Our team is always happy to offer helpful advice when it comes to what type of HVAC system to get, how to use it most efficiently, and when to schedule maintenance (once a year for your air conditioner and once a year for your heater!) The second point, efficiency, is what most of our customers want to know more about. As you probably guessed, a higher efficiency HVAC system will use less energy, and therefore cost less to run than an older or inefficiently working system.
Maintenance is a huge part of keeping this system in good shape, whether we’re talking about your air conditioner or your heater. It’s also important to keep up on repair needs, as a suffering system has to work harder to do its job. But this kind of care isn’t the only thing you can do to improve HVAC efficiency. There is one simple trick that can be surprisingly helpful: use your ceiling fans!
A Fan’s Role in the Cooling Process
You more than likely know that there is a fan within your home’s air conditioning system. This fan alone is not what keeps you cool and comfortable, and a ceiling fan shouldn’t be expected to do this on its own, either. There are a number of components within an air conditioner that work together you bring you the comfort you desire in your home, like:
- Refrigerant, which moves heat from the inside air and expels it outdoors.
- An indoor coil to help absorb heat and cool it down.
- A compressor that increases the pressure of the refrigerant so it can do its job.
Without these components working with it, all a fan really can do is recycle warm, stale air that’s already present in your living space. A fan simply moves air around, but, that’s all it needs to do if you use it in combination with your forced-air cooling system.
Your ceiling fans do a better job of evenly distributing the air produced by your cooling system than that cooling system can do on its own. A stagnant vent alone on a wall cannot move air through a home as effectively as you’d like, in most cases. But this is what makes a ceiling fan so useful.
When a ceiling fan is used with the air conditioner, the room it’s installed in gets cooler faster, which allows your AC to shut off sooner. This ultimately reduces your monthly utility bills. That ceiling fan can’t cool you on its own but it can certainly be helpful!
Can Ceiling Fans Help Your Heating Efforts?
Yes, they can! We know this isn’t a huge concern in our area, but when winter does come, albeit brief, you’ll be thankful for an efficient heater! And you can increase that efficiency with your ceiling fans.
You see, ceiling fans have a switch on them, most often found near the center of the fan where the light fixture mounts, that changes the direction of the fan blades. The clockwise direction helps move heat more evenly through the living space. Some advanced ceiling fans might even have an additional wall switch, or a remote control, that you can use.