You've probably never paid attention to which direction your ceiling fan spins, but if you look up right now, it's almost certainly rotating counterclockwise. Every ceiling fan in every room seems to follow this same pattern.
But there's a hidden feature that most people never discover: your ceiling fan has a reverse switch that completely changes how it affects room temperature - and fan companies don't want you to know about it!
Counterclockwise rotation creates a downdraft that makes you feel cooler through wind chill, which is perfect for summer. But clockwise rotation does the opposite - it pulls cool air up and pushes warm air down from the ceiling, making rooms warmer in winter.
Most fans have a small switch on the motor housingthatreverses the direction, but it's deliberately hidden and never mentioned in marketing materials. Fan manufacturers could easily promote this feature but choose not tobecauseselling separate heating and cooling devices is more profitable.
The energy savings from using the winter setting canreduce heating bills by 10%, but utility companies and HVAC manufacturers have no incentive to publicizethismoney-saving secret.
Installation guides rarely mention the reverse feature, and most electricians don't explain it when installing fans. The switch exists on virtually every fan made in the last 30 years, but remains one of home improvement's best-kept secrets.
Ceiling fan stores could easily demonstrate both settings to customers, but they focus only on summer cooling because that's when people shop for fans. Winter heating benefits are deliberately downplayed.
That ceiling fan above your head has been hiding a money-saving winter featurethatcould have been reducing your heating bills for years!