Ceiling fans and Air Conditioners Work Quite Well Together

Florida summers can unfortunately result in high utility bills, as your A/C works overtime to keep your house cool. You can make your air conditioner’s job easier, though, and cut down on those electricity bills by letting your ceiling fans do part of the work.

Ceiling fans and air conditioners work quite well together, as their functions complement each other. While air conditioners actually cool the air, ceiling fans produce a wind-chill effect without changing the air’s temperature. They make the air feel colder than it is.

An A/C system makes a ceiling fan more efficient, because the fan has colder air to work with and therefore produces a greater wind-chill effect. And a ceiling fan makes your A/C more efficient, because you can raise the temperature on the thermostat by a few degrees without the air feeling any warmer. Those few degrees can make a big difference on how much electricity the A/C consumes; it is much easier to cool air to a temperature of 80 degrees, for instance, than it is to cool it down to 75.

To get the full benefit from using ceiling fans, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Ceiling fans should be treated like lights: turn them on when you enter a room, and turn them off when you leave. If nobody’s in the room where they’re operating, there’s no one to feel the wind-chill effect.
A ceiling fan should match the room that it’s in. For a bedroom or other small room, a small fan may suffice. Large rooms need larger fans or multiple fans.
Broad fan blades have a larger surface area and therefore work more efficiently, moving more air even at slow speeds.
Some fans are more energy efficient than others. High-efficiency models will be marked with the Energy Star label.

To learn more, contact us at NisAir Air Conditioning and Heating. We’ve been helping people in Martin, Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Indian River counties stay cool and save money for nearly 40 years, and can help you with all your home comfort needs.