more, most fans performed similarly in our air-movement tests.

Essential information: See our advice on staying cool this summer without cranking up the A/C, and share your tips for keeping comfortable, in our forums.

Vintage Consumer Reports: Ceiling Fans

With ceiling fans, “you can go from breeze to bluster to benign zephyr,” we wrote in our July 1982 report on summer cooling. “Even the most profligate model,” we noted, “would cost only pennies a day to run.”

Ceiling fans haven’t changed much over the past 26 years. (The top fan shown is from 1982; the bottom one, from our July 2008 story on ceiling fans.) Although they cost slightly more to run today than they did during the early part of the Reagan era, ceiling fans can decrease energy consumption and save you money, but only if you use your air conditioner less or set it to a warmer temperature and rely on the cooling breeze from the fan. (See our latest report on and review of air conditioners, and learn more ways to keep cool this summer.)

“A ceiling fan can conjure up an exotic feeling even in a raised ranch in the suburbs,” we wrote in the 1982 article. If a virtual experience isn’t enough, you can put the money you’ve saved toward a real getaway. Read our Ratings-based reports on airlines and hotels.

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Ceiling fans, which includes expert buying advice.

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