Last summer, as another heatwave rolled in, we decided to do something we’d been talking about for a while. Rather than buying another portable fan, we installed ceiling fans throughout the house.

Superman fitted one in every bedroom, along with one in our lounge, and a year later they’ve become one of those home upgrades we genuinely wonder how we managed without.

If you’re wondering are ceiling fans worth it in the UK?, for us the answer has been yes. They haven’t replaced air conditioning entirely, but after living with them through a full year of warm weather, they’ve made our bedrooms noticeably more comfortable and become part of our everyday summer routine.

For us, absolutely.

Like many families, installing whole house air conditioning simply wasn’t realistic, and portable air conditioning units aren’t always the perfect solution either. They’re expensive to run, fairly noisy, and every time the UK gets a spell of hot weather they seem to sell out almost overnight.

Ceiling fans have given us a quieter, more permanent way of making the house feel more comfortable when the temperature rises. They don’t take up any floor space, they’re simple to switch on whenever we need them and, after a year of using ours, we’d happily install them again.

A ceiling fan doesn’t lower the actual temperature of a room in the same way an air conditioner does. What we’ve noticed is how much more comfortable the moving air makes the room feel, particularly at bedtime.

We do still have a portable air conditioner, but instead of moving it from room to room, it sits on the landing and blows cool air towards the bedrooms. The ceiling fans then circulate that cooler air around each room, making a noticeable difference at bedtime and helping the rooms stay comfortable throughout the night.

Even on evenings when we don’t use the air conditioner, the gentle airflow from the fans makes sleeping much more comfortable.

For us, the two actually work particularly well together.

The portable air conditioner provides the genuinely cooled air, while the ceiling fans help move that air around the bedrooms. It means we’re no longer trying to move one portable unit from room to room every night.

On less intense summer evenings, we often don’t need the air conditioner at all and simply use the ceiling fans.

This has probably been where we’ve appreciated them most.

Our fans are quiet enough for us to leave running overnight, and the continuous gentle airflow makes the bedrooms much more comfortable during warm weather.

Perhaps the biggest compliment we can give them is that we barely think about them anymore. They simply get switched on every evening during hot weather and have become part of our normal bedtime routine.

One of the reasons we like using ceiling fans is that they use considerably less electricity than our portable air conditioner.

We haven’t monitored the exact running cost of each fan, so I wouldn’t pretend to give you a precise figure, but in everyday use we’re much happier leaving a ceiling fan running for longer periods rather than relying on air conditioning throughout the night.

One unexpected bonus has been the reduction in mosquitoes.

While ceiling fans certainly aren’t a replacement for insect repellent, mosquitoes struggle to fly effectively in moving air, and we’ve noticed far fewer buzzing around the bedrooms overnight when the fans are running.

Absolutely.

This isn’t a sponsored post and we paid for every fan ourselves. After living with them for the past year, we’d happily install them again.

If you’re struggling to get hold of a portable air conditioner, or you’re simply looking for a quieter, more permanent way to make your home more comfortable during the summer months, we think ceiling fans are well worth considering.

The exact white model we installed last year no longer appears to be available, but there are very similar versions available on Amazon, and I’ve linked to the closest alternatives we would recommend below.

Reporting from the dust,

xo Lois

These are the products we used in our own home and continue to use every day. We purchased everything ourselves and this isn’t a sponsored post. Where the exact products are no longer available, we’ve linked to the closest alternatives we would recommend today.

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