[0:00] Did you know the ceiling fan is nearly as old as the electric light
bulb?
[0:05] Actually, did you know it's older than electricity itself?
[0:09] We humans really don't like the feeling of being hot,
[0:12] and we figured out more than a thousand years ago
[0:15] that forcing the air around us to move
[0:18] a la the wind can help us cool down.
[0:21] Hand fans like this worked great for millennia, but they really did a number on the wrists.
[0:26] And while the solution to that for a distressingly long period of time was to
[0:31] outsource that problem to other humans,
[0:34] once industrialization started giving us access to powered machinery, we had a much better solution.
[0:40] It didn't take that much imagination to use that machinery
[0:44] to spin some angled paddles hanging from the ceiling
[0:47] to create artificial wind.
[0:49] Early fans were driven by simple gearing or belts
[0:52] powered by waterwheels or even steam engines,
[0:55] and the... nicer factory owners out there would spend the money to install ceiling fans
[1:02] to help their workers beat the heat in the summertime.
[1:05] And since we figured out how to build electric motors which spin things very early into this whole electricity business,
[1:12] electric ceiling fans were an obvious invention.
[1:16] Just attach some of those fan blades to a motor,
[1:18] hang the thing from the ceiling and you've got a ceiling fan
[1:22] powered by electromagnetism.
[1:24] Philip Diehl is credited for inventing the electric ceiling fan in 1882,
[1:30] the same year Schuyler Wheeler is credited for inventing the electric...
[1:34] regular fan.
[1:36] Electric fans were pretty obvious,
[1:38] and arguably the first mass market application for the electric motor.
[1:42] In fact, many pioneering motor manufacturers
[1:45] went into business to sell cooling fans.
[1:48] Much of the United States gets pretty hot in the summer, so
[1:52] electric fans became a very intriguing item.
[1:55] If you were convinced to subscribe for Electric Light,
[1:58] you'd have to do a lot of work running wires around the place to light up each room,
[2:03] and maybe you could use 'em to keep cool, too.
[2:06] The idea of an artificial wind machine
[2:08] that you could just switch on must have been incredibly compelling.
[2:12] I imagine to many folks at the time,
it felt like controlling the weather.
[2:17] But we had barely figured any of this stuff out yet.
[2:20] We still hadn't settled on AC or DC power when Diehl patented his fan, and even once we did,
[2:27] electric motors were incredibly expensive to make.
[2:30] But over time, we'd learn how to mass produce them.
[2:33] And since all it takes to make a fan from a motor
[2:36] is the fan part, before long
[2:40] they started to become a fixture of our lives.
[2:42] Around the turn of the 20th century,
[2:45] ceiling fans were a common sight, especially in public spaces.
[2:49] But by the middle of the century,
[2:51] they rapidly began to disappear.
[2:54] The advent of air conditioning
[2:56] turned a once revolutionary cooling technology into old news,
[3:01] and for many years, those of us in the US
[3:04] pretty much forgot about ceiling fans.
[3:07] Which might be surprising, because today
[3:10] ceiling fans are once again a very common sight.
[3:14] Though I hear tell much of Europe hasn't discovered them yet.
[3:18] Maybe by the end I'll convince you to give ‘em a try.
[3:20] But the reason ceiling fans 
managed to stage a comeback over here
[3:25] is not quite as straightforward as you would think.
[3:29] If you're wondering how on Earth a video 
about such a simple thing could possibly be this long,
[3:34] well, hello, welcome to the channel.
[3:36] You must be new here!
[3:37] But I've been spending so much time on this script
[3:40] because the humble ceiling fan can explain so much about us.
[3:45] It's resurgence in the United States
 is a fascinatingly human story
[3:50] where nostalgia for the past amplified a cultural moment of reckoning.
[3:55] But that nostalgia, while useful
[3:58] for reminding us of a good idea we had abandoned,
[4:01] also opened the door for a market
[4:04] which quickly turned to crap.
[4:06] Ceiling fans began to be sold
[4:08] not so much for their functional purpose,
[4:11] but instead for their fashionable looks.
[4:14] And when fashion comes first,
[4:16] weird things happen which we're still dealing with to this day.
[4:21] To understand what I mean, we have to start
[4:24] with what ceiling fans used to look like.
[4:26] This vintage ceiling fan made by the Hunter fan company
[4:30] might look like the most generic and traditional
[4:33] ceiling fan design you could possibly imagine,
[4:36] but that's because when this design was first made,
[4:40] fans were the only cooling technology we had.
[4:44] And the whole point of hanging one from the ceiling like this
[4:47] was to produce a lot of air movement so the cooling effect
[4:51] could be felt throughout a large area.
[4:54] That required big, aggressively pitched paddles
[4:57] which pushed on lots of air,
and spinning them required a powerful motor.
[5:03] However, when at operating speed,
[5:06] the paddles don't actually move very fast at all.
[5:10] At full speed, this fan only rotates at 200 rpm,
[5:14] and with the technology of the time, a strong motor
[5:17] designed to run that slowly needed to be quite large.
[5:21] Which is why the motor itself is what you're looking at.
[5:25] That's not a decorative cover with a motor inside.
[5:28] It's a 40 pound lump of cast iron and copper windings.
[5:33] This is function over form and even the details are functional.
[5:38] That pattern of holes may look pretty,
[5:40] but it's there for ventilation to keep the windings cool.
[5:44] And because those great big motors needed lots of raw materials
[5:48] and skilled labor to produce, they were pretty expensive.
[5:52] Even into the 1920s when we had figured out
[5:56] how to make motors pretty well, a ceiling fan like this cost the 2026 equivalent of about a thousand bucks,
[6:03] and pricing would remain similarly high for decades to come.
[6:08] The high cost of a ceiling fan meant
[6:10] it was mainly businesses and institutions that would spend the cash
[6:13] and go through the effort to install them.
[6:16] They had plenty of incentive
[6:17] to keep their employees happy and their guests cool
[6:20] so they could justify the cost, especially since one
[6:23] fan could handle a whole room.
[6:26] Also, thanks to the advent of light kits,
[6:29] which attached light fixtures to the bottom of a ceiling fan,
[6:32] installing one could add room lighting at the same time,
[6:35] making them a compelling purchase  in the early days of electrification,
[6:40] even in parts of the country where it's only hot part of the year.
[6:44] Over time, as electrification spread and awareness of ceiling fans did too,
[6:48] they'd slowly gain some popularity in the home,
[6:52] but mainly among the wealthier set
[6:54] and mainly in parts of the country which were chronically hot.
[6:58] Once we had standardized on plugs and sockets... and voltage,
[7:02] it was a lot easier to just plug in a portable fan like this.
[7:07] These fans, with their much smaller blades designed to rotate very quickly
[7:11] could use much more compact motors, and that made them a lot more affordable.
[7:16] Plus, they don't need permanent installation
[7:18] and they can be moved around the house as you do.
[7:21] So these were a much better value in the eyes of most ordinary people.
[7:26] Still, ceiling fans were a very common sight around town wherever people congregated,
[7:31] like their favorite restaurants or maybe the barbershop,
[7:33] or the old soda fountains and the bank and whatnot.
[7:37] They were a staple of the community, which everyone would see as they went about their day
[7:41] and in the summer, which everyone enjoyed.
[7:45] That is, of course, until my hero Willis Carrier invented air conditioning.
[7:51] Fans can't actually lower the temperature in a room,
[7:54] but air conditioning can.
[7:57] And, air conditioning could also lower ambient humidity, too
[8:00] providing a whole new kind of comfort.
[8:03] Air conditioning was this marvelous new invention
[8:06] getting installed in movie theaters to boost ticket sales, and before long
[8:10] everywhere else a blast of arctic air could draw in some customers.
[8:15] As you may imagine, this caused demand for new ceiling fans to rapidly dry up.
[8:21] The public spaces they were most likely to be seen
[8:24] were also the first to install air conditioning.
[8:27] And before too long, air conditioning systems became affordable enough for average folks to buy one.
[8:34] Now, air conditioning was extremely energy intensive compared to ceiling fans.
[8:40] But during the post-war boom, where we were building power plants left and right,
[8:43] and we barely had to work to get coal and oil out of the ground,
[8:47] we weren't thinking very much about that.
