DARREN BOWMAN DESIGN

I recently made the following comments on BuildingGreen.com in response to an article about ceiling fans.

In my experience ceiling fans are very useful in winter where houses have higher ceilings. We use a slow combustion wood burner as our main heating source as we live in the country in Victoria, Australia. Our main living area has a feature cathedral ceiling so particularly when the wood burner is first lit on a cold day it can take a while to feel the effect of the fire. The heat is all up at the apex of the ceiling. I know this from having been up there on a ladder - it gets quite hot. Often we have turned the ceiling fan on (blowing downwards) and remarked about the improvement in room temperature. For this to be effective though there must be enough heat accumulated high up and the fan speed must be low. If either of these conditions are not met the net result is a cold draft. I see ceiling fans as mandatory for both summer and winter conditions where houses have high ceilings and always included them in our designs.