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Ceiling Fan Buying Guide

Ceiling fans are a great addition to any Australian home. A good one can make life during the hot Australian summer bearable by making rooms feel much cooler. Interestingly, a ceiling fan won't actually cool you down, it just circulates the air in the room to evaporate your sweat more rapidly - making you feel much cooler! This will not only make you more comfortable, but also save on those hefty power bills, as you'll be able to turn that air conditioning down. Ceiling fans are great for your home, good for the wallet and the environment.

In winter, used in reverse cycle mode (rotating anti-clockwise), they also help to spread the heat around a room. Because hot air rises the fan will pull the cool air from lower areas of the room towards the ceiling; pushing the hot air near the ceiling out towards the walls and down - where you need it. It’s a great solution for the whole year. Most of buyster’s ceiling fans come with a switch that will let you change from reverse cycle to normal (rotating clockwise) operation.

Couple all this with the great range of lighting options available and you've got a great year-round solution for any Australian home that consumes relatively little power: a ceiling fan run on the highest setting will usually consume no more energy than a 50-watt lightbulb. In fact, ceiling fans are the most efficient cooling device you can install in your home – much better than a bulky air conditioner.

The first thing to consider when choosing a ceiling fan is the size of the room you’re going to be putting it in. If it’s a small room – 2 x 3 meters for example – then you’ll need something like an 80cm fan. In a 4 x 4 meters room, look for a 100-110cm ceiling fan. For a large bedrooms or living rooms (6 x 6 meters, for example) look for the larger fans (130cm +). At the same time, you’ll also need to think about the height of your ceiling. Ideally the ceiling height should be 2.2-2.5 meters for optimal air flow. But you can also go for solutions mounted closer to the ceilings (called ceiling-huggers) or, if your ceiling is higher, an extended down rod. If your ceiling is sloped, don’t worry, special extended down rods are also available.

The distance of the fan from the ceiling is also a factor. For optimal air circulation, place the fan around 20 cm from the ceiling.

Look at the pitch of the ceiling fan blades – the higher the pitch, the more efficient the fan will be at moving air around the room. Usually fans with higher pitch blades make a little bit more noise than fans with blades of a lower pitch.

The number of blades, while often used as a guide to the efficiency of the fan, really has no bearing on how well it operates. It is simply a choice of what you think will fit best in your room. The actual efficiency is determined entirely by the pitch of the blades, the RPM of the fan motor and the distance between the fan and the ceiling.

The material the fan and blades are made of is also largely a personal choice. While metal fan blades are slightly more efficient that wooden ones, wooden blades make much less noise. For bedrooms, wooden blades are ideal, because when they slice through the air, the leading edge of the blade is smoother and less noisy.

The RPM of the ceiling fan motor is also worth considering. Generally, the higher the RPM the more efficient the fan is going to be at cooling you down. This, however, comes at a cost of more noise. Even though most of today’s ceiling fans come with various kinds of noise reduction technologies, it’s well worth taking this into account when buying a ceiling fan.

We recommend having your ceiling fan installed by a licensed electrician. Because the work will involve an understanding of wiring, mains power and other electrical issues, we believe that you’ll be best served contacting your local qualified electrician. We do not advise that you carry out this work yourself.