[8:50] We were thinking about the tremendous work needed to upgrade the power grid
[8:54] such that all those new suburban homes could have an energy hungry air conditioner of their own, and later
[9:00] central air conditioners which cooled the whole house.
[9:03] But you know what?
[9:05] We did that work because we're humans who know how to do very hard things
[9:09] like run wires and upgrade power grids when we want to.
[9:14] If only we could remember that.
[9:16] Anyway, the point is air conditioning was expensive and very difficult to deploy,
[9:21] but energy was cheap and it was a sign of progress
[9:24] which was extremely desirable to a wealthy, growing nation.
[9:29] Meanwhile, ceiling fans were literally old technology.
[9:33] So as air conditioning became widespread,
[9:36] ceiling fans started to disappear from our lives.
[9:39] By the 1960s, there were few companies bothering to make them in the US.
[9:45] Robbins and Myers, the iron foundry turned motor manufacturer
[9:49] who made this desk fan and had acquired Hunter in 1949,
[9:53] kept the Hunter ceiling fan line in production
[9:55] as there was still reasonable demand for ceiling fans in outdoor spaces,
[10:00] but for indoor spaces
[10:03] ceiling fans became quite esoteric and the mark of a cheapskate.
[10:08] There were, however, plenty of situations where air conditioning was impractical,
[10:12] like large factories and warehouses.
[10:15] So there was still decent industrial demand for ceiling fans.
[10:19] But those buyers wanted cheap, reliable fans
[10:22] which did the job without a fuss.
[10:24] And that's how this came to be.
[10:27] This is an Emerson Heat Fan.
[10:30] And yes, it’s called a heat fan despite the fact that it's just a ceiling fan.
[10:34] That's important for what comes later.
[10:37] But those in the ceiling fan collector community often call this the blenderfan
[10:41] thanks to the motors resemblance to the base of a kitchen blender.
[10:45] And yes, there's a ceiling fan collector community because of course there is!
[10:49] Humans are awesome.
[10:50] Get yourself a proper fixation.
[10:52] It's fun!
[10:53] I know way too much about ceiling fans now.
[10:56] Anyway, much like Robbins and Myers,
[10:59] Emerson was a pioneering electric motor manufacturer
[11:02] who got started selling cooling fans
[11:05] because, again, it's the simplest thing to do with a motor.
[11:08] Stick some fan blades on it and job done.
[11:11] But over the years, Emerson grew into a major industrial supplier of electric motors
[11:16] which got used by all sorts of industries for all sorts of things.
[11:20] For decades they had been making ceiling fans
[11:24] very similar to this Hunter model, but as ceiling fans went from
[11:28] “desirable thing to keep your patrons comfortable” to
[11:31] “the solution for when air conditioning is too expensive,”
[11:34] Emerson got a little crafty with their production lines.
[11:38] They decided to take one of the washing machine motors
[11:41] they pumped out like some kind of motor factory,
[11:43] and stuck some fan blades onto it so they could sell it as a ceiling fan.
[11:47] And that's why this looks the way that it does.
[11:50] This is just a washing machine motor.
[11:53] That's a little oversimplified,
[11:55] because the technical details of this motor are quite different
[11:58] from what would go in an actual washing machine.
[12:01] Plus, they had to design a flywheel to attach the blades to
[12:03] and add a switch housing so you could actually turn it on and off
[12:06] and select between its speed settings.
[12:08] But this right here is the same case K63 motor housing which Emerson was using
[12:14] for all sorts of applications.
[12:17] They likely started using it so they could shut down the production line
[12:20] of pancake motors, which were only useful for the rapidly declining ceiling fan market.
[12:27] So as we approach the 1970s,
[12:30] you had essentially two options:
[12:32] an extremely traditional ceiling fan from Hunter
[12:36] or this... thing.
[12:38] However, the situation was very different in other parts of the world,
[12:42] particularly the warm climates of Asia.
[12:45] Buildings were rapidly getting electrified,
[12:47] but energy resources weren't abundant enough for air conditioning
[12:51] to become widespread for quite some time.
[12:54] So while we had basically stopped caring and arguably even trying,
[13:00] ceiling fan manufacturing was experiencing a huge boom overseas.
[13:05] For example, the Shell Manufacturing Company
[13:08] in Hong Kong built upon an idea
which appears to have originated in Italy.
[13:13] Turning the motor inside out
[13:15] allowed for a sleeker looking fan, which was also a lot cheaper
[13:19] to build from a materials perspective.
[13:21] Here's an example of such a ceiling fan motor.
[13:24] Unlike the traditional American design where the stator windings surround the spinning rotor,
[13:29] in this design the stator windings are inside the rotor,
[13:33] and the outside surface of the whole thing is what spins,
[13:37] giving them their common name “spinner motors.”
[13:40] This greatly simplified the design of a ceiling fan
[13:44] and lowered materials cost substantially since you didn't really need a motor housing.
[13:49] Just attach the fan blades directly to the motor.
[13:53] Early designs had some glitches to work out, like bearings which failed prematurely,
[13:57] but eventually those issues were solved
[14:00] and this became a much more refined and cost effective design
[14:04] than anything we were making here in the States.
[14:07] On occasion, fans like this ended up getting imported
[14:10] to the US and sold as a cheap alternative to the fans from Emerson and Hunter,
[14:14] but it was a pretty rare occasion since nobody really wanted a ceiling fan.
[14:20] But that was about to change.
[14:22] Remember how this is called the heat fan?
[14:25] Emerson started making these things in the 1960s,
[14:29] but in 1973 we would go through a bit of an oil crisis
[14:33] which we clearly learned lots of very good lessons from.
[14:38] In response to the oil embargo causing energy to get much more expensive,
[14:42] including heating oil which was still quite commonly used back then,
[14:47] Emerson started to market their ceiling fans as heat recovery fans
[14:51] which could save on heating costs.
[14:54] See, in a space with high ceilings
[14:56] like a factory, warehouse, or even a church sanctuary,
[15:00] a temperature gradient forms in the winter due to warm air
[15:04] rising above denser, cooler air.
[15:06] And this means a lot of the heat energy coming from a building’s heating system
[15:11] simply ends up stuck at the ceiling where nobody can feel it.
[15:14] A pretty significant waste.
[15:16] If you could use some sort of mechanical device
[15:19] to push that warm air back down to the floor,
[15:22] then you could recover that wasted heat energy.
[15:25] Thus heat recovery, also known as heat reclamation.
[15:29] Getting the warm air back down to the floor where the people are
[15:32] would not only make the heat more useful, but
[15:35] since the thermostat is down there, too, the heating system won't need to run as often
[15:39] and it will burn less if it's suddenly much more expensive fuel.
[15:44] Emerson just so happened to make ceiling fans
[15:47] which would be perfect for heat reclamation,
[15:49] so they began to market them specifically for that purpose.
[15:53] And that's why their very utilitarian ceiling fan, which is the same ceiling fan it was before
[15:59] became the Heat Fan.k
[16:01] Industry and large institutions were slowly discovering
[16:05] that ceiling fans could be useful for saving energy.
[16:08] And the good word was starting to spread.
[16:11] And you know what else got really expensive very suddenly?
[16:15] Air conditioning.
[16:17] We still burned quite a lot of oil 
for generating electricity back in 1973,
[16:21] which meant the oil embargo made pretty much
[16:24] everything we did using energy much more expensive.
[16:27] And out of necessity, people began to realize
[16:30] that they could save some money on their electricity bills
[16:33] by turning up the temperature on their thermostats
[16:35] and using electric fans to keep cool.
[16:39] Basic portable fans were still widely available,
[16:41] now with less finger chopping!
[16:44] But while fans were all the rage,
[16:47] ceiling fans were still expensive and ugly industrial items,
[16:52] which relatively few people would consider appropriate
for a living room.
[16:56] [Scott Joplin’s Easy Winners plays in background]
However, in 1973, we were also going through a very intense
[17:02] wave of nostalgia for the turn of the 20th century.
[17:05] Films like The Sting repopularized the ragtime music
[17:09] of Scott Joplin, and earlier films like Hello, Dolly!
[17:13] brought the Gay Nineties back into our collective attention,
[17:16] as did the restaurant chain TGI Fridays.
