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The humble ceiling fan will never make a room cooler or warmer on its own, but used properly it can help circulate warm or coll air depending on the season, saving you some money on your heating and cooling costs.
Here's our simple guide to making sure you ceiling fan is spinning the right way as well as balanced and running smoothly.
== Flip the switch ==
Ceiling fans don't cool or warm a room, but they can circulate the air such that it feels warmer and cooler to you.
The trick is make sure your fan is spinning the right way -- clockwise in winter, counter-clockwise in summer. In the winter that means the warm air up near the ceiling is pushed down by the fan and in the summer the cool air near the floor is pulled up.
Turn on your fan and not which way it's spinning. If necessary, flip the switch which should be on the main fan drum, near the pull chain.
== Balancing ==
No one likes a wobbling ceiling fan. And the wobbles are worse than annoying, they will actually wear down the motor bearings and bushings, leading to the dreaded squeaks and whines.
The first trick to balancing a ceiling fan is mark each blade with a bit of tape. For added visual help when the blade is spinning, put a bit of florescent paint on each piece of tape, one color per blade. The paint will make it much easier to keep track of the blade when they're spinning.
Now go around each blade and tighten all the mounting screws to make sure everything is firmly in place.
The next step is to stop the fan and use a ruler or yard stick to measure the distance between the ceiling and the leading edge of each blade. This will tell you which of the blade -- if any -- is out of alignment.
If the edge of a blade is clearly out of whack, you can try gently bending the blade's mounting bracket up or down. If that works then you're home free, if not, read on.
== Balancing kit ==
If the wobble is too much to bend out on your own (or if you just don't trust yourself to bend it properly) head to your local hardware store and pick up a balancing kit. The kits are cheap and consist of a set of self-adhesive weights and a weighted clip.
Put the weighted clip in the center of a blade and turn the fan on to the speed to produces the most wobble. Continue moving the clip from blade to blade until you find the blade that's creating the problem. Then you can begin to slide to weighted clip in and out along the length of the blade until you fix the problem and the wobbling stops.
Once you have found the perfect spot for the clip, add one of the self-adhesive weights on the back of the blade where the clip is located. Remove the clip and your fan should be working properly.
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