The best fans are capable of making a hot and sticky day far more bearable. Providing you with a breeze of fresh air in your home at a time when even opening the windows doesn't seem to be clearing things up, pretty much every home could do with a fan, especially if you don't have air conditioning. (Though, if you find yourself getting really hot, you might need a portable air conditioner instead of or in addition to a fan.)
A fan isn't as straightforward to purchase as you would think. You need to consider if you want a bladeless design, a particularly quiet fan, one that is tower length or fits in the window, as well as if power or good looks are most important to you.
Like with any purchase, it's also possible to spend a little or a lot on a fan — which is where we come in. To help you figure out where to begin, we've taken a look at all the best fans currently available. We're also on hand to answer some key questions about what you may need to consider before hitting the buy button.
Fans can feel like magic at times, but there's a logic to how they work, even if it sounds a little weird. That's because most electric fans actually add heat to the room as expected of any electrical item. However, they create a wind-chill effect rather than actually cooling the room down. We all lose that through conduction, radiation, convection, and evaporation with the latter two being how fans work at their best.
On any hot day, we sweat to lose heat. Blowing air around, a fan makes it more effective for the air to evaporate sweat on our skin. It might feel like it reduces the temperature but it merely makes us and the air around us feel cooler rather than be cooler in reality.
The faster the fan is, the more it displaces the warmer air that is in direct contact with our skin, thereby improving the rate of convective heat transfer. A steady breeze from a fan is capable of carrying hot air away from you rather than leaving it to feel uncomfortable.
Fans are more effective in some types of heat than others. For instance, when air reaches above 35 degrees Celsius (or about 90 degrees Fahrenheit), you won't lose heat via convection but a fan will help your sweat evaporate faster. A humid heatwave is when a fan is most effective at reducing core temperatures, while a dry heat needs water more so than air.
There's much debate on whether your fan should face in or out of a window too. You should place outward-facing fans on the warmer side of your home to blow the warm air out, while using inward-facing fans to draw cool air into the cooler side of your house. Upstairs in the home is likely to be warmer than downstairs, so you need to plan accordingly.
When it comes to window fans, they work best at dealing with hot air from your home, so you should use these when indoors is hotter than outside. When outside is higher, close your windows and shades to keep hot air from coming in. Closing your windows may sound illogical but it works.
There are a lot of different fans out there. They all perform very similar tasks with the main difference being how they look. Ceiling fans are popular amongst people who wish to mount a fan out of the way. Then there are table fans for placing on a counter or unit, along with tower fans for setting upright next to other furniture. Pedestal fans are as similarly independent as tower fans but with a different look, as are floor fans.
There are also exhaust fans and wall-mounted fans, but we've mostly focused on ones that involve the least amount of installation.
Not everyone wants a quiet fan. This is one choice that's highly personal. The noise doesn't affect how well a fan operates but you may find yourself preferring one to the other. Some people enjoy the noise that a fan makes, treating it like white noise to zone out to. Others may find that a noisy fan is irritating and disrupts their sleep or rest. There's no one-size-fits-all solution here.
A fan's power is measured by the airflow it generates in cubic feet per minute. Referred to as CFM, the higher the rating, the more powerful the airflow.
Most fans offer more than one fan speed so it's possible to choose a setting that works well for your situation. Sometimes, you may want a more gentle breeze than other times.
It's even possible to determine what CFM you need. You'll need to know the size in cubic feet of the room you're cooling. From there, you can divide the cubic feet by the CFM rating of a fan. The result tells you how many minutes it takes for the fan to change the air in the room. The lower the number, the more effective it will be at cooling your space.
Some guidelines suggest you may want a fan that can recirculate the air between 5 and 6 times an hour for a bedroom or slightly more for a kitchen.
Another way of checking power is to see what motor is used. A DC (or direct current) motor is more energy efficient because it uses less power, but an AC (alternating current) will provide you with the most power. Some fans also refer to their velocity rather than CFM.
The features you need when buying a fan will differ on why you need one. One thing that's likely to remain important for everyone is fan power. If you're looking to cool down, you need a fan with a high CFM rating to ensure superior airflow. It's also useful to consider if you need one that has blades or a bladeless design. The latter is particularly useful if you have young children who may try to get too close to a fan's blades. Automatic oscillation is a good idea as well, because it means the fan moves from side to side automatically, widening its coverage and keeping hot air at bay.
From there though, things can vary depending on your needs. For some users, variable speeds are essential with different speeds useful for managing cold air. For others, being able to use a remote to manipulate the fan is convenient if you don't want to be physically near the fan at all times. Being able to adjust the height or fan head can prove useful but isn't always vital. Similarly, some high-end fans provide more than just good air circulation — they also include air purifying features. Finally, consider what design fan you need. This can range from a pedestal fan, box fan, standing fan, floor fan, table fan, or much more.
