If you’re looking to style up your kitchen and add a little more airflow, you may be considering putting a ceiling fan in your kitchen, but is it a good idea?
If you have poor ventilation in your kitchen or you want more airflow for a cool breeze, adding a ceiling fan to your kitchen is a great idea with many benefits, but there are a few things you have to consider too like space, noise and style.
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There are a variety of pros and cons to installing a ceiling fan in your kitchen, and it’s important that you know whether a ceiling fan will be a good fit for you in the long run. The rest of this article will dive into the benefits of kitchen ceiling fans and what to look for when you’re buying one.
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Pros And Cons Of Putting Ceiling Fan In Kitchens
They Offer Additional Airflow
Seems pretty obvious – that’s what fans are designed for, isn’t it?
But the great thing about ceiling fans in a kitchen, is that they can help remove a lot of those foody odors that linger for a while after cooking. Better ventilation is also useful if you accidentally smoke up the kitchen (no judgment here) when you’re preparing food.
Stale and stuffy air can be frustrating to deal with, especially if you spend a lot of your time baking, and a ceiling fan can help filter out some of those musty smells.
Ceiling fans in combination with a few well-chosen open windows offers great benefit for improving airflow in your kitchen.
Lower Your Energy Costs
Another great benefit to installing a kitchen ceiling fan is that it may lower your energy bill by up to 30% in the summer. In fact, ceiling fans are a great environmentally friendly way of being more energy efficient.
Using AC is a quick way to hike up the price of your energy bill, so if you’re able to stay cool more easily by using a fan, then you won’t need to spend as much energy running the AC.
If you live in a warmer climate where you often find yourself relying heavily on the AC to keep you cool, you may see a nice drop in your energy bill after using your kitchen ceiling fan for a while.
It’s worth noting that ceiling fans aren’t a full-on replacement for air conditioning, they don’t actually cool the air, they simply distribute it throughout the room, so if you live in a humid environment, the wind-chill effect won’t be as effective at cooling you off, but the effect will still be notably better than without a fan.
Keep Insects At Bay
If you like propping open a window or sliding open a screen door from time to time, you may find yourself accosted by various flying nuisances when you’re cooking. A kitchen ceiling fan can be a good option to help keep these pesky bugs off your person.
Mosquitos are particularly weak flyers (thank goodness), so the increased airflow works wonders at warding them away from you when you’re in the kitchen and have the fan turned on. Read more in our article, do ceiling fans keep mosquitos away?
Of course, the ceiling fan will do nothing to keep bugs out of the house in the first place, and they’re still going to be in there when you move away from the kitchen, but if you have a fast-moving ceiling fan, at least you can take solace in the fact that they can’t harass you while you’re cooking.
Downsides Of Using A Ceiling Fan In Kitchen
Kitchen ceiling fans can be great for increasing airflow, keeping the house cool, and stopping bugs, but there are also some downsides worth considering.
Kitchen Ceiling Fans Can Be Unaesthetic
Perhaps the biggest problem with installing a kitchen ceiling fan is where you’re going to put it and how it’s going to look when you’re done.
Finding the right color, style, and shape to fit your kitchen can be a nightmare, especially if you are indecisive when it comes to interior décor choices.
A lot of ceiling fans are more suited to accentuate the warmer tones of a living room rather than the pristine and tidy look of a kitchen, but that’s not to say that you can’t find the perfect fan for your kitchen.
Just be sure you’re prepared for the time it’ll take to find the perfect design of fan that meets your needs.
Kitchen Ceiling Fans Can Be Tricky to Install
Read more : What Does It Mean When Hot Water Comes Out Cloudy?
The way that power is wired through your kitchen isn’t conducive to installing a fan, but that’s not to say that it can’t be done. You’ll have to pull power from above the stove or the attic to get the job done.
Securing these wires safely can be no easy feat, and unless you already have experience as an electrician or are a DIY expert, it’s better to let your local certified electricians handle this installation project for you.
Kitchen Ceiling Fans May Be a Hazard When Cooking with Open Flame
Depending on whether or not you use a gas stove, a kitchen ceiling fan can blow the flames around and create a fire hazard, particularly if you’re running the fan on high all the time.
In addition, when you serve your food up on the countertop, that overhead fan is going to cool down your food much more quickly, which can be annoying to deal with.
To avoid this risk, be sure not to place the fan too close to the stovetop or near the area you typically serve up your food.
They Can Be Loud
Sure, ceiling fans aren’t that loud, but you’d be surprised how much more you’ll notice it in your kitchen especially if you kitchen is small.
If you want a properly sized fit to aerate your kitchen, you’ll need a pretty decent size fan that’s going to make some unwanted noise.
If that constant swooshing noise is going to bother you, then a kitchen ceiling fan might not be right for you.
Top tip – generally, the more blades on a ceiling fan, the quieter they are, so if you think this is going to be an issue, go for a ceiling fan with more blades.
