One of the things about having a relatively new house, is it costs relatively little to heat, thanks to the modern insulation. The downside of course about being so well insulated is that in this weather, once heat gets trapped in the house, it is very difficult to get rid of, usually requiring windows open and a good breeze to dissipate. As a result, when we get weather like we’ve had for the past few days, where we’ve had almost no breeze, we’ve generally had to be very fastidious about opening and closing windows and curtains at the right time of day, and using electric fans to shift air around the house. Although we’ve been fairly successful, by the afternoon, the upstairs is often unbearably hot.

Whilst it is a rare occurrence here, Beth is well used to soaring summer temperatures from her life growing up on the prairies, where the kind of temperatures we regard as a heatwave over here are pretty normal for the summer. As a result Beth’s parents house is somewhat better set up for coping in summer heat, whilst being even more insulated than our house here to cope with the plunging temperatures in the winter. Although we obviously can’t do much about mimicking the shady location of the house in Canada, we have often talked about duplicating another feature, which is having ceiling fans, which do a much better job at circulating the air around in the house than the small fans we have been using. Needless to say it’s always been one of those things that we’ve thought about after the heatwave has gone. But this time around we managed to get fans sorted in time for the heatwave, even if we couldn’t find an electrician to fit them until today!

After having a look around, whilst you can pick up a cheap fan from a local DIY store, the prevailing wisdom seemed to be that you wanted something well made and reliable, as the fans need to be properly balanced to work efficiently, and most especially not wobble. It just happened that the sole UK importer of one of the top US brands was based locally, so we gave the Hunter Fan Company a call.

We actually opted for their own brand fans, rather than any of the American imports, not least because they were cheaper, but as I said they turned up on Monday, and the electrician came out and fitted them today. Even more impressively he didn’t even need to get the balancing kits out of the packaging as both fans were perfectly balanced and wobble free as delivered.

Here is a short clip of the fan in our bedroom:

And this is the one installed in Lucy’s room:

Having had them installed and turned on, it was a definite case of wondering why we hadn’t got them sooner. From a room temperature of almost 30 〬C, and the room unusable, it brought the atmosphere in the room down to a level where Lucy was able to nap in the room, something she hasn’t been able to do because of the heat. Certainly a worthwhile investment, and good enough that we might just have to invest in one for the living room as well!