[17:20] Walt Disney World had just opened in Florida
[17:22] with a duplication of Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A., bringing an idealized recreation
[17:27] of turn of the century America to a national audience.
[17:31] It was a whole thing, which lasted a surprising while.
[17:35] Cheers, the TV show wouldn't hit the airwaves until 1982,
[17:39] and yet the Tiffany lamp, stained glass and ornate woodwork aesthetic was still going strong.
[17:46] While we were enamored with that old timey aesthetic,
[17:50] well, we started getting obsessed with antiques and curios of the time.
[17:55] And, you know what was a quaint, old timey curio
[17:57] you could find in antique shops which hailed from the turn of the century?
[18:02] Ceiling fans.
[18:04] Yep, ceiling fans started to become a fashionable item
[18:09] thanks to our sudden obsession with the past.
[18:12] But it's even weirder than it sounds on the surface.
[18:15] I'm skipping details for time, but in 1974
[18:19] an antiques dealer named Burton Burton founded the Casablanca Fan Company
[18:23] to sell reproductions of antique ceiling fans.
[18:27] But when I say reproductions,
[18:30] I don't mean “ceiling fans that look like antiques.”
[18:34] I mean “objects which appear to be antique ceiling fans” because his earliest designs were,
[18:42] I kid you not, purely decorative.
[18:45] Initially, they started making reproductions 
of the old belt-driven ceiling fan systems you'd find in a factory,
[18:52] and those made their way into lots of themed restaurants,
[18:55] including at least one Portillo's I have myself been to.
[18:59] They were rigged to rotate, but nowhere near fast enough to actually function as effective ceiling fans.
[19:05] Yet diners were so captivated by the visual of old timey
[19:11] spinning things that it became a shockingly huge fad.
[19:15] And the visual really was the point.
[19:19] For those who may not know the connection,
[19:21] the name Casablanca Fan Company was chosen
[19:24] because of how prominently ceiling fans are featured 
in the film Casablanca.
[19:29] You know, Humphrey Bogart.
[19:30] Here's looking at you, kid.
[19:32] In the film, the ceiling fans shown on screen
[19:36] were props meant to convey to the audience
[19:38] that it's hot in Casablanca, and because they were movie props,
[19:43] they were rigged up to spin much more slowly
[19:46] than an actual ceiling fan would.
[19:48] A real ceiling fan in operation
[19:51] doesn't look very interesting or even recognizable on film
[19:54] because its blades will just blur together.
[19:57] And the look from the film is what Burton Burton was trying to replicate.
[20:03] He wasn't trying to sell actual ceiling fans.
[20:06] He was trying to sell a kind of dynamic decoration,
[20:10] which just so happened to be copies of antique ceiling fan designs.
[20:15] Quick side note, Emerson, who we already know was great at selling the same thing
[20:20] they had always been making for different reasons, also started
[20:23] selling their ceiling fans using the name Casablanca.
[20:27] I'm guessing the film must have been on TV a lot at the time.
[20:30] In fact, Emerson trademarked the name Casablanca
[20:34] before Burton Burton started his company,
which turned into a whole mess
[20:37] which we don't need to get into.
[20:39] Emerson was just trying to sell more of their fans,
[20:42] but the Casablanca fan company was trying to serve the weirdly huge demand
[20:47] for purely decorative turn of the century ceiling fans,
[20:51] which were suddenly all the rage in your favorite themed restaurant chains.
[20:56] This sounds nuts, but I mean, it sure was flair.
[21:00] And as the general public became exposed to ceiling fans in formal settings again,
[21:05] their reputation as quaint, oddball things to have in the home started to fade.
[21:11] After all, quaint was in!
[21:14] And the timing could not have been more perfect.
[21:17] People were being reexported to ceiling fans right at the start of an energy crisis,
[21:22] which renewed interest in their functional purpose, too.
[21:26] For a brief while, the options for actually functional ceiling 
fans remained quite limited and mostly industrial.
[21:34] But all it really takes to make a ceiling fan 
look old timey and fashionable is decoration.
[21:40] So many companies, including Casablanca,
[21:43] started purchasing real ceiling fan motors from suppliers like Emerson
[21:47] and concealing them in decorative shrouds
[21:50] which replicated the appearance of old timey fans.
[21:54] Give the blades some details, like perhaps a stencil or a woven inlay,
[21:59] and now you have a decorative fan, 
which is both in fashion and —
[22:03] get this, actually works!
[22:06] Ceiling fans were now being sold as a premium item
[22:10] which was both an energy saving appliance and furniture,
[22:15] and this was only the beginning.
[22:17] You see, there would be a sequel to the 1973 oil crisis in 1979.
[22:23] And so ceiling fans, already experiencing renewed interest
[22:27] as a premium item for the nostalgic middle class,
[22:30] started flying off the shelves.
[22:33] We finally realized we had made a mistake
[22:36] in getting rid of all those ceiling fans.
[22:38] They made us comfortable before air conditioning, after all,
[22:42] and our collective decision to view air conditioning as a replacement for them
[22:46] turned out to be a false choice.
[22:50] As energy policy started to become a thing
[22:52] and we began looking at ways to increase energy efficiency,
[22:56] new homes started getting constructed with electrical boxes
[22:59] on the ceiling meant specifically for ceiling fans.
[23:03] Home builders were happy to go along with it, too,
[23:05] since a fan with a light kit could fulfill code requirements for lighting in bedrooms and living rooms.
[23:11] This massively increased the market for new ceiling fans,
[23:15] and with a new market came a flurry of innovation.
[23:19] For the first time in decades,
[23:21] new motor designs meant specifically for ceiling fans were being developed
[23:26] to make them even more energy efficient than they already were.
[23:30] Some were flops, but others were significant 
improvements both to performance and noise.
[23:36] New controls for those motors appeared,
[23:38] offering more speed settings than the 2 or 3 you'd typically find.
[23:42] And if you wanted to get fancy, you could put in an in wall speed control
[23:46] so you didn't even have to pull on a chain to switch it on.
[23:50] And of course, with renewed interest, 
many more designs started to appear.
[23:55] And now ceiling fans weren't just 
the industrial machines you'd find in a factory,
[24:00] but could actually be a centerpiece of your living room
[24:03] to express your taste and brag to your friends about.
[24:07] Now I'm going to take a little bit of a break from the history here
[24:10] to explain what makes ceiling fans so different from a portable fan,
[24:15] and thus why they suddenly became desirable in the home.
[24:19] For one thing, mounting a fan on the ceiling
[24:22] means it's out of the way, yet always there which is convenient.
[24:26] But putting a fan on the ceiling produces 
a very different cooling effect than a directional fan.
[24:34] Ceiling fans are still directional, of course,
[24:36] and you'll feel their breeze most when you're directly underneath them.
[24:40] But their large diameter means they produce a large column of air moving downward,
[24:46] which will bounce off the floor and spread out sideways,
[24:50] producing noticeable air movement throughout a room.
[24:53] As a matter of fact, this is the principle behind
[24:55] those high volume, low speed ceiling fans which have been popping up lately.
[25:00] Put a giant ceiling fan at the top of a warehouse or shopping center,
[25:04] and it will send strong lateral currents of air through the aisles and over a really large area.
[25:11] Ceiling fans are essentially trying to replicate a natural breeze.
[25:16] If you can imagine the sort of relief you feel on a warm day
[25:20] when the wind picks up enough to make the tree leaves rustle...
[25:23] well, that's pretty much the point of a ceiling fan.
[25:26] And you feel relief for two reasons.
[25:29] First, in still air, your warm body heats up the air next to 
your skin, and if you yourself aren't moving,
[25:37] you end up surrounded by a bubble of air 
which is warmer than the rest of the room.
[25:42] A ceiling fan, even if it's running at a low speed, is able to constantly push that air away from you,
[25:49] which has the effect of making the room seem cooler than it is.
[25:53] This is perfect for amplifying 
the effectiveness of an air conditioner,
[25:57] and since most ceiling fans only draw 20 or 30W of power when running at their medium speed setting,
[26:03] that amplifying effect comes with virtually no cost.
[26:08] But it doesn't just amplify what your air conditioner does,
[26:11] it also amplifies what your body naturally does.
[26:15] We cool ourselves through perspiration, 
and as sweat evaporates from our skin,
[26:20] heat energy is pulled out of our bodies
[26:22] thanks to the same mechanism which makes air conditioning possible:
[26:26] The latent heat of vaporization.
