Multiple Fans Vs. Air Conditioners

Ceiling Fans

• During summer months, the standard human comfort range while wearing light clothing is 72 to 77 degrees, according to Care2.com. A slowly turning ceiling fan generating a 1.7 mph breeze can extend the range up to 82 degrees, which allows you to set the air conditioner up to that level and have air in the house still feel like a lower temperature. Since multiple ceiling fans draw less power than a single air conditioner, install them in heavily-used rooms.

Night Ventilation

• If the nighttime air gets down into the 70s or lower, you can use window fans to suck hot air out of the house that has accumulated during the day. One simple way to do this is to open a window in each room, and place an outward facing box fan in a window on the downwind side of the house, which serves to ventilate the house, pushing hot air out and drawing the cooler night air in. You might try getting by with ceiling fans only and turn the air conditioner off until the temperature begins to heat up the next day.

Multiple Fans

• The idea of using multiple fans instead of an air conditioner might work okay either overnight or during the spring and fall when simply keeping the air moving is enough to make the house comfortable. The problem is that fans only cycle air but don't cool it, which might be okay for people with a high resistance to heat. Others would be quite uncomfortable without the cooling efforts of an air conditioner.

Considerations

• The most cost-effective choice is to not use an air conditioner at all, but that is an unrealistic goal to many people. To put some perspective on the rate of energy consumption, a window unit uses anywhere between 400 and 1,440 watts per hour while a ceiling fan only draws from 15 to 95 watts, according to Mr. Electricity. Judging from these figures, the more you can rely on fans and less on air conditioning, the smaller your utility bill will be. Only very dry, moderate climates would be likely to support using fans only.