If you've installed a ceiling fan in your shop (or home), DON'T follow the standard industry advice about "clockwise" or "counterclockwise".  Fan blades are designed in both tilt directions, and thus some fans should turn one way, others the opposite.  The proper selection/sensing is "down flow", with the air coming toward you as you stand under the fan.  This direction works both summer AND winter.  Summer:  obviously, the air motion cools exposed skin and this cools the body.  Winter:  if you want heat drawn from the top of a room and distributed down and around, run the fan so the air goes DOWN.  If you reverse it to "upflow", the air will circulate up against the ceiling, but then moves horizontally to the inlet of the fan, which means air circulation occurs only between the ceiling and the space about 6~12" below the fan blades.  Winter "downflow" will capture the heat off the celling and mix it into the room.  It still cools exposed skin, so the winter choice becomes long sleeved shirts or simply turning off the fan.  You will find this advice is not shared by the fan manufacturers.  But they gave up their engineering departments decades ago, so it's the marketing people drawing up those pretty--but erroneous--diagrams.  [CV:  I started my career in 1972 working for a fan manufacturer.]

Dang, great advice and topic Pete! Thanks for the info!

Thanks Pete. Does this apply south of the equator too?

7 hours ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Thanks Pete. Does this apply south of the equator too?

Yes, because down there they walk on the ceiling.   

 

I think.

Sorry Pete but I have to, respectively, disagree with you. I have checked the ceiling fan in my BR just now and I can feel the air currents coming down the walls ( even to the floor ) when the fan is in the updraft mode, even on the lowest speed. The room is 9 x 12' the fan is 8" off the 9'ceiling.

At the shop where I worked before retirement, my main work area was in a 40 x 60' room with a 14' ceiling. we had two wall mounted 20 x 20" box fans, 8'off the floor, that could be adjusted 360* on two axis. During the summer the fans would be aimed at the work areas for direct cooling, during the winter I would adjust them so the airflow was straight up, on all but the coldest days we could run the heater, ceiling mounted, gas fired, forced air, once in the morning to take the chill off the room, after the first run the heater would not kick on again the the room's temperature was comfortable. The workers body heat along with the lights would provide enough heat.  

In the winter, airflow should be directed UP. Since ceiling fans do not suck air, they only push it, directing the flow UP, forces the hotter air to circulate down which allows you to use the warmer air you paid to create instead of just heating the ceiling. It also reduces or eliminates the amount of airflow you feel against your body which cools you. With the open blade design, there is almost NO AIR FLOW behind the blades

On 6/27/2025 at 8:57 AM, PeteM said:

If you've installed a ceiling fan in your shop (or home), DON'T follow the standard industry advice about "clockwise" or "counterclockwise".  Fan blades are designed in both tilt directions, and thus some fans should turn one way, others the opposite.  The proper selection/sensing is "down flow", with the air coming toward you as you stand under the fan.  This direction works both summer AND winter.  Summer:  obviously, the air motion cools exposed skin and this cools the body.  Winter:  if you want heat drawn from the top of a room and distributed down and around, run the fan so the air goes DOWN.  If you reverse it to "upflow", the air will circulate up against the ceiling, but then moves horizontally to the inlet of the fan, which means air circulation occurs only between the ceiling and the space about 6~12" below the fan blades.  Winter "downflow" will capture the heat off the celling and mix it into the room.  It still cools exposed skin, so the winter choice becomes long sleeved shirts or simply turning off the fan.  You will find this advice is not shared by the fan manufacturers.  But they gave up their engineering departments decades ago, so it's the marketing people drawing up those pretty--but erroneous--diagrams.  [CV:  I started my career in 1972 working for a fan manufacturer.]

Here in South Texas, during the heat of the day hours, in rooms on the Sun side of the house, I switch it to up flow so it the cooler air can push the hotter air up at least till dark then I switch it back to down flow. But by 11 am it just feels like the warmer air is getting pushed down (and warmer air attracts mosquitoes) so I switch it back so it'll suck the warmer air up.

Seems like it pushes the humid air up as well.

In the

Much of this topic has to do with perceived comfort, and that can be very individualistic. I will note that hot air naturally rises in any structure, so running the fan upward to keep the heat on the ceiling shouldn't be necessary. Underlying all this: we feel more comfortable when there is air motion: up, down, sideways, don't matter, we just like the breeze. I'm just surprised that commercial buildings have not taken this into consideration (there are a few, but not many). I really expected by now that ceiling fans would be standard in office buildings. Ah well.