fans

i am a fan of fans, but we don't seem to understand them here in the uk. whenever i'm at someone's house and they're using a fan, it's in the corner, vaguely oscillating at you.

you can use a fan for more things!

1. to move air around a room to stop it getting stale

2. to improve evaporative cooling (e.g. why sitting in front of a fan if you're sweaty feels cool)

3. as an exhaust or intake fan

the fan oscillating in the corner is doing 1, and maybe 2. both of these are valid uses for a fan, but if you want to really cool down a room, you want to do 3. americans seem to understand this, with their window mounted box fans, or whole house fans.

a window unit would be the best way but, like most of the uk, i don't have sash windows. instead, i use a very standard electric fan. i use it as an exhaust fan, because using it as an intake doesn't work (a normal fan like this draws air in from all sides, including the front, but exhausts air in one direction). i point it directly out of a window, and open another window in a different part of my flat as in the intake.

my strategy is this:

• during the day keep the sun out with blinds and curtains, and close the windows.
• when it gets too warm inside but it's still hot outside, use a fan like normal, to move air around and stop it getting stale. i also open the windows
• when it gets cool outside, use the fan to exhaust the hot air and suck in the cold air

i only have two windows in my flat, one in the living room and one in the bedroom, so i have two choices. i can either exhaust air out of the bedroom, which cools down the living room, or exhaust air out of the living room, which cools down the bedroom.

it's not perfect (if it doesn't cool down at night there's nothing the fan can do) but it keeps my flat liveable.