[26:28] A ceiling fan churning up the air in a room
[26:32] will help your sweat to evaporate faster,
[26:34] which not only cools your body faster,
[26:37] but can also keep your sweat from building up on your skin
[26:40] and making you feel all gross.
[26:42] Best of all, a ceiling fan can do this without making much noise.
[26:48] Running at high speed, most ceiling fans 
sound very similar to natural wind
[26:52] and running at lower speeds, many are effectively silent.
[26:57] That's the logic which caused them to get popular again.
[27:01] Everyone already knew they could save energy using fans,
[27:04] but every other style of fan is not only loud,
[27:08] but also only really works for one person at a time.
[27:12] And while oscillating mechanisms existed
[27:14] to make portable fans like this sweep across the room...
[27:18] well, that's its own kind of annoying.
[27:21] Ceiling fans allow for a constant, 
mild breeze with none of the fuss,
[27:25] and if that breeze makes you feel comfortable enough to raise your thermostat set point by a few degrees,
[27:31] a ceiling fan will save energy 
and money without sacrificing comfort.
[27:36] So for the millions of Americans who already have ceiling fans but might have gotten out of the habit of using them,
[27:43] switch those suckers on and see how they make you feel.
[27:47] It's a subtle effect, so it may take a while to notice,
[27:50] but their subtlety is the point.
[27:53] And ceiling fans have other benefits beyond cooling.
[27:56] Most ceiling fans offer a reversing function
[27:59] because by drawing air from below
and throwing it up against the ceiling,
[28:03] they can churn up the air in 
a room without creating much of a draft.
[28:08] In fact, many fans set to their lowest speed 
aren't even noticeable when running in reverse,
[28:14] but they'll still be moving enough air to keep the room at a uniform temperature,
[28:19] which can be very useful in the winter.
[28:23] Thermal gradients aren't as much of an issue in a home with typical ceiling heights,
[28:25] but keeping the air mixed up just enough can reduce the effect of drafty windows and doors,
[28:33] and can even help an HVAC system operate more efficiently,
[28:37] particularly when your system has distribution issues like poorly placed vents and returns.
[28:42] But let's get back to the story from the past,
[28:45] because their sudden popularity would soon lead to some inevitable consequences.
[28:51] Domestic manufacturing, 
which had all but abandoned ceiling fans,
[28:56] couldn't possibly keep up with this very sudden demand.
[29:00] Not only were new homes getting constructed with several fans each,
[29:04] but folks looking to add fans to their existing home wanted options, too.
[29:09] In yet another example of fortuitous timing, the rather new concept of the big box home improvement store
[29:16] was starting to sweep the nation, and ceiling fans were some of their best selling items.
[29:22] Accordingly, the purchasing departments of stores
[29:25] like Builders Square, Home Depot, Lowe's and Menards
[29:28] started contracting with overseas suppliers 
to meet the seemingly insatiable demand.
[29:35] Remember how Hong Kong was making 
tons of ceiling fans for Asian markets?
[29:39] Well, suddenly they were making them for us, too.
[29:43] But even that wouldn't be enough.
[29:45] The ceiling fan market in the US continued to grow 
through the reforming and opening up of mainland China.
[29:51] So tons of ceiling fan factories started 
popping up there just for our market.
[29:57] They were apparently puzzled by our desire 
to have antiquated looking ceiling fans and not modern ones,
[30:02] but they were still fundamentally motors on sticks,
[30:06] and thus they were pretty cheap to make and to customize.
[30:10] Just as Casablanca was putting motors 
from Emerson inside decorative shells,
[30:14] Chinese factories would do the same with their own motors.
[30:18] There's even some evidence that the, uh, unauthorized copying
[30:23] of intellectual property common in Chinese manufacturing started thanks to, of all things,
[30:30] the sudden and explosive growth in ceiling fans.
[30:35] Saying that it started thanks to ceiling fans is obviously speculation.
[30:38] But this was all happening right as manufacturing in mainland China was getting serious
[30:44] and factories were constantly copying design details from one another
[30:48] as deals brokered for American firms were made and, uh,
[30:54] broken.
[30:56] We're not necessarily the good guys in those stories.
[30:59] My friend Dan, who served as 
script consultant and fact checker
[31:03] and who supplied many of the fans I've shown you, 
has a video explaining this
[31:07] if you'd like to know the specifics of certain situations,
[31:10] but the early to mid 80s were a wild time!
[31:15] Nostalgia, the growth of big box stores, the shift to overseas 
manufacturing, and hard learned lessons from an energy crisis
[31:23] all lined up to make ceiling fans 
a shockingly lucrative business for a hot minute,
[31:29] which everyone wanted to be a part of.
[31:31] Because if you could manage to import 
ceiling fans, you would sell them.
[31:36] But, if you didn't already see this coming,
[31:39] here's where we get to the bad news.
[31:42] Or, more fairly, the complicated news.
[31:46] As ceiling fans became popular and manufacturing got cheaper,
[31:51] the market changed in many ways which made ceiling fans abundant
[31:56] but ultimately much worse at their job.
[32:00] Initially, imported fans were pretty good.
[32:03] Yes, the motors were made cheaply, but they were still powerful.
[32:07] Remember, Hong Kong was making ceiling fans because it's hot over there too,
[32:12] and the compact size of the spinner motor
 made them perfect for hiding in all sorts of different designs.
[32:18] It was really a match made in heaven.
[32:21] But the ceiling fan would become a victim of its inherent simplicity.
[32:25] And before long, things would go off the rails.
[32:29] Now that ceiling fans had become a commodity,
[32:32] most were being sold for one of two reasons:
[32:36] style or price.
[32:38] And both of those things began 
to distort the function of a ceiling fan.
[32:44] Big box stores had already started 
a race to the bottom by competing on price,
[32:49] and were encouraging their 
suppliers to cut costs wherever possible.
[32:53] The motor is the most expensive component in a ceiling fan.
[32:57] And to make it cheaper, it's got to get smaller and weaker.
[33:01] So they did.
[33:03] And ceiling fans became rather weak sauce.
[33:06] And this didn't get any better because 
the other thing which sells fans - style
[33:11] didn't matter to the motor
[33:14] manufacturers quickly realized they could 
just put the same cheap motor into many,
[33:19] many different styles of fan and create a huge product line
[33:24] all based around the same pretty crappy components.
[33:28] But style is also what sells many premium fans, so even the quality options on the market
[33:35] would start to suffer as vanity took hold.
[33:38] For example, while the turn of the century fad would eventually end,
[33:43] a new fan fad started in the 90s, where plain ceiling fan blades were replaced with giant leaf looking things.
[33:50] And you can still by fans that look like that today.
[33:54] That design is charming,
[33:56] at least to some folks,
[33:57] but it simply doesn't work as well as a traditional fan.
[34:02] That design is far more decorative than it is functional,
[34:06] which is poetic given that's what put 
Casablanca on the map in the first place.
[34:11] The resurgent ceiling fans of the late 70s were never sold purely on their merits,
[34:16] and once it became obvious that style was the main thing which sold ceiling fans,
[34:22] manufacturers looked at the race to the bottom they were already in and floored it.
[34:27] Before long, the mass market ceiling fan 
pretty much turned to low effort,
[34:32] barely passable slop.
[34:35] And we are still dealing with that.
[34:37] There are countless options on the market today,
[34:40] but having played around with some vintage fans,
[34:43] it's become quite clear to me that we've pretty much lost the plot.
[34:47] The high speed setting of almost every ceiling fan I've ever lived with
[34:52] is nowhere near as powerful as this old Emerson fan.
[34:56] So if you've ever felt that ceiling fans don't seem to really do anything,
[35:01] there's actually some truth to that beyond their inherent subtlety.
[35:06] They genuinely became much worse when form took precedence to function.
[35:12] And there's what I would call a truly remarkable piece of evidence for this.
[35:18] Remember that ceiling fan from Hunter I showed you earlier?
[35:22] This particular example was made in the late 1970s,
[35:25] but this design traces all the way back to 1906.
[35:31] when Robbins and Myers 
purchased the Hunter Fan Company in 1949,
[35:35] they just sort of let those guys in Memphis keep on making the same ceiling fan motors they had always been making.
