Spending £400 on a fan.....

[Youngatheart00]

A Dyson room fan to be precise.

Don’t sleep at all well in the summer and house really holds the heat. Have tried cheap rotor blade fans before but the noise keeps me awake.

Torn between thinking it will really improve quality of life and thinking it’s a ridiculous amount of money to spend.

Any opinions?

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MNHQ

The portable air con units - when you stick the hose out the window, do you bother trying to block off the rest of the window, or just accept some inefficiencies? (I have difficult windows to block as they are awning ones).

I also couldn't use it at night as I'm on the ground floor right on the road and wouldn't feel safe with any open windows, unless I could somehow lock them in that position (and even then I'm not sure about it). So do you find that if you use them before bed, you can then shut them off for overnight, and have to stay cool enough to sleep?

Excellent, thank you!

No fan will reduce the temperature. Get an air conditioner.

I agree this is true on very hot days, but when the temp does drop in the evening, I open all the doors and windows upstairs and use the fan to get a draft moving through the bedrooms, which drags the cool air in from outside and cools the rooms well.

If it’s no cooler outside though we get the air con working, the problem is we only had the money and the space for 1 unit, so we have to try to cool 2 bedrooms with the once unit. We have a window left open and blocked off with a piece of wood and it’s got a vent in it for the pipe to go out. So it’s secure and isn’t leaking warm air back in. You also need to empty the water very regularly Or they end up leaking. It’s a bit of a pain, but worth it because the kids rooms were 25 degrees some days. We live near the Lake District, so you wouldn’t think it’d be so hot, but it’s a new build with lots of windows in the kitchen, and it’s very well insulated, which is great in Winter.

I’ve also just measured up for thermal, honeycomb, aluminium lined blackout blinds. Hopefully that will stop the bedrooms getting so warm in the first place if we keep them closed all day.

You have to empty the portable ones? I didn't know that, sounds a bit of a pain, but I also have a new build, huge windows, awfully hot - near 30 degrees inside from about May to Sept.

But hard to block the windows off for the hose, and can't keep them open at night, so not sure of an air conditioner. But seriously considering it. I'd have to move it between the sitting room and bedroom I guess.

I was also considering external blinds, as those are supposed to be quite good, but they're very expensive, and I'm not sure I'd be allowed to install them on the outside of the building.

We spent the same last summer on an air con unit and it's amazing!

We got this one, which has come way down in price since we got it!

Inventor Chilly 9000BTU Portable Air Conditioner https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07JQJBJG7/ref=cmswwrcppapiii_EMtWEbDPNSSHM

Doesn't need emptied. Comes with a window kit for sealing, etc.

Although maybe we are meant to empty it! Will check with DH. We haven't so far

No, ours doesn't need emptied apparently. The moisture is expelled via the hose.

This is what we have for window:
HOOMEE 400CM Universal Window Seal for Portable Air Conditioner And Tumble Dryer – Works with Every Mobile Air-Conditioning Unit, Easy to Install - Air Exchange Guards With Zip and Hook Tape https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BPZGJ3B/ref=cmswwrcppapiii_PStWEbR8EM4GC

We only use it in bedroom so aren't moving it around, though.

@Bimbleberries

But hard to block the windows off for the hose, and can't keep them open at night, so not sure of an air conditioner. But seriously considering it. I'd have to move it between the sitting room and bedroom I guess.

They are extremely heavy, you’d need 2 adults to move one upstairs, though they are on wheels.

My ex had one and they are really good

We have these at work and they’re decent. They aren’t silent but they’re much much quieter than normal fans, and they quickly cool or heat a room.

I wouldn’t pay £400 for it myself, but it is much better than any other fan I’ve used.

Oh I wouldn't need to move it upstairs, just from sitting room to bedroom (both ground floor), so I could wheel it, if one person could move it. It's a small flat, though, so maybe having it in the sitting room would be enough to cool off even the other room? (That's probably a bit optimistic!). But I wouldn't be able to have it on overnight anyway as the bedroom has ground floor windows right next to the road, so I'd only be thinking about moving it in there for the hour(s?) before bedtime to try to cool it off enough.

Unless it's possible to get a window restrictor strong/safe enough to prevent intruders, in which case perhaps it could be on all night, as the white noise from it might be enough to overcome traffic noise from the road.

We have ceiling fans in our bedrooms, they are £50 from argos they may not look great but I usually don't have people in my bedroom judging my light fitting

We also have an air con unit, think it was £400 about 8 years ago.

The air con unit has a flexible hose which need to vent somewhere, it usually has a reduced "squeezed" end that can be sort of locked into the opening of a window, but the window needs to be open to do this. Also it can only cool one room, we used to use it in the childrens' bedrooms about 1 hour to 30 mintues before bed. It is loud though, like a pedastal fan loud.

But the ceiling fans are fantastic, they were recommended to me by a friend who was menopausal and they have changed our summers. We rarely use the air con unit. My friend has managed to rig hers on her landing with the vent pipe going up through the loft hatch but hers has a longer hose, and you have to work out whether it can vent vertically to do this.

Look into cross air flow in your house, ie open the windows wide first thing in the morning and try to get air flowing through the house. As it gets warmer, close the windows in direct sun, close the blinds/curtains to keep the heat out etc. This should help. But I swear by the ceiling fans and no they are not loud at all.

@ZingyLime that sounds exactly what we’re looking for, would you mind sharing which one you’ve got? Both bedrooms are in the lift with velux windows, DDs room wasn’t below 30 degrees all summer!

We’ve got a ceiling fan over our bed, it’s brilliant but I can see that if you have a particularly well insulated house proper wall mounted air con would work better.

I have one - bought about 3 years ago. I love it - v quiet - and I’m a v light sleeper - it keeps the room v cool.

I’ve got the Probreeze 7000btu from Amazon which comes with fitting kit. So we’ve used the plastic sliding door part for the bottom part of the Velux and rejigged the fabric into smaller pieces which Velcro across the top gap of the velux and the smaller little Vs at the sides. The fabric stays on when the window is closed and I just pop out the rigid plastic piece at the bottom which is where the hose goes through.
I work nights so sleep up there during the day - I was cool as a cucumber this morning. It’s a little noisy but at least it’s white noise.

My friend swears by her ceiling fan too.

I bought this yesterday based on the recommendation on here and the website reviews. It's fantastic. So powerful and I feel well smug now getting ahead of the curve 💪

www.screwfix.com/p/hf-45b-18-industrial-floor-fan-220-240v/754HY?tc=YT4&ds_kid=92700048793290397&ds_rl=1249404&gclid=Cj0KCQjwnv71BRCOARIsAIkxW9E-PLq6Ph4llrLSVQdNqaKFDsySjZcUKmZ9ndKCyw4Y2wAcPqyANoUaAtRWEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

I was an inpatient recently and had a stain fan it was amazing and saved me from overheating and feeling worse

Dyson fan

I've just ordered a Meaco 650 fan on the strength of recommendations here, so shall see what it's like.

£65 from QVC rather than nearly £400 has to be a result!

Well it's only ever going to get hotter in our life times...
Hopefully the power for all the fans and air con will be from renewables.
I think Dyson fans are the only aesthetically pleasing ones on the market.

I wouldn't we had one at work, a small shop so about the size of an average lounge and I didn't think it was great. Was expecting it to be fantastic for that money.it looks good but just doesn't do the job

They are crap. I promise you.