(Jun 5) Cool Breeze :)

We had not planned on it but we added a ceiling fan this weekend. Lowe's had a really nice prop fan that was in natural wood. Couldn't resist! Now, the hard part was going to be getting electricity to it. We had a switch by the front door that went to a wire that was hanging out under the roof on the north side. We had intended for this to power the north side porch lights but without a way to route a new wire to that switch, we would have to come up with a new plan. We decided to let the existing wire service the fan and we would make other arrangements for the lights.

New ceiling fan mounted in living room!

We decided to put the fan in the center of the living area towards the north wall. At 60" its nearly half as wide as the house. We used a circle saw to cut a hole in the ceiling. Yes, I confirmed it was not going to be under a rafter before I got started! lol Then I pushed the wire from the outside down along gap until we could reach it. We set the support box and bracket in place and wired it up. All-in-all, it was pretty simple. It has a super efficient DC motor and is really quiet. I ran some specs on it before we closed in the wiring access.

Speed   Watts
   1           1.2
   2           2.4
   3           4.8
   4           9.6
   5         14.6
   6         23.2

This means that you could run the fan on Medium (setting 3) 24/7 for a month for about 34¢ (we're at 10¢/KWHr).

Really nice to feel a cool breeze throughout the day and night. We were able to raise our AC thermostat by several degrees. If we can cut 1-2 hours of AC (750watts) use per day and run a fan (5watts) it will make a huge difference in electric use.