Start a Warm Breeze this Winter

Published January 4, 2017 We’re in the midst of a cold Minnesota winter and your furnace or boiler has been getting a lot of use. You probably haven’t been thinking about turning on a fan. However, all of you out there with a ceiling fan- turn it on. But, make sure its going the right way in the winter- clockwise.  You may or may not know this, but ceiling fans are intended to change direction with the seasons. There is typically a little switch on the base of the fan (see photo) that you move to change the direction that the fan blades are rotating. In the winter, when you look up at your ceiling fan, the blades need to be rotating clockwise. In the summer months, fans are supposed to run counter-clock wise and circulate cool air to make you feel cooler. In the winter, you can use your ceiling fan to push down warm air that gets trapped in the ceiling. As we learned in science class, warm air rises so a ceiling fan running clockwise, at low speeds, helps push that warm air back down. We could all use a little warm breeze right now!