What kind of ceiling fans do you get for a modern house on a tight budget. How ’bout this. These are as bare bones as you can find for ceiling fans and can be found for under $75 each. There are a number of manufacturers that sell very similar models. This is a Westinghouse model that comes in brushed nickel for the same price as the white versions.
Here’s one from Emerson that’s a bit fancier and just over $100.
24 comments ↓
Hey Chad -
Any sources online?
Shawn
They even come in sizes of up to 56″ for that low price. That is a freaking deal, and the styling of the westinghouse would go great with your place.( at least they would look great in the mock up of your place)
very slick, simple fan. it’s strange how few and far between they are. we are going for wall-mounted industrial fans in the corners of the house to blow all our hot air out through the louvred facade.
Hah! Check out this warning from one online vendor:
Warning: Industrial ceiling fans are not recommended for use in any household applications. Severe injury can result if any part of the body comes in contact with the sharp metal blades of these fans. Because the industrial ceiling fans operate at higher speeds than traditional ceiling fans, they are required to be hung at least 10 feet above the floor.
Yeah, I guess some of them get moving pretty fast and the thin blades could be sharper than the average fan. I bet we could limit the settings to the lowest speeds to keep people from injuring themselves…
no. people are morons. if there is a chance to hurt themselves, they will. and then they sue…
Did you find any modern looking fans that offer a light source and are affordable?
We were actually just searching for that today. Not really anything that’s very attractive. The trick without the light is to efficiently layout lighting around each fan. With such a simple and open layout, I almost feel that one CFL in each room (except kitchen) is enough for overhead lighting. How do you layout one fan and one light in each room though?
Maybe you place a single CFL light source high on a wall. Perhaps the light source can become a design feature as apposed to a problem. I am currently struggling with the same dilemma.
The Nutone fan I was looking at looks very similar.
http://www.nutone.com/product-detail.asp?ProductID=10387
The light on the wall is a good idea although our SIPs make that a bit tricky. Maybe just placing it on the ceiling near the wall. Could have an interesting effect.
Nice looking fan from Nutone. The Westinghouse model is really growing on me. It’s so simple. Seems to be extremely efficient, using only 58 Watts at max speed. It blows away the average Energy Star fan made for residential applications.
We were looking at light/fan combos and they are really spendy - I like the direction of this conversation: Find ways to place the lights elsewhere, then install just the fan.
In our bedroom, where we want the fan, we have a closet space that “projects” into the room. My thought was to mount a light on top of the closet and shine it UP at the ceiling, creating a diffused light source. Could be cool. I’ll see if I can render it and post it on my blog.
Very cool idea. I’m really not a big fan of overhead lighting in general unless it’s a really nice fixture that is more of an art or design piece than lighting. Come to think of it, I really don’t know many people at all that prefer overhead lighting.
If the lights were placed near the walls where in between windows, it could create an interesting effect.
Overhead lighting really only needs to serve code requirements and allow people to easily flick a switch to navigate a room. Task lighting, lamps and sconces are the majority of the light sources that people actually use…
That nutone fan is pretty nice as well.
As for lighting how about some nice recessed options like these…
http://tinyurl.com/3whzt5
http://tinyurl.com/4lu4pk
http://tinyurl.com/3fznkp
Or a more industrial look like this…
http://tinyurl.com/3goxdg
Crud, that second link got screwed up and now I don’t remember where it was linking to. Doh!
Hey Gang,
Faster than you can say “Sketchup” I’ve posted a rendering of our solution to this challenge: http://www.shawnbusse.com/private/houseblog/the-great-lighting-debate
Very nice work Shawn. I think that would turn out very nice.
Brandon, we will probably be writing about lighting more tomorrow, but currently are looking at all exposed CFL’s using $2 fixtures from Home Depot.
Chad–do you have a link to where to buy the fans online?
http://www.westinghouseceilingfans.com/locate.asp
http://www.emersonfans.com/authorized.jsp
Or you could just Google the make/model # and I’m sure you’ll get hundreds of results.
Sorry about the delay. I’ve been swamped today. I updated the post with links to the fans at CSN Lighting which seemed to have the best pics, description and pricing.
Maybe not the least expensive, but …
http://modernfan.com/
[…] over a rough sketch of the lighting layout for the 100K House that they came up with. Given the discussion that was sparked the other day on the ceiling fans and where to put the lighting, I thought I would get this up ASAP for the interested parties. The […]
Colin, Thanks for the link. We all know and love modernfan.com but unfortunately their offererings are just too far out of our budget reqs. Also, I don’t feel that high-end modern fixtures like these fit the overall design theme of the project. We need to use a lot of innovative and affordable items, and then splurge on one or two items that make a statement. Since we will have 3-4 fans in the house, I did not think it was an item we could splurge on…
I’m not a fan of ceiling fans. They get very dusty. Many are noisy and most seem to have a very finite lifespan, requiring replacement. Though the models you are considering seem to have few of the issues that plague the ones sold at Home Depot and Lowes.
http://www.lakewoodconferences.com/direct/dbimage/50325340/Tower_Fan.jpg
When I renovated my house, I bought tower fans the local big box pharmacy. Tower fans provide the same type of whole room air circulation but at a lower cost. They easily plug into a wall outlet and are unobtrusive.
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