Residential Cooling - Fans Vs. Air Conditioners

By Author: Kristy Blanchard
Total Articles: 16
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Fans and air conditioners are devices that beat the heat and make the surroundings cool. It is very difficult for people to survive in hot and humid climate as that causes a lot of perspiration and makes individuals uncomfortable. This calls for homes to device a ventilation system to allow fresh air to enter the house, circulate indoors, and remove stale air. As the sun is a perpetual source of light and heat it tends to conduct heat into structures through roofs, walls, and windows. Understanding the dynamics of heat, once it is transfer into the house or indoors it heats up the air and keeps getting hotter through conduction.


If the indoors are completely closed and packed, there is no way for the hot air to be liberated and that would cause a lot of suffocation and staleness in the air causing a lot of sickness and problems. That is why we need ventilation to liberate the hot stale air, this is a natural way to remove hot air from indoors, but what we are talking about at this point is the difference between a fan and air conditioner-the artificial way of cooling indoor surroundings. Fans with their rotational ...
... movement increase the flow rate of air in the surrounding that in turn evaporates perspiration at a faster rate. Air conditioners blow air at lower temperature, turn hot air into cold air, and alter room temperatures.


Humidity is a characteristic of air that can increase or decrease the heating and cooling needs. Indoor humidity should be maintained between 30%-40%, in summer, and between 40%-50% during winter seasons. Fans are use in summers to remove and stabilize unwanted humidity. With simple blades, a fan is very easy to install and use, it does not create more humidity and consumes less power as compared to air conditioners, and the drawback of fans is they do not cool the room but remove hot air from the surrounding. The main reasons fans are used in most indoors are because they are inexpensive.


Air conditioners alter the properties of air in the surrounding, but they need installation. New air conditioning units decrease humidity and also purify the surrounding air. However, the power consumption of an air conditioner is much more than a fan. A comparison in terms of a 2.5-ton air conditioner and fan is 3000 watts to 80 watts that is a big difference in burning your pockets every month. But people can afford air conditioners in these times as they have hiked salaries and new technology has lowered the cost of energy consumption by a good margin, but none the less, much more expensive than fans.


A fan literally does not have disadvantages except when it rotates it causes turbulence in the room blowing dust or other objects with the irritation of some noise. However, air conditioners can cause serious harm as it releases green house gases and other pollutants; it also causes health problems like asthma and other respiratory disorders.


Both these devices are useful in their own ways and are use intelligently in their respective places.


If there is a requirement of an air conditioner for your home, you can consider the following companies for more product information.


• http://www.zamilac.com/


• http://www.daikinac.com/commercial/home.asp