April 15th, 2021 by Sarah Miles

Whether you’re working, doing jobs around the home, or just relaxing, when it’s warm you need to be able to feel cool. Fans are an effective and affordable way to keep the temperature at a comfortable level at home or in the office, but did you realise that it’s not just the type of fan that’s important, it’s where you place it for maximum cooling?

How fans work

To fully explain why location matters, it’s useful to understand how fans work. You may be surprised to learn that they don’t actually cool the air. What they do is move the air around the room. As the air passes over your skin, the moisture on your skin evaporates and loses heat energy which makes you feel cooler. The more air the fan moves, the cooler it will feel. Therefore, it makes sense to maximise the amount of air your fan can move, whether it’s a tiny desk fan or a larger floor-standing unit.

Where to place your fan for maximum cooling

Because fans use the existing airflow in the room, you can boost this by placing it near the source of airflow. This means an open window or door. It can then take the natural air coming into the space and move it around the room. If you feel you need even more cooling power, and you have more than one fan, you can create cross ventilation. This is the process of drawing air into a space and then forcing it out elsewhere. Simply place a fan near the window and then another, facing outwards, near an open door. This will create more air circulation and boost the cooling effect.

Other ways to get the most from your fan

There are few other tips for getting the most from your fan:

Cooling an office?

Whether it be a home office or a workplace, chances are you will have documents and notepads on your desk. To prevent these blowing around, locate your desk slightly away from the fan. You will still benefit from the cooling (if you use the airflow as described above) but it won’t be as breezy.

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On your own?

If there is just you in the room, you may want to position the fan close to you to get the direct airflow but if there are several people, the air will be distributed more equally if you place the fan near the window or door.

De-clutter

Because fans move the air around, objects like furniture or even just too much clutter can interrupt the circulation. Where possible, try to create some free space to allow the air to flow around the room uninterrupted.

Floor or furniture

Tower fans have the advantage of a small footprint but a tall cooling area so they can equally be placed on the floor or on a table. If you can elevate it by placing it on furniture to give maximum contact with the air coming in, that’s probably going to be most effective. However, even placed on the floor, the tall surface area of the fan will still give you good results.

Add ice

For an extra boost of cooling, you could place a bowl of ice near the fan. This will cool the air directly in front of it which will then be dispersed around the room.