The Dyson Pure Hot + Cool is a true heavyweight in the fan field. It looks fantastic with a bladeless design which means it's also safe around children and pets. Thanks to its built-in air purifier, you don't just get cool air either with over 77 gallons per second of smooth and powerful airflow keeping the air you breathe comfortable. Up to 350 degrees of oscillation ensures everywhere is covered too. Able to automatically sense air pollution events and act accordingly, an LCD display gives you a heads up on air quality levels, while the HEPA filter captures 99.7% of allergens. WiFi support and Alexa controls round off the impressive set of features.
The Dreo Tower Fan comes with a sufficiently powerful motor to provide a velocity of 24 feet per second, ensuring your room stays cool. A LED display tracks the room temperature, along with the speed setting, mode, and even any timer settings you may wish to arrange. With six different speeds and three modes to choose from, it caters for all-day use right down to its super quiet sleep mode. An auto mode enables it to adjust as the temperature changes too with 90 degrees of oscillation ensuring a wide range. Just look out for its slightly wobbly build that can be knocked.
The Airmate Bladeless fan has an unusual-looking design that may not suit every location, but if you want a cheaper alternative to Dyson, it's easily one of the best bladeless fans around. It offers a velocity of 180m per minute with that air also purified thanks to a HEPA filter capturing 99.9% of particles in your living space. An oscillation of 60/120 degrees ensures plenty of range, while five different modes and 24 speed levels suit every type of day. It's pretty quiet too at 30dB of noise with other features like a built-in timer and screen light proving useful.
Fitting into your home set up in a stylish yet subtle way, the Vornado OSCR37 is highly useful. It has two airflow settings for either oscillation or whole room air circulation with the ability to push air up to 75 feet. Touch-sensitive controls with four speed settings prove useful, but it's the Alexa voice controls that are most convenient. With a flimsy remote at hand, it's far better to speak to the tower fan when setting up timers or simply tweaking the power. The air it produces feels like a natural breeze too, which is a nice highlight.
If you want to fit a fan into your window, the Holmes Dual Blade Digital Window Fan keeps things fairly simple. Promising easy installation, it fits most single and double-hung windows, while offering up a thermostat you can program to get things how you like them. Its two speed settings are capable of keeping airflow at a comfortable level without too much interference by you. Water-resistant motors also ensure it'll be fine even in rainy conditions. It might not be the most stylish of solutions but for certain scenarios, it'll do the job well.
The Dyson Pure Cool Me is designed to be placed on your nightstand, offering a quiet enough breeze of purified air throughout the night that you should rest more easily. A sliding mechanism allows you to tweak the airflow as needed with a built-in LCD explaining airflow level and filter life. The Dyson Pure Cool Me isn't much more complicated than that but its nighttime mode proves useful when you need the cold air all night long, while a HEPA filter keeps allergens and pollutants at bay. It's expensive but has good results for anyone who wakes up too hot frequently.
The Holmes Heritage Desk Fan is designed to sit on your desk looking good but not exactly offering the most powerful features. It has six-inch blades powered via two speed settings, so if you're close to it, you'll feel cooler. Other than that, it has a tilt-adjustable head but no oscillating function. Controls are typically old-fashioned with manual buttons, but that fits into its aesthetic of looking retro in every way. As a novelty piece that also works reasonably well, the Holmes Heritage Desk Fan does the job.
Designed for large areas or shop floors, the Lasko High Velocity Quick Mount packs an almighty punch when it comes to sheer power. It has three different speeds with each offering high velocity. The fan isn't the most stylish of solutions and you'll want to keep it away from kids, but you can easily mount it on a wall or use it on the floor, proving useful for stuffy areas like attics or garages. A series of clips makes installation easy, just don't count on this looking good in your living room.
The Lasko Oscillating Outdoor Tower Fan looks like a robot from the 1970s but it works well. Designed for the outdoors, it can cope with all weather and has UV protection. It offers four fan speeds which include a pleasant night breeze mode to relax to. Taking minutes to set up with a 10-foot power cord, it's perfect for placing any yard or porch, taking off the edge on a hot summer's day with a reasonable CFM rating.
The Honeywell Turbo On the Go Personal Fan's focus is on allowing you to take it where you need to go. It's battery-powered with the option to hook it up to USB so you don't have to worry about carrying plugs or chargers. It has a limited range of three feet but that's fine for one person. With a handle for carrying or hanging, it's simple to take with you, being not much bigger than the average hand. Even for a workout, you could place it right next to you to give some relief. Just don't count on it covering a whole room.