The Benefits of High Volume Low Speed Fans

Facility managers are looking to cut back on spending while maintaining quality with today’s huge energy expenses due to increased environmental accountability. If you are trying to keep a very large space cool, many people think the best or only way to do so is through air conditioning, but this can prove to be expensive depending on the size and number of people who occupy that space. If cutting costs without losing comfort is what you are going for, a HVLS or high volume low speed fan along with your preexisting HVAC system can help you control your energy expenses without sacrificing your comfort.

Just like a regular ceiling fan, high velocity low speed fans work to increase airflow in order to make the environment more comfortable. With the ability to cover almost 30,000 square feet with a single fan, HVLS fans are very different from your common household ceiling fan.

The effect created by HVLS industrial ceiling fans called the evaporating cooling effect has been known to make individuals in the effected environment feel up to eight degrees cooler. With this effect, facility managers can crank their thermostats up a few degrees without having to give up any comfort at all. With increased circulation provided by the high volume low speed fans, the resistance put on the HVAC system is significantly less and therefore will require much less ductwork and ventilation to distribute cooler air.

HVLS fans can also help to keep you warm in the winter, also reducing the amount of energy used, and lost. Air from a furnace or other heating unit is naturally lighter than what we consider room temperature, so it obviously rises to the ceiling. By slowing down the HVLS fan to 10-30%, you can redirect the hot air trapped at the ceiling and send it toward the occupants at ground level.

When these fans were created, they were originally meant for extra large industrial facilities for manufacturing and distribution. Facility managers in restaurants, office complexes, and retail spaces are all using HVLS fans to help reduce their energy expenses.

These commercial units are much smaller than their industrial counterparts and have been scaled down effectively to reduce noise. HVLS fans have had the benefit of many new technological breakthroughs to help them become much less noisy throughout the years.

A practical example of great uses for industrial warehouse ceiling fans would be a high school library. Depending on the season and number of occupants, the speed of the fan can be varied in order to provide the most efficient usage. In order to heat the library without disrupting the quiet or shuffling papers around, the fan could be set to low in order to push the heated air back down toward the students. In conclusion, HVLS fans can help you cut your costs tremendously without requiring you to break the bank or your personal comfort levels.

High Volume Low Speed Fans

For hundreds of years, people residing in warm weather areas have utilized the cooling abilities of slow-moving air. In British India, servants would manually propel overhead circling fans called punkas; large ceiling fans were used in pre-Civil War southern mansions. Southern mansions before the Civil War used large ceiling fans, and servants in British India would manually operate overhead fans called punkas. Fans quickly became motorized as electric motor technology improved. By speeding the fans up, engineers hoped to intensify the air displacement, and thus, increase the cooling power. However, any speed faster than a gentle breeze could be unpleasant, drafty, and even disruptive. Beyond four or five miles per hour, the air doesn't have much more of a cooling benefit. It may come as a surprise, but slow moving air cools and ventilates best in hot conditions of low humidity.

For a long time, cooling large spaces required multiple, smaller high-speed fans that individually weren't capable of enough coverage for a wide area. Relying on multiple high-speed fans like this meant dealing with maintenance concerns and high energy costs. That all changed in 1995, however, when Walter Boyd, an engineer and designer, developed High Volume Low Speed fans, or HVLS fans. HLVS warehouse ceiling fans quickly presented themselves as an efficient cooling alternative for large open spaces; places like commercial, agricultural, or industrial buildings.

Some designers, perhaps unsure with the exact technology behind HVLS fans may be more familiar, and even comfortable, with using only HVAC systems for heating and cooling. But HVLS fans are effective, and they are efficient, and they owe it to the amount of airflow the aerodynamic blades are able to generate. The total efficacy of a fan is determined by the amount of cubic feet of air per minute (CFM) a fan can produce.

HVLS fans are best apt for open spaces with large ceilings; at minimum, a height of 15 feet. Experts in mechanical efficiency have deemed HVLS fans to be the most energy efficient type of air-circulating fan. While HVLS fans use their size to increase air displacement, a traditional high speed requires increasing its speed to move more air. And according to physics principles, the power required to drive a fan is equivalent to the fan's speed cubed.

So 8 times the amount of power must be provided in order for a fan to double its speed; in the case of high speed fans, that means 8 times the amount of electrical power. Consider a high speed fan capable of delivering air at 20 mph; it will require 64 times the power as a fan delivering air at speeds of only 5 mph. The large size of the industrial shop fans make it possible to move sizable amounts of air at low speeds, without requiring the additional power or speed. Additionally, for warmer months in places without air conditioning, the slow-moving air created by an HVLS fan is more apt to break up the moisture-rich layer that can surround people, leading to a cooling evaporation.

High-Volume Low-Speed Fans Benefit Workers At Any Level

In the past, large manufacturing plants and factories received numerous complaints from employees unhappy with the high temperature of the building. The conditions inside of numerous factories began to drastically improve following the 1995 invention of something called a high-volume low-speed (HVLS) fan. This new invention came about in connection with the dairy industry, but the conclusion reached applies to a variety of industries. When using a high-speed fan, air does not get cooled down in any meaningful way, and this hinders productivity potential. This conclusion made sense to a variety of different industries, and as a result HVLS fans began to replace high-speed ones.

A key difference of these MacroAir industrial cooling fans lies in how big they are and this is the attribute that makes them high volume. The diameter of these fans are typically somewhere between 8 and 24 feet, depending on the needs of the building. Since HVLS fans are most commonly installed to the ceiling, the size is less of an issue since it will not take up floor space.

