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When to Use HVLS Ceiling Fans

Is your warehouse too hot for your employees to work comfortably? Does your factory floor get too stifling and stuffy for your workers to be productive? Could your industrial building use a more optimal environment for the health and well-being of your staff? 

If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then you may be in serious need of an HVLS (high-volume, low-speed) ceiling fan. What do these fans do exactly? Who uses them? And what benefits can they provide? 

 

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Why People Use HVLS Ceiling Fans in Warehouses

U.S. law requires companies to protect their employees from undue risks. This “duty of care” includes a safe environment in which workers can perform their regular job tasks. 

When the environment in a warehouse or factory floor becomes too hot, cold, dusty, or humid for employees to work comfortably, their health and well-being can be at risk. Not only does their ability to be productive drop, but they are also more likely to become ill, suffer symptoms, and even miss work. 

HVLS ceiling fans provide a highly effective solution to uncomfortable work environments. While standard ceiling fans—the kind you have in your home—are ideal for smaller areas such as bedrooms, they’re generally ineffective in large spaces like warehouses. However, HVLS fans are powerful enough to provide sufficient air circulation to keep workers comfortable and productive. 

With their much larger size—anywhere from 8 to 30 feet in diameter (2.4 to 9.1 meters)—and specially engineered design, HVLS ceiling fans create a consistent flow of air that helps employees feel cooler and enables them to stay energized and focused while on the job. 

When Shouldn’t You Use HVLS Ceiling Fans?

While HVLS ceiling fans are a great answer for the vast majority of warehouses and other large industrial spaces, there may be a handful of situations where an overhead fan may not be the best solution. 

For example, if a warehouse is stacked floor to ceiling with narrow shelving units, there simply may not be sufficient space to fit a large overhead fan. Other conditions that may prohibit the effective use of an HVLS ceiling fan might include:

  • Situations where a breeze or moving air may disrupt a company’s ability to get work done (for example, producing or packing lightweight objects such as sheets of paper or feathers)
  • Facilities that use equipment that may be sensitive to certain patterns of circulated air
  • Building or production configurations that may require a more directional—even one-on-one—fan solution
  • Large production facilities that change their physical set-up or production orientation on a regular basis and may need a variety of air circulation solutions

How to Know What Type of HVLS Ceiling Fan You Need

If your company is like most others, an HVLS ceiling fan is probably an ideal solution for creating a comfortable working environment for your employees. In that case, you’ll need to figure out which fan will work best in your building(s).

At Big Ass Fans, we take the guesswork out of the HVLS warehouse fan decision-making process by providing an analysis of your building—measurements, dimensions, and environmental conditions. With this information, our airflow experts create a quantifiable simulation of how our fans will create better airflow in your warehouse. 

Our SpecLab® computational fluid dynamics software is just one of the many tools we use to help you choose the best fan. Our staff can guide you through the details of each fan option and match the right equipment to the specific needs of your company.

Getting HVLS Fan Pricing

We make it easy to get the details and pricing of all our HVLS ceiling fans. Just contact one of our airflow experts for a free consultation. 

 

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