No, I’m not crazy. It really is true. I know that people generally think of a fan as something that keeps you cool. However, people often forget about using their ceiling fan in the winter to keep them warm. Yep, it true.

Trying to Keep Cool

The blades on a fan are angled in such a way so that it pulls air from one side and blows it out the other end. So how does that keep you cool? Well, everyone perspires. Even ever so slightly. There’s usually always going to be moisture on your skin, even if you can’t see it.

When air moves over your skin it helps the water to evaporate, thus cooling your skin. This is called the wind chill effect. Now that’s about all I remember from college Biology class.

Trying to Keep Warm

Now keeping warm is a bit simpler than keeping cool. Just stay where the warm air is. The problem is that warm air tends to rise. And since we all aren’t seven (7) feet tall, we don’t get to enjoy that air that stuck up near the ceiling.

Usually, we rely on the central heating system to push that air around. But, that’s not supposed to be its job. It’s more efficient if it’s used to warm the air and we use the ceiling fan to circulate this warm air.

Now we could just put the ceiling fan on and have it blow downwards onto us and push that warm up from the ceiling straight down on us. Now, that would be fine, except there’s still going to be that wind-chill effect I talked about earlier.

Switching Directions

So how do we remedy this situation? Check your ceiling and and see if there’s a lil black switch some where. All the newer ones should have one. I never gave it a second thought, but what this switch does is reverse the directions that the blades work in.

So, that’s what you need to do. Just switch the direction that the fan blows in the Winter.

OK, Just A Bit More Science

In the winter you make sure the fan blows air towards the ceiling. What this does is pull up from the center of the room and push the air at the ceiling outwards. The constant blowing causes a circulation that forces the warm air near the ceiling down along the walls.

So there you go, warm are comes back down, but doesn’t blow directly on you and make you feel colder. Isn’t that cool?

Which Way To Flip

Now one problem I had when I was researching this whole deal, is which direction do I flip the switch in? Well, when I was in my first apartment, it was simple enough. I flip the switch up in the winter to blow upwards and down in the summer to blow downwards. Then I moved, and wouldn’t you know it? I got a sideways switch. Well, after reading a ton of stuff about angles of blades; clockwise and anti-clockwise rotation, etc; I found a dirt simple method.

Turn the fan on to the medium setting. Sometimes the low one is too low to do what it should and the high one causes too much turbulence, so it’s hard to read sometimes. Then you just crack a match or lighter under the fan. If it blows it out, then guess what? It’s summer time. If the flame stays on, then that’s a sign that you need that added heat.

No matches? You can achieve the same results with just something light that reacts to moving air: feathers, piece of one-ply TP, etc. Anything that’s not to heavy to actually be pulled up.

Still don’t believe me? You can read up on all the details here.

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