[35:42] If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
[35:45] And you bet the folks at Hunter 
smelled opportunity with that turn of the century fad.
[35:49] Here's the installation instructions for 
The Original Hunter Old Tyme Ceiling Fans.
[35:55] And if you think it's remarkable that a fan from 1906 
kept getting made into the 1970s,
[36:02] wait’ll I tell ya they still haven't stopped!
[36:05] This is the Hunter Original,
[36:08] a 120 year old ceiling fan design which is somehow still in production.
[36:16] There's a bit of a Ship of Theseus situation going on here 
since the new Hunter original in this box
[36:21] doesn't have quite the same motor design due to technical revisions over the years,
[36:25] and plenty of smaller details have changed, too.
[36:28] Plus, it's now made in China because of course it is.
[36:30] But Hunter is still using the same cast iron housing,
[36:35] and they are still using an oil bath bearing.
[36:40] Yes, that means this thing needs oil.
[36:44] There are so many reasons that's wild in 2026,
[36:47] but as the box is proud to boast,
[36:50] this is a proven design which stands 
a very good chance of outliving you.
[36:55] You can probably already tell I am extremely fond of this.
[36:58] It's such a unicorn of a thing.
[37:01] What other machine has been in 
continuous production for 120 years?
[37:07] But before I fawn over it too much,
[37:09] I want to make sure you know that it takes a certain kind of crazy to buy one of these things.
[37:15] A Hunter Original currently retails for $750,
[37:19] which is quite a lot of money for such a basic fan 
which weighs enough to be slightly terrifying and needs oiling.
[37:26] But I am that kind of crazy.
[37:29] And this is a fascinating case study of what has happened to ceiling fans over the years.
[37:34] This is a machine which is stuck in time 
because it respects its purpose.
[37:40] It's not trying to look cool or chase trends.
[37:43] It's not trying to be a cheap option, that's for sure.
[37:45] It's simply trying to be an excellent ceiling fan,
[37:49] and its continued existence proves that at least some people are still willing to pay for that.
[37:55] Let's do an unboxing, shall we?
[37:57] The first thing we're greeted by is the instruction manual,
[38:00] which lets you know right away 
that you have the option to install either 4 or 5 blades.
[38:06] I really appreciate that Hunter does this,
[38:08] especially since so many actually antique 
fans with four blades are still in service.
[38:14] These things last forever.
[38:16] And before you ask, it's going to perform 
the same no matter what you choose.
[38:20] The motor produces a constant power output,
[38:23] so adding the fifth blade will just 
slow it down a little bit as it increases drag,
[38:27] but it's still going to move the same amount of air.
[38:30] though the five blade configuration is a little bit quieter.
[38:33] As we keep going, we have the blades, of course,
[38:36] and like many fans, they're reversible 
with two different finishes on each side.
[38:40] Then we have the included bottle of oil
because remember this thing needs oiling
[38:45] just like its 1906.
[38:47] You will likely never really need to add oil again once installed,
[38:51] but it comes with a pipe cleaner to check the oil level,
[38:53] which they recommend doing every five years.
[38:56] Then there's the included very tiny 
downrod and hardware to hang the fan.
[39:01] This would be appropriate for standard eight foot ceilings,
[39:04] but if you've got taller ceilings, 
you should consider ordering a longer down rod.
[39:08] Two of the cast iron fan blade brackets are here, too.
[39:12] And then there it is.
[39:14] The 37 pound cast iron motor
which makes this the Hunter Original.
[39:21] This is the same exact fan as the vintage one from earlier.
[39:25] The only major differences are that this one is painted brown rather than polished into an antique brass finish,
[39:31] and the blades are attached very differently.
[39:34] The vintage fan has a shaded pole motor which is not reversible, so to provide a reversing option,
[39:41] Hunter created the Adaptair 
mounting system, which does... this.
[39:46] Bet you didn't think there were ceiling fans out there with collectives.
[39:50] The current Hunter Original has a much more efficient permanent split capacitor motor,
[39:54] and since this kind of motor is trivial to reverse,
[39:57] it now has a reversing switch.
[40:00] Much less cool, but also much more practical.
[40:03] One quick note I want to make sure I include
[40:05] is that while this fan doesn't come with a light kit,
[40:08] it does come with an adapter ring 
to fit one on its switch housing if you so desire.
[40:13] This is actually how ceiling fans were traditionally sold.
[40:17] They'd be pre-wired for a light kit
[40:19] (that's why there's a blue wire coming out the top of this thing)
[40:22] but you'd get to choose which 
light kit you wanted from various options
[40:26] Or to not get one if you didn't need it.
[40:29] In fact, way back in the day, 
the motor and blades were sold separately,
[40:33] so you were basically building your own fan from a series of options.
[40:38] Too bad the world doesn't work like that anymore.
[40:41] And this motor, while identical in appearance...
[40:44] Well, it's now a little harder to say 
that what you're looking at is the motor itself.
[40:49] The current design actually is an inside out spinner motor.
[40:53] The windings are now close to the center of the fan
[40:56] and the rotor surrounds them.
[40:58] It's still a cast iron rotor and it still has that old bath bearing.
[41:02] So this is very much an old fashioned way to build a ceiling fan.
[41:06] But now it is more like a modern motor
which happens to be contained in an antique cast iron housing.
[41:14] This is really apparent from the top, where you can see 
the stamped steel assembly for the windings.
[41:20] Obviously the smaller guts mean the cast iron 
body could be much smaller than it actually is,
[41:26] but I for one, think it's extremely cool that Hunter has chosen to keep making it exactly like they always have.
[41:35] Except for that vent hole.
[41:37] Why is that hole a circle?
[41:39] That's very irritating.
[41:41] But I'll deal with that,
[41:42] because installing one of these 
brand new ancient fans in my bedroom
[41:47] (yes, that does mean I did buy two of them)
[41:49] has proven to be somewhat revelatory
when it comes to the modern ceiling fan market.
[41:54] This thing is simply a much better ceiling 
fan than anything else I've ever experienced in my life.
[42:00] Well, except for the vintage one of these.
[42:03] For one, this motor is nearly silent.
[42:06] At high speed I can detect the faintest bit of 60 cycle hum,
[42:10] but it's completely overwhelmed by the wind 
noise once the blades are moving.
[42:14] and running at full speed, despite the fact 
that it makes a whirlwind in the room,
[42:19] the noise it makes is remarkably tame.
[42:22] It might be a touch louder than the extremely ordinary 
fan it replaced, but certainly not by much.
[42:28] Even more notable to me is that on its medium speed,
 the fan produces nearly no noise at all.
[42:35] It's just a very faint rustling on medium,
[42:38] and yet it feels like the 
fastest speed offered by the fan it replaced.
[42:44] Now "feels like" is an important thing to call out.
[42:48] I'm going to discuss this more later on
[42:50] because there's a lot more to a ceiling fan’s 
performance than how much air it can move.
[42:55] But I did buy an anemometer so I could measure wind speed
[42:59] to provide the closest thing to an objective comparison I can.
[43:03] The Kichler fan I took down, 
which I'd very much describe as builder grade,
[43:09] was registering about 2.2m/s 
when running at its highest speed setting.
[43:14] This reading was taken at arm's length directly below the fan, and I moved around to find the sweet spot.
[43:20] And whaddya know, the Hunter Original 
also produced about 2.2m/s of wind speed
[43:26] while only running on its medium setting.
[43:30] So not only does it feel like the same thing to me,
[43:33] but the numbers seem to agree.
[43:36] This is especially interesting to me
[43:38] because the Kichler fan drew about 55W from the wall to produce that wind speed,
[43:43] while the Hunter fan was 
only pulling about 37W to do the same.
[43:48] This ancient design would appear to be more energy efficient 
when providing equivalent performance.
[43:55] Now it will draw much more power on high.
[43:58] Here it was drawing 85W, though I've seen it get 
as high as 90, probably just due to voltage fluctuations.
[44:04] But of course when it does that 
you also get way more air moving!
[44:09] The sweet spot on high seemed to bounce back and forth
[44:12] between 3.3 and 3.4 meters per second.
[44:15] That's 50% faster wind speed than the Kichler fan could produce.
