Which Direction Should Your Ceiling Fans Be Turning to Cool Rooms?

Humidity

• Ceiling fans will cool the skin, but the fans will not remove humidity from the air that causes you to sweat. As soon as you walk away from the breeze of the fan, your skin will no longer be cooled and you will feel the humidity and hot air. Fans are ideal for cooling the skin when the relative humidity is under 50 percent.

Air Conditioner and Fan

• If you run a ceiling fan in conjunction with the air conditioner, you can raise your thermostat by two degrees, which will lower your air conditioner's energy consumption by about 15 percent, according to Riviera Utilities. The air conditioner will remove the humidity from the room and the ceiling fan will cool the skin and circulate the cooled air from the AC unit.

Clockwise

• Ceiling fan blades that turn clockwise will force warm air up by the ceiling down into the room. Running the fan this way will not create a breeze and will not cool the skin. Use this setting during winter when you need to circulate the warm air from heating units downwards from the ceiling to help lower heating costs.

Operational Cost

• According to Riviera Utilities, a fan running on high will use about 150 watts of electricity. If you operate the ceiling fan for five hours a day and electricity costs 8 cents per kilowatt per hour, it would cost about 6 cents a day to run the fan. In one month, the fan would cost you about $1.80. A 5,000-British Thermal Units, or BTU, window air conditioner for a room 100 to 150 square feet uses about 900 watts of electricity. If you run the air conditioner for five hours a day at 8 cents per kilowatt per hour, it would cost 36 cents per day or $10.80 per month to run the air conditioner.