Workplaces that invest in the these fans tend to have much happier employees than those that do not. The increased airflow that HVLS fans provide mean improved temperature conditions inside the building, and employees often feel up to 10 degrees cooler than before. Furthermore, the workplace environment is greatly improved by an HVLS fan because it reduces or eliminates the standard kick-up of dust that high-speed fans are prone to cause. Employers benefit as well when employees are more comfortable while working, because it tends to coincide directly with an increase in productivity.

The benefits attributable to HVLS fans extend to things that more directly affect a building owners bottom line as well. These Commercial ceiling fans provide employees with the satisfaction of a cooler work environment while simultaneously reducing the energy costs for employers. The motors inside these fans are relatively small since the fans are moving at a slow pace, which leads to less overall energy consumption. Furthermore, increased airflow throughout the building is generally considered to be better for the equipment, reducing the need for repairs.

By providing a product that both employees and employers want to have in their building, high-volume low-speed fans have a broad appeal for any manufacturing company. Fans of this kind are a wise investment for a wide variety of manufacturing companies because of how quickly they begin to cut costs within your operation. Find the solutions you need with these fans.

Why High-Volume Low-Speed Fans Are Becoming The New Standard

You might be shocked to find out that the technology of fans has seen a big improvement in the last 20 years. Industrial companies are increasingly turning to high-volume low-speed (HVLS) fans to meet their cooling needs. As opposed to a fan you might use in your home, these are very large in diameter, generally ranging between 8 and 26 feet. As made obvious by their name, these commercial cooling fans effectively move a large quantity of air while the propellers move at a low speed.  It is easy to see why these fans have increased in popularity when you see the type of energy savings they can provide to a business.

Simply stated, HVLS fans provide a low cost way to increase energy efficiency. Typically, these fans are mounted on to the ceiling for maximum benefit. Once up and running, these HVLS fans on the ceiling work in tandem with your air conditioning devices to provide a cooler, and more consistent, air temperature. This is beneficial since many open-air buildings struggle to effectively maintain a cool enough air temperature to keep workers comfortable. An additional benefit of these slow moving fans is that they will not produce the typical kick up of debris that traditional high-speed fans cause.

HVLS fans are not only efficient at keeping temperatures cool though, they also can provide you with increased heating efficiency. The fans also have an option operate in reverse, which is a useful mechanism of distributing heat during the colder months.

Even better than a lower energy bill is no energy bill at all, which is something that could happen to you with the use of new models of solar powered high-volume low-speed fans. This technology is still pretty new, but there is no reason to suggest that there are limitations on the types of buildings that can benefit from the use of this. With the use of these solar panel HVLS industrial warehouse fans it is possible that rooms once requiring an expensive generator to ensure temperature remained cold in a power outage can instead rely on stored up, free, energy from the sun.

Anyone running a commercial facility looking for a way to cut costs and increase energy efficiency may find that an HVLC fan is exactly what they have been looking for. Due to this increasing popularity in recent years, it is easy to find a retailer no matter where you live.

HVLS Fans Can Help Maintain The Temperature of Your Warehouse

Warehouses are usually quite large and open, and people are normally entering and leaving them frequently, which allows warm or frigid air from outdoors to enter the structure. This can have an effect on the morale and productivity of employees. As a business owner, it is important for you to strive to keep your warehouse's temperature comfortable, as your employees will work more effectively if they are neither freezing nor sweltering as they do their jobs. If workers are constantly focused on how hot or cold they are, they will become easily distracted from their duties.

Implementing central heat and air conditioning systems in a structure as massive as a warehouse does not come cheaply, particularly when you think about the vast amount of open space these structures typically have. One option is to consider installing HVLS big industrial ceiling fans to help regulate the temperature inside your company's warehouse. Despite the fact that ceiling fans are often overlooked initially, they are an extremely useful choice to regulate temperatures. Ceiling fans are a common tool for families to reduce energy bills in their homes, and they will function in the same manner in a warehouse.

No matter what season it is, HVLS fans are able to keep the temperature inside your warehouse at a comfortable level. Industrial ceiling fans are designed only to push air down, not out. This feature eliminates excessive amounts of warm or cool air escaping to uninhabited corners of the warehouse. This also allows employees performing tasks on the warehouse floor to experience cool breezes throughout hot summer days. The cool air moving constantly will help to keep workers' bodies from sweating, thus helping them to feel comfortable.

In winter's cold weather, HVLS fans are also effective. When you use a central heating system in a warehouse, one of the biggest issues is that hot air rises. Because of this, the majority of the warm air that is produced by a central heating system rises to the ceiling, leaving your employees on the floor freezing. Due to the fact that large warehouse fans force air in a downward direction, though, they will blow hot air that has become trapped on the ceiling back onto the warehouse floor. These fans keep the warehouse's temperature comfortable even on the coldest days of the year. As an added advantage, you will not need to spend money on a central heating system that loses much of it's warmth to the ceiling.

You may be tempted to buy your HVLS fans used in order to save money, as they can be expensive. This is sometimes an effective money-saving technique, but only if you are certain that the vendor is reputable. Buying second-hand industrial fans from a vendor you have not worked with previously can sometimes result in you purchasing fans that function poorly or not at all. Given that HVLS fans will greatly reduce your energy expenses over time, sometimes it is worth the extra money to simply purchase new devices.