[44:19] And best of all, it doesn't seem to be any louder when it does so.
[44:24] Look closely at the fan blades, 
and you'll get a clue as to why this is.
[44:28] It may not come across super well on camera,
[44:31] but the blades of the Original are pitched 
much more aggressively than most ceiling fans.
[44:36] This means they don't need to be moving nearly as fast 
to push on the same amount of air.
[44:43] As has always been the case,
[44:44] this motor is only designed to rotate at about 200 rpm,
[44:48] but with these sharply angled blades 
that results in plenty of air movement.
[44:54] The ceiling fan it replaced also got up to nearly the same rotational speed, but with shallower blades
[45:01] that just meant it made a similar amount of noise while not being nearly as effective.
[45:06] Another very traditional thing about this fan is how it mounts to the ceiling.
[45:11] While most fans now incorporate some kind of ball and socket joint
[45:15] which allows them to be suspended from angled ceilings,
[45:17] this is using an old fashioned hook and rubber bushing.
[45:22] That's it.
[45:24] Because this fan is so dang heavy,
[45:26] they really want you to attach this directly to the building structure.
[45:30] But if you know you've got a true ceiling fan 
box rated to support at least this much weight, that's fine too.
[45:37] Except despite knowing I had a ceiling fan box,
[45:40] these mounting holes in the bracket didn't line up in my case,
[45:43] so I had to drill an extra one and use a big washer for peace of mind.
[45:47] That was annoying, but I got there.
[45:50] The decorative canopy which conceals its mount and wiring attaches directly to the downrod itself
[45:55] and leaves a small gap against the ceiling.
[45:58] This looks a little weird,
[46:00] but it means if the fan is rocking somewhat 
while it runs, it all moves as one piece,
[46:06] and you don't have any irritating clicking or ticking noises to worry about.
[46:11] This is old fashioned,
[46:13] but it is truly an excellent fan and I would say 
it's genuinely worth its high price.
[46:19] That is, if what you want out of a ceiling fan is extremely good performance.
[46:25] But here's where we get to the very frustrating reality at the bottom of all this.
[46:31] Everything -
[46:32] Every single thing about a ceiling 
fan is not only extremely situational,
[46:39] but also deeply subjective.
[46:42] We all have different priorities,
[46:43] and perhaps you would rather trade performance for something a little more modern.
[46:48] But we probably also don't even agree on what performance means.
[46:54] Every human is going to have a different reaction
to a given ceiling fan.
[46:58] Our bodies perspire at different rates,
[47:00] which means the literal cooling power of an identical breeze
[47:04] is different from person to person,
and the perceived effect even more so.
[47:08] I can't really tell you what makes a good ceiling fan,
[47:12] because that depends on so many things,
[47:14] and that's a huge part of why ceiling 
fans have largely gone to crap.
[47:19] It's difficult to be objective, so nobody really tries.
[47:24] Now we have come up with ways to make objective comparisons between ceiling fan models.
[47:30] But I am now pretty thoroughly convinced,
[47:33] mostly due to my experience with this fan,
[47:36] that those methods don't actually work.
[47:40] Let me explain.
[47:42] If you shop for a ceiling fan, you're going to find
[47:44] that they're given an airflow rating 
in CFM, that's cubic feet per minute.
[47:50] The EPA, through its Energy Star program,
[47:52] developed a pretty scientific test procedure,
[47:55] along with quite the testing rig for doing this.
[47:58] Now, I'm not actually sure
[47:59] whether this is the test procedure done to all ceiling fans,
[48:02] since it's the Federal Trade Commission which is responsible
[48:05] for these energy guide labels and not the EPA.
[48:08] Plus, this test is meant for 
Energy Star certification, which is optional.
[48:13] Regardless, that's not important to the argument I'm about to make.
[48:18] Well, it might be, but more on that later.
[48:21] CFM is something we can measure objectively, and on the surface,
[48:25] it feels like the most apples to apples 
number you could give to a ceiling fan.
[48:30] This thing is, after all, a fan.
[48:33] And moving air is how fans make you feel cool.
[48:37] But a ceiling fan is not a blower fan with a cowl 
to suck air in from one side and blow it out another.
[48:45] Nor is it a squirrel cage fan feeding a duct.
[48:48] It's just a great big fan hanging in the open air, and its purpose isn't to move volumes of air,
[48:55] but to create artificial wind you can feel.
[48:59] Therefore, the velocity of the air once it gets to where you are is what matters to perceived performance.
[49:06] And because we're talking about ceiling fans, you're probably not going to be that close to it all the time.
[49:12] Sure, that testing rig can measure the volume of air flowing through that cylinder.
[49:17] But that's not actually very relevant 
to what a ceiling fan is trying to do.
[49:22] To be clear,
I'm not saying that CFM information isn't potentially useful.
[49:26] And if we look back at those old instructions 
from Hunter, it's listed there too.
[49:31] So this isn't a new thing, but I am saying that CFM on its own
[49:36] describes less than you'd think.
[49:39] Take a look at this reading from the anemometer.
[49:41] I've placed it a couple of paces back from the ceiling fan,
[49:45] so it's measuring the lateral currents produced 
after the air bounces off the floor.
[49:50] The reading is hovering around 0.8m/s.
[49:54] This is what matters to the subjective experience of a ceiling fan,
[49:58] because that wind speed determines what you're feeling on the ground.
[50:03] And the thing is, if all I do is 
elevate the anemometer very slightly,
[50:08] the reading is cut in half and occasionally the airflow nearly stops.
[50:14] Turbulence is going to affect how quickly 
the air is moving in any particular location,
[50:19] and you can see from the fact that the reading is bouncing around that it's anything but consistent.
[50:25] The effect is even more pronounced
when the fan is running at high speed.
[50:29] Ah, but what about the stand?
[50:32] Could that be influencing the reading of the anemometer?
[50:36] Perhaps, but that's kind of my point.
[50:39] Obstructions in a room like the furniture are going to change the path air takes after a ceiling fan throws it to the floor,
[50:47] and especially since air currents collide with each other,
[50:50] that could increase or decrease the wind speed on its way to you,
[50:55] and thus how effective the ceiling fan seems to be.
[50:58] CFM is irrelevant to those factors.
[51:02] It's not just the stuff in the room either.
[51:05] The shape of the room, the size of the room,
[51:07] and even where the ceiling fan was installed in that room
[51:11] all make significant differences to how it performs.
[51:15] Another huge factor is how close the ceiling fan is to the ceiling.
[51:20] As the sweeping blades push air downward,
[51:22] it has to be replaced by new air from above,
[51:26] and when the blades are right up against the ceiling,
[51:28] the fan can only grab new air through a relatively narrow slot at the edges,
[51:33] and that creates pressure gradients above the fan, which screw up its air distribution.
[51:39] This is why so-called hugger fans, designed for rooms 
with low ceilings often don't work that well.
[51:45] In general, the lower the fan can be from the ceiling, the better.
[51:50] Safety standards in the US require the fan blades to be seven feet off the floor,
[51:54] and with standard eight foot ceilings, 
there's not much room to play with.
[51:58] So I get why hugger fans exist,
[52:01] but the test procedure the EPA uses hangs 
the fan over three feet from the ceiling,
[52:07] so the results from that test are not representative of almost anyone's reality.
[52:12] Setting aside all those real world variables, 
two fans with the same CFM rating
[52:18] can themselves deliver air extremely differently.
[52:21] For instance, these fans with their simple paddles
[52:25] are really just producing a column of downward air movement.
[52:29] And that means the fan’s diameter is going to affect
[52:32] how tall the lateral currents of air are
[52:35] once it hits the floor and spreads out sideways.
[52:39] A small fan with an identical CFM rating to a large one may not produce a noticeable air current except right down by the floor,
[52:48] which is not very useful if you're looking to install a ceiling fan 
so you feel a breeze when lying in bed.
[52:54] This is, incidentally, why I think these newfangled 
fandalier things are extremely silly.
[53:01] The whole point of a ceiling fan is 
to be big so you feel it everywhere in a room.
[53:07] That's also why I find sizing guidance based on square footage to be silly.
[53:11] It seems mostly based on 
perceived visual appropriateness, and little else.
[53:16] Go as big as you want.
[53:17] It'll probably work better.
