Designers Fountain Ceiling Fans - Designers Fountain Ceiling Fans and Fan Accessories

What are these Ceiling Fan Comparison Graphs?

As of January 1, 2009, all ceiling fan manufacturers are required to test and publish data regarding the performance of their fans. Specifically, the CFMs (Cubic Feet per Minute of Airflow), the Watts (amount of electricity used per hour) and the Efficiency (EPA defines as CFM/Watts).

We have added this new information to our previous rating system and come up with an even better method of comparing ceiling fans. These new "Comparison Graphs" allow you to easily compare ceiling fans at a glance. Once you understand how to interpret these graphs, it becomes quite easy to compare the perforance of any fan on our site at a glance.

Learn how to Interpret the Comparison Graphs Here!

Examples of comparison graphs

Read more details about this topic here at: Who Makes the Best Ceiling Fans - The Online Guide to Comparing Ceiling Fans!

CFM = Cubic Feet of Airflow per Minute | Efficiency = CFM/Watts | Quality = 1 to 5 where 5 is best

Fans with the highest CFM rating move the most air so they will keep you the coolest. The more CFMs your fan can produce, the less you will use your air conditioning (which can save you lots of money). Simply put, fans with the highest CFM will save the most on your cooling bills.

Ceiling fans cool you off by creating a wind chill effect, they do not change the actual temperature in a room. Ceiling Fans with higher Wind Speed will create the most wind chill effect. The Wind Speed is the calculated measure of the expected wind velocity in the column of air directly beneath the span of the blades, so it takes into consideration the CFMs and the Blade Span of a fan.

Fans with the highest Quality Rating (4 or 5) have superior precision made components, so they tend not to wobble or make noise and can be left running for long periods of time (days on end) without breaking down. So your challenge is to find a ceiling fan that looks good to you, is the right size for your room, has the highest CFM and Quality ratings, yet still fits within your budget.

Hansen Wholesale is the only website that gives you all the tools you need to make this happen...quickly and easily.

CFM is defined as Cubic Feet per Minute. The CFM of a ceiling fan is determined by a standardized test adpoted by the EPA. As of January 1st 2009, all manufacturers are required to test their fans and provide this information to dealers and consumers.

Wind Speed: To make it easier for you to compare fans of various CFM and blade spans, we calculate the wind speed of the air colum below the fan. This calculation is based on the CFMs per square foot of blade span, and then converted to Miles Per Hour. Ceiling fans cool you off by creating a wind chill effect, not by changing the temperature in a room. The breeze created by a ceiling fan is mostly concentrated in the column of air just beneath the blades. Two fans that generate the same CFM but have different blade spans will cool you off differently. A larger fan will have a wider column of air that is less concentrated (lower wind speed) than a smaller fan. So the smaller fan will make you feel cooler when you are directly beneath it, while the larger fan will provide less breeze, but spread it over a larger area. So when see a fan that has a very high CFM, be sure to look at the blade span and wind speed as well to see how they compare to other fans.

Quality Rating is from 1 to 5 where 5 is the very best. This is a more subjective score that we devised ourselves to rate ceiling fans before the EPA began requiring manufacturers to publish performance data. Although this rating does consider the CFMs produced by a fan, it also considers the quality of the components used to make the fan. So you will find fans with high CFM ratings, yet have lower Quality ratings and visa-versa.

Averages: It is good to know what the average performance and quality of every fan is so that you can get a better feel for what these numbers mean. If you stick with fans that are above average, then you will be more satisfied and visa-versa. These averages are calculated every time this page loads, so as we add or discontinue fans from our site, it is real data dynamically generated, not typed in by someone who could make an error or fudge it.

Out of 1607 fans on our site that have performance data available, here are some averages:

• Average CFM = 5,569 CFM
• Average Watts = 73.84 Watts
• Average Efficiency = 75.42 CFM/Watts
• Average Quality Rating = 3.00
• Average Price = $300.20

Here are the averages for all 245 fans that have a quality rating of 5:

• Average CFM = 6,370 CFM
• Average Watts = 99.58 Watts
• Average Efficiency = 63.97 CFM/Watts
• Average Quality Rating = 4.00
• Average Price = $374.42

Here are the averages for all 202 fans that have a quality rating of 2:

• Average CFM = 4,563 CFM
• Average Watts = 60.37 Watts
• Average Efficiency = 75.58 CFM/Watts
• Average Quality Rating = 2.00
• Average Price = $172.29

Other Key Ceiling Fan Resources:
Who makes the best ceiling fans? The Online Guide to Comparing Ceiling Fans!
Ceiling Fan FAQs!

Room Size and CFM Chart

Although the EPA now requires fan manufacturers to publish the CFM ratings of their fans, there is no standardized scientific method of determining what size and CFM fan is best for any given application. A few quick searches and you will find that each ceiling fan manufacturer interprets this differently. So we created our won size and CFM recommendation chart to give you an idea what we recommend for "typical" applications. We produced this chart based on over 20 years of experience dealing with ceiling fans and the people who we've sold them to. For the most part, this chart will suffice. If you have low ceilings, you can fudge a little on the CFM and use a fan in the lesser range of the room size. If you have high ceilings, you need more CFM and a fan closer to the larger size of the chart. In most cases, the more the CFM the better and the higher the quality score the better!

If you are not sure what to do, just call and talk to our ceiling fan experts at 1-800-201-1193