I love taking peoples box fans and cleaning them. It's not even hard, people just don't do it and let it suffer.
I meant to say "taking apart", but I'm leaving it that way because it's funnier.
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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But don't you stop it every 6 months to flip the switch and make it spin in the other direction? You know, the unlabeled switch and nobody knows which way for which season.
Fans pull air up in summer and push and air down in winter. Hot rises cold air falls, you're just trying to push or pull the air current away from where it wants.
I am confident you have it exactly backwards. In the summer fan pushes air down to create active airflow that cools you through increased evaporation.
In the winter, fan pulls air up creating circulation to avoid cold spots in the room. Being able to feel air movement makes people feel cooler even if the air is the same temperature as they are.
I think it's notable that in winter you run it slower so that you can't feel the air movement. You are just trying to get the warm air that rose to the ceiling to come back down gently by pulling some cooler air up to displace it.
This individual does not give a shit about wasting electricity.
Three years isn't very long for a fan. We all get that, right? Even non-stop...
Hell, I've got fans in my server that are over ten years old, they've been running quite literally non-stop.
Ceiling fans are a bit different because the blades are huge floppy levers and the dust on them causes uneven wear and eventually Imbalance and death.
If you turn it off, it will cool down and seize.
I just take it appart... clean the electrical contacts and oil the motor spindel with 3 and 1 oil. I have yet to figure out which capacitors that will work with these box fans when they overload and die. If you catch it before they poop out you can keep em going forever. Like a marine cleans their rifle I clean my fans. I can do it in like 10 minutes. Zip zip blam fan
https://vger.to/lemmy.world/c/dull_mens_club
Please, if you would, we dig that.
My new home!
Oh! I recently pulled apart my dusty, cat-hair-sprouting desk fan and hosed it down in the shower. I could have posted it there.
The thing is about five years old, it replaced one that was MUCH older. I didn't expect it to last this long. I hate the switch on it though. It's a rotating wheel switch that is too stiff. It's not big enough to get a hold of so I need two hands to turn it on and off.
Both a welcoming invitation and savage burn at the same time. Love that community.
If you format the link with an exclamation point community @ instance it creates an instance agnostic link.
Like this: !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
EDIT: NGL I dig that community and have been lurking for awhile there.
Do you know how to do a comment then? I know the devs know how to make it so it will do this automatically, not sure why this hasn't been done or maybe there's clients that do this?
Doing a comment is a little strange due to how instances log those.
Here's a link to a tool for it.
And a test link to the comment I initially replied to using the tool
Very interesting, thanks. It still won't let me vote on your test link, but I might have did the crosslink wrong.
Can confirm. My office fan needs me to kickstart it with a pen before it rattles to life
YSK: Running your fan when you are not in the room actually warms the room. Fans don't actually cool anything, instead they help the human body more efficiently cool itself. It also helps churn the air in the room, which might make it feel fresher depending on the situation. But it only works directly on humans, because we use evaporation to lose heat. Fans however do use a lot of power and most of that power gets turned into heat, warming the room. So when there's nobody in the room, turn off the fan.
This obviously doesn't apply to fans that draw or push air somewhere else. A fan in a window, with another window open opposite can be useful without anybody around. Pro tip: If you want to cool the room you're going to be (the bedroom for example) using outside air, don't put the fan in the window in that room. It's much more effective to put a fan in another room blowing outside and having the window in the room you want to cool the only other open window. It draws in cool air much faster, cooling down the room. Also don't put the fan directly in the window, fans create a column of air that gets wider with distance. If you put the fan in the window, the column doing the work is about as large as the fan, which is presumably smaller than the window. By putting the fan a bit away from the window, the column can push on the whole area of the window, improving airflow. The optimal location is usually around 1m away. depending on the fan and window.
Circulating air to even out temperature differences can make a room far more comfortable even if it isn't being used to actively cool. Running a ceiling fan pointing up in the winter will help when the ceilings are higher for example.
TIL it's more effective to put the fan ~1 m from the window
unfortunately I cannot put the fan ~1 m from the window because my apartment is cramped af :[
Counterpoint: sometimes because of how air moves around a house putting a fan to circulate the air will keep the house more evenly heated.
Source: My living room is in a circulatory dead end and air just hangs out there without a fan. (Though a low fan in the doorway is enough.)
It can be beneficial when combined with some other (thermostat controlled) heating or cooling.
The fan circulates air in the room, making the temperature of the air in the room more uniform, and giving the heating/cooling device's thermostat a better sense of the room's actual temperature.
In a room with an air conditioner and a poorly placed thermostat, a fan could be helping the room stay cooler.
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Everyone point your fans at the sun, we need to move the planet away from it.
There's a Chinese sci-fi movie with that plot
Wandering Earth?
Yes, that's the one!
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I cleaned mine last month! Now I don’t have to do it again for another 5 years.
Last time I tried to clean my old one it decided to kill itself, and I'm not sure how close I was to an electrical fire.
Isn't that also kinda what happened to the man in the photo IRL?
Amou Haji
That was load bearing grime.
Somehow I don't think the dying and the washing are related
He was 94, super spright. Dying at that age? Chance in a million.
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Despite his unhygienic lifestyle, he lived to the age of 94. He died a few months after bathing for the first time in 60 years, having been persuaded by the inhabitants of the village to do so.
Damn, maybe he should have kept following his instinct.
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