[53:19] But even ceiling fans with identical diameters can distribute 
air differently because of their blade design.
[53:26] Fans with curved blades or fancy airfoil shapes are like that 
so they don't just create a column of air below them.
[53:34] Those fans will throw some air out to the sides,
[53:37] so that their output can be felt directly 
over a wider area than the fan’s diameter.
[53:42] And that can avoid the issue of obstructions changing the direction of air currents,
[53:47] which may or may not be better 
depending on your preferences and your situation.
[53:52] This CFM rating does absolutely nothing to explain any of this.
[53:57] Therefore, I am simply not at all convinced 
that it's enough information to be useful.
[54:03] And even if it were,
[54:06] I am now very convinced that the 
CFM number on these labels is wrong.
[54:12] Again, all of this is subjective 
and situational, which I need to acknowledge.
[54:17] But in my previous home, I installed two outdoor ceiling fans from Menards, which the Energy Guide label rated 3,911 CFM.
[54:28] Since the Hunter Original is also an outdoor rated fan 
and its diameter is within two inches of those fans,
[54:35] the CFM numbers should be apples to apples,
[54:38] and since the original is rated 4,620,
[54:42] those Menards fans should have been 
within spitting distance of this thing.
[54:46] But they were definitely not.
[54:50] I can't go back in time to make a true side by side comparison,
[54:53] but I would estimate that the Hunter is at 
least twice as powerful as those fans were.
[54:59] So not only do I have plenty of logical reasons 
to doubt that a CFM rating can actually tell you very much,
[55:05] but I also have firsthand 
experience which contradicts these labels.
[55:10] And it gets worse.
[55:12] The credibility of these labels 
is also put into question by several basic facts.
[55:18] If you look at the Hunter original on the Lowe's website,
[55:21] you'll see that they are claiming it moves 6,716 CFM.
[55:26] Awfully close to the 7000 Hunter was claiming back in the 70s.
[55:30] It's almost like it's the same fan or something.
[55:33] So where does this 4,620 number actually come from?
[55:38] Could it be there listing the airflow 
on the medium speed without telling us?
[55:43] That would, after all, line up with typical use, I suppose.
[55:48] Well perhaps.
[55:50] But that 53 watt figure there?
[55:52] That's awfully strange.
[55:54] And not just because the FTC doesn't seem to know watts aren't energy.
[55:58] My testing, which says this fan runs at between 85 and 90 watts on high and at less than 40 watts on medium
[56:06] would seem to imply this fan was tested at a speed which doesn't actually exist.
[56:11] So how on Earth am I supposed to trust that CFM number means anything relevant to the fan's real world performance?
[56:19] But now we've got to talk about 
why those labels are there in the first place.
[56:23] Because even if I had no reason to doubt their accuracy,
[56:27] I think there's a very good case to be made
[56:29] that the motivation behind them is backfiring
[56:32] and defeating the very point of a ceiling fan.
[56:36] Much like the energy guide labels on things
like refrigerators and water heaters,
[56:40] this is there to encourage you 
to pick an energy efficient ceiling fan.
[56:45] Ceiling fans are an energy consuming appliance, after all,
[56:48] and that's why it shows you an estimated cost figure.
[56:52] And look, there are certainly gains to be made there.
[56:56] We've gotten much better at making motors over the years,
[56:59] and that's how the Hunter Original of today 
only needs 90W of power
[57:03] to do what the fan of 1970 something needed 155 watts to do.
[57:09] But we're not actually evaluating the efficiency of ceiling fans based on how efficient their motors are at performing work.
[57:16] We're doing it based on CFM per watt.
[57:20] Now, I understand the logic there.
[57:22] You can put the same motor into all sorts of fan designs,
[57:25] so the finished product matters more than its guts.
[57:29] But since I'm not convinced the CFM number from a test 
rig describes ceiling fan performance in a useful way,
[57:36] we could very well be making ceiling fans worse at their job by chasing a metric which is effectively meaningless.
[57:43] I think we need to remember
[57:45] we're talking about ceiling fans, folks.
[57:48] They are themselves an efficiency play,
[57:50] and the whole point of their resurgence 
was to offset the energy use of air conditioning.
[57:56] And in order to actually be successful at that,
[57:59] first and foremost, the ceiling fan needs to be 
effective in the eyes of the person using it.
[58:05] A fan could have a miraculous CFM per watt 
figure if it's only drawing ten watts,
[58:11] but then it might not be powerful enough to actually do anything.
[58:15] And that's the maddening thing here.
[58:18] We know that the relationship between CFM 
and input power isn't linear.
[58:23] CFM per watt numbers get higher at lower fan speeds,
[58:28] so the metric becomes more impressive
[58:30] the weaker the fan is.
[58:33] Now, Energy Star is aware of this,
[58:36] and that's why the number they give is a weighted average.
[58:39] For instance, this fan model is rated 220 CFM per watt, despite the fact that on its highest speed,
[58:46] which draws 29.5W while supposedly delivering 4,053 CFM,
[58:51] the number only works out to 137 CFM per watt.
[58:56] But I don't actually know that its 
top speed is equivalent to 4,053 CFM
[59:01] because Energy Star doesn't tell you CFM numbers, and the Energy Guide label hasn't specified which speed it's showing you.
[59:07] And the Energy Guide label says the fan only moves 
166 CFM per watt, and also that it only uses 24 watts.
[59:15] This whole situation is just royally forked up.
[59:18] But most importantly,
[59:20] performance is the thing which actually matters,
[59:24] and a fan which uses more energy can very well end up saving energy because it does a better job at being a fan.
[59:31] To illustrate this, let's go back to the Hunter versus the Kichler.
[59:35] The 85W this fan draws on high
[59:38] does mean the fan uses more energy than the Kichler, 
which maxes out at 55W ever will.
[59:44] And yeah, that means using the Hunter fan will cost more.
[59:49] But if the Hunter running at 85W cools 
you off more effectively than the Kichler at 55W,
[59:57] which it definitely will,
[59:59] then it can buy you a couple extra clicks on your thermostat,
[60:02] which will more than pay for those extra 30 watts.
[60:06] Even if you ran the fan 24/7.
[60:10] If spending an extra 30W means you can keep a tiny 1 kW air conditioner from running for just an hour a day,
[60:17] you'll have spent an extra 720 watt-hours 
using this, but you'll save 1,000.
[60:23] And don't forget, this has a medium speed, too. Even a low one!
[60:27] And you don't have to run it 24/7.
[60:29] So it's not always going to use 85 or 90W.
[60:33] You simply cannot possibly come up with a single CFM number 
or a single CFM per watt number for a ceiling fan,
[60:40] and our efforts to try are ignoring that an efficient 
but weak fan is not actually a useful fan.
[60:47] So are we possibly barking up the wrong tree here?
[60:50] I think there's pretty good evidence that we are.
[60:53] Now look, if you've been watching me for a while,
[60:55] you might already know that my feelings here are complicated.
[60:58] I understand the desire to reduce 
the amount of energy ceiling fans use,
[61:03] especially since your average Midwestern home 
probably has 4 or 5 of them these days.
[61:08] But they have to be good at the thing they're supposed to do
[61:11] if we have any hope of them offsetting air conditioning use.
[61:14] If we're creating efficiency targets based around CFM per watt,
[61:19] that may look good on paper, 
but if it hurts real world performance,
[61:23] then we're defeating the point of
 having a ceiling fan in the first place.
[61:29] To be clear, I'm not blaming energy policy 
alone for making ceiling fans worse.
[61:34] It may play a part, but there are plenty of other pressures 
pushing us that way too.
[61:39] The race to the bottom is still very much a thing.
[61:42] But I am saying policy may be too focused 
on the energy needs of the fan itself,
[61:47] and we should probably refine how we're evaluating them.
[61:50] Because as of now, it feels like we've lost the plot.
[61:54] And remember. We're talking about ceiling fans.
[61:59] They're not exactly power hungry
things and never were in the first place.
[62:03] And through our decision to chase diminishing returns,
[62:07] we're creating pressures I'm not super fond of.
[62:10] For example, the Energy Star certified fan we've been looking at
[62:13] has a DC motor, and many of them do these days.
[62:18] Those can be more energy efficient,
[62:20] but that adds a lot of complexity 
to an otherwise very simple product.