What To Consider Before Putting A Ceiling Fan In Your Kitchen
Installation Access
We always recommend leaving the installation of a ceiling fan to a professional, but you are still going to need to consider how they are going to install it for you. Do you have attic access or crawl space above? Are you installing where an existing light fixture is?
Surrounding Area
You need to ensure there is adequate room around the ceiling fan to make sure it doesn’t collide with anything. This includes light fittings, cabinets, doors and smoke alarms.
Lighting
If your kitchen gets dark at times, you can also consider getting a fan with a light fixture; however, using the light is also going to consume more energy, but you get the added benefit of a light and air circulation.
Ceiling Height & Downrod Length
When installing the fan, make sure that you use the appropriately sized downrods so that tall people aren’t going to worry about bumping their heads on your kitchen ceiling fan.
Of course, you should put the fan somewhere accessible for you as you will need to be able to clean it. As it will be running in a kitchen, it will be prone to grease build up on the blades. Take a look at our article on how to clean a ceiling fan.
Where To Place A Ceiling Fan In A Kitchen?
Many people like to place a ceiling fan in the center of a room, but you don’t have to (read our article on whether ceiling fans have to be centered).
Kitchens often have other items on the ceiling that you will need to consider like smoke detectors, hanging lights or pots and pan hangers for example.
You also have to avoid being too close to any naked flames (gas cooker) to avoid any fire hazards, not too close to the exhaust/extractor fan as it will make it less efficient and it’s best to keep it away from where food is going to be served up as it will make it go cold a lot quicker.
Our best advice is to ask yourself where would you like to feel a breeze?
Put it as close to there as you can, but remember that it must be at least 1.5 feet away from any walls and have at least a gap of 12 inches between the blades and the ceiling.
What Size Ceiling Fan For A Kitchen?
As a general guide, take a look at the table below on what size ceiling fan you should purchase for your kitchen (you can read more about how to measure a ceiling fan here):
3-bladed fans will be more efficient at moving the air around the room and don’t make as much of a footprint on the layout of your kitchen as fans with more blades. 5-bladed fans, on the other hand, are much quieter. Take a look at our article on how many blades a ceiling fan should have.
Are Ceiling Fans In Kitchens Outdated?
It’s completely personal preference, but some interior designers agree that ceiling fans in a kitchen are outdated; we on the other hand, disagree.
A lot of kitchens are designed with a more minimalist design in mind― sleek laminated countertops, appliances inset and tidy, smooth, rectangular edges.
It can be hard to incorporate a ceiling fan into this style, and it may end up being an eyesore if you’re not careful.
But lets face it – not everyone is an interior designer who tends to create spaces that look amazing, but in reality aren’t great to actually live in.
There are some amazing modern looking fans available at the moment. The 52″ Reiga is one of our personal favorites. It wouldn’t look out of place in even the most modern of kitchens.
Read more about if we think ceiling fans are outdated here.
What Ceiling Fans Do We Recommend For A Kitchen?
Traditional
Modern
Small
Large
Other Tips To Help Keep Your Kitchen Cool
Not sure about putting a ceiling fan in your kitchen? Here’s some other ways to help keep your kitchen cool:
Use blinds or curtains
A major contributor to the build up of heat in a kitchen (or any room in fact) will be the sun coming through the windows. An easy way to help with this is to install blinds or curtains. If you’re going to be out all day, pull the blinds down and you’ll come home to a considerably cooler room.
Change to an induction hob
This isn’t a simple fix, but if you are considering updating your hobs (stovetop) anyway, it’s definitely worthwhile considering moving to induction.
Not only induction is extremely efficient, fast, and quiet, it also produced very little heat. The hob top transfers energy directly to your pan, therefore doesn’t warm up the air around it like gas would.
Use another type of fan
Ceiling fans aren’t the only type of fans you can use in a kitchen.
You may be interested in something more portable like a table fan or a pedestal fan. Both are great, inexpensive options that you can use in any room. There are downsides though; they will be less powerful than a ceiling fan and most likely less efficient too.
Avoid using the oven
This one may not be the most practical, but it really can help.
Naturally, ovens have to heat up in order to cook food, and this heat isn’t entirely contained inside the oven, so it heats up the room around it. If it’s a really hot day, you may not want hot food anyway, so keep the oven off and opt for something cold instead!
Final Thoughts
Putting a ceiling fan in your kitchen has a lot of pros and cons.
On one hand, they can help improve airflow in a kitchen, helping to remove stagnant, polluted air. On the other, they do make some noise and often don’t fit well in the kitchen aesthetic if you don’t choose wisely.
Steam from cooking can make a kitchen really warm in a matter of minutes, so a ceiling fan can be a great addition to help cool down the area and even lower your energy bill in the process.
In the end, the cons of installing a kitchen ceiling fan are mostly due to aesthetics and a few annoyances rather than any major flaws or danger, so if you want to put up a kitchen ceiling fan to beat the summer heat, go for it!
Now that the kitchen is sorted, how about a ceiling fan in the bathroom?
Source: https://gardencourte.com
Categories: Kitchens