The First Step | Determining The Blade Size
The very first thing you must do (even before deciding on style and aesthetics) is determine the proper blade size for the room you will be installing your ceiling fan. This is most definitely not a difficult thing, but it is surprising how often this crucial step is ignored by many customers. Don't be one of them!
The reason this first step is so important is because if you don't mate the right ceiling fan with the room you're going to install it in, then you could very well wind up wasting time, money, and energy while still not getting the cooling effect you were after. Let me explain what I mean.
Let's say you have a room that measures out to 650 square feet. You go to the store looking for a fan that will the décor of this room and you find the perfect one: it has a blade size of 42" but more importantly, it'll look great with your antique candle holders. You take it home, install it, turn it on and are not impressed with how little it actually cools this room, even when you run the fan on high.
If you would have done your homework, then you would have known that you needed at least a 60" blade to efficiently cool this room. And if the style you wanted only came in the smaller size, then you could have bought two of those ceiling fans and installed them both. Of course, having likely put the single, smaller fan in the center of the room, then this will no longer be an option without extensive repair work to relocate it.
How Do You Know What Size Of Fan You Need For Your Room?
You could do what a friend of mine would do: measure the room, measure the angle of the room and all things in the room, find out how fast each fan turns and what speed, figure out the volume of air each ceiling fan pushes, then blah, blah, blah, blah.
But we're not going to do that! Instead, we're just going to measure the square footage of the room and then take a look at this handy reference chart to figure out what size ceiling fan we're looking for.
For those of you who don't know, to measure the square footage of room all you need is a tape measure and the ability to do a little math. Just measure the length of the room followed by the width of the room and then multiply the two numbers together. The total is the square footage (or "area" as it is actually called) of the room.
Now take the area and cross reference it with the numbers below to determine the blade size you need.
Room Size | Blade Size
125 | 32"-36"
250 | 42"-48"
500 | 50"-56"
650 | 60"+
If you are still unsure of the proper size blade, then just get a larger ceiling fan or even buy two or more to cover the extra large rooms you may have.
In the next step we'll look at the different ways of mounting your Hunter ceiling fan. I hope you have enjoyed this first step in selecting the right Hunter ceiling fan | determining the blade size.