[62:26] DC motors need DC power supplies 
and motor controllers just to function,
[62:31] which adds two electronic devices with potential points of failure.
[62:35] And I do think it's a bit ironic that this Energy Star certified fan
[62:38] has a standby power consumption of 0.3W,
[62:43] meaning it's going to use at least 2.6kWh 
of energy every year even if you don't use it.
[62:49] That's fun.
[62:51] There are advantages to a DC motor 
beyond efficiency, which some shoppers will appreciate.
[62:56] For instance, they don't hum like an AC motor can,
[63:00] and they can offer many more fan speeds without requiring a fancy and potentially persnickety motor controller
[63:07] like you do with an AC motor.
[63:09] Solid state variable speed fan 
controls for a fan like this do exist,
[63:13] but they're not easy to come by.
[63:16] Additionally, though it's not my cup of tea,
[63:18] it's easier to incorporate things like smart controls 
and built-in LED lighting
[63:23] when your ceiling fan has a DC power supply on board.
[63:26] So I get that market pressures 
are also pushing us in that direction.
[63:32] Regardless, the permanent split capacitor AC induction motors in a typical ceiling fan are still pretty energy efficient,
[63:38] and best of all, they simply get hooked right up to line voltage.
[63:43] They don't have any electronics controlling them other than a capacitor,
[63:47] and thus there are only two things 
which might go wrong with such a ceiling fan.
[63:51] Either the bearing can fail 
and the fan will start to get noisy as it spins,
[63:56] or the capacitor can fail which will cause the fan to spin slowly or perhaps not at all.
[64:01] Barring a catastrophic short in the motor windings,
[64:04] or I guess a failed power switch,
[64:07] That's really all that can go wrong with a traditional ceiling fan.
[64:11] And replacing a failed ceiling fan capacitor is really easy, too.
[64:15] In fact, hardware stores stock replacements.
[64:17] There's plenty of merit to the simplicity of an AC motor,
[64:22] and the Hunter Original proves 
you absolutely can make one which doesn't hum.
[64:26] You just have to, you know, try.
[64:30] This is why I've developed more than a bit 
of a fascination with the Hunter Original.
[64:35] It's an extremely old ceiling fan design, and yet it seems to be among the best performing ceiling fans out there,
[64:43] at least of the kind you typically find in a home.
[64:46] And I mean,
[64:47] while it feels very surprising
[64:49] given that we live in the age of computer aided 
design and advanced modeling of fluid dynamics,
[64:54] in other ways, it's really not.
[64:57] Yes, 1906 was 120 years ago,
[65:00] but it's not like we didn't know how to experiment back then.
[65:04] And we definitely wanted to 
get the most out of a very expensive motor.
[65:10] Four plain, rectangular paddles 
might seem like a very low effort design,
[65:14] but it clearly works and a lot 
better than every ordinary ceiling fan I've ever lived with.
[65:21] Ceiling fans essentially didn't change at all 
between when this thing was first designed
[65:27] and the resurgence of the 1970s.
[65:31] We just figured them out!
[65:34] That's how you make a ceiling fan which is good.
[65:37] Other than Emerson switching to a cheaper motor 
which allowed them to leverage economies of scale
[65:42] ...and shut down a production line,
[65:45] the fundamentals remained exactly the same 
right up until manufacturing went overseas.
[65:51] And that's what's tricky about this story.
[65:54] The purpose of a ceiling fan 
changed when it came back into fashion.
[65:59] Performance didn't matter as much now that they were meant to help your air conditioner
[66:04] and not provide cooling on their own.
[66:06] And that created affordances for 
cost cutting without significant consequence.
[66:12] Cost cut ceiling fans, in turn, 
created competition based on retail price.
[66:17] And then once every big box store 
had their own line of cheap ceiling fans
[66:21] that created competition based on style.
[66:23] And then once everybody was copying each other,
[66:26] that created competition based on gimmicks like remote controls
[66:29] and these days, Alexa integration.
[66:33] After several rounds of this nonsense, we sort of forgot 
what makes a good ceiling fan in the first place.
[66:40] And all that complexity is before we get to the energy standards, 
which I would have no problem with at all if I were convinced
[66:47] we were measuring performance of a ceiling fan correctly.
[66:51] Which I'm not.
[66:54] And the fact that Hunter still produces 
this ancient thing in 2026 is the main reason I feel that way.
[67:01] Its existence is no means hard evidence of anything.
[67:05] A cast iron motor housing and an oil bath bearing
[67:08] are certainly not necessary for a well-performing ceiling fan.
[67:12] Anyone could copy this fan's performance for a much lower price.
[67:17] All you need is a motor which is equally strong,
[67:19] and fan blades with the same specification.
[67:22] And that's not hard to come by.
[67:24] But the enduring existence of this design proves
[67:27] there are enough people out there who believe function matters over form, and are still willing to pay for it.
[67:35] This thing's sales are helped, no doubt, by its timeless appearance,
[67:39] but asking someone to check the oil in their ceiling fan every five years with a pipe cleaner
[67:45] would certainly be a bridge too far for anyone who doesn't really care about ceiling fans.
[67:50] I suppose that's the rub, isn't it?
[67:52] Many people care enough to have one,
[67:54] and many people care what it looks like.
[67:57] But the ceiling fan as a concept is so simple
[68:01] that it's hard to believe there's more to it than that.
[68:04] I didn't until I met someone who collects these things, and now,
[68:08] unfortunately, I've been cursed with knowledge of what's been lost.
[68:12] I believe The Good Place has taught us that
[68:15] the Hunter original is the ice cream of ceiling fans, 
while the modern ceiling fan is much like frozen yogurt.
[68:22] As Michael said,
[68:23] "there's something so human about taking something great and ruining it a little so you can have more of it."
[68:30] That's pretty much what happened with ceiling fans.
[68:33] It's not all bad news though.
[68:36] While most of the fans you can find in the home 
improvement store these days are pretty meh
[68:41] premium ceiling fan brands now exist,
[68:44] and I'm sure many of them made 
by the likes of Big Ass Fans are great.
[68:49] It's just kind of a shame what things look like today.
[68:53] Everyone who's got experience with ceiling fans
[68:55] probably has complaints about them too.
[68:57] I know I've had my fair share of them
[68:59] which rocked just enough to make some kind of a ticking noise which wouldn't go away,
[69:03] or which had a loud motor buzzing away all night,
[69:06] or which was weak and useless.
[69:09] But those complaints really come from 
how much we've lowered our standards in the name of more.
[69:16] Still, I'd rather have a landscape 
where average folks can afford a ceiling fan
[69:20] in every bedroom and living space they spend time in.
[69:24] And fans which don't need oiling.
[69:27] I know I'm repeating myself,
[69:28] but it's not like the Hunter original represents 
the only way to make a good ceiling fan.
[69:34] But its endurance makes a pretty airtight 
case that we've completely lost the plot.
[69:40] The formula has always been there,
[69:43] but first we need to stop ourselves from reinventing the wheel.
[69:47] I wouldn't have thought that 
something as simple as a ceiling fan
[69:50] would become subject to seemingly every human impulse
[69:54] and every Earth-changing event 
which has happened over the last century.
[69:58] But maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
[70:01] After all, that's capitalism.
[70:05] ♫ tempestuously smooth jazz ♫
[70:08] Bonus thing!
[70:09] The builder grade fan I took down to replace 
with a Hunter Original is a very funny example
[70:15] of how we are still importing Asian fans 
and dressing them up to look 'murican.
[70:20] This motor housing mimics the size 
and shape of the traditional pancake motor
[70:25] which the Hunter Original actually is,
[70:28] but the flywheel the blades attach to 
is in fact a commodity spinner motor
[70:33] just hiding in a vast expanse of empty space.
[70:37] We just still expect ceiling fans to look like this.
[70:40] And I mean, in the days when we were cost cutting like crazy,
[70:44] there was a time
[70:46] when we were just dangling light kits below spinner motors.
[70:50] But this just looks weird.
[70:55] So, did this video... blow your mind?
[70:58] I hope you didn't think it was too long-winded.
[71:01] Though that runtime sure is fun. Can't get mad at that!
[71:04] And I swear that wasn't just an excuse to pad the script with hot air.
[71:07] It's just a...
[71:08] fantastic coincidence.