Fantasia ceiling fans

I plan to install ceiling fans in our bedroom and in the garden room (which gets as hot as a conservatory with the large bay windows and french doors).

I had planned to buy fans by Hunter, having lived in the US and seen first-hand their quality. However, I came across Fantasia's site, and they seem to have a good range and a bit cheaper too.

My main concerns are noise and wobble - the last thing I want to end up with is a noisy motor (especially in the bedroom). The one in the garden room might need drop rod (10ft ceiling) so no-wobble is a must there.

Does anyone have experience of Fantasia's fans? Are they really any good?

Bob

Reply to
Bob
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Yes they are. I have two of their 54" ones in my conservatory. These are not comparable with the cheap tat sold in the DIY stores.

The motors are very solid and well engineered and extremely quiet with no perceivable humming sound at all.

With most fans, a lot of the air noise comes from decorative shapes on the blades, so I avoided this by going for plain surfaced ones.

There is a balancing procedure involving stick on lead weights being applied to blades where required. In practice I found that out of the two fans, only one needed a small piece of weight added - the other was perfect. I used drop rods on both and ended up with no noticable wobble either.

I have an RF controller for each fan which allows the speed to be set to one of three and the light underneath to be dimmed.

It all works well and has been in place for three years.

I would recommend shopping around. I got the best deal from a small specialist fan shop who substantially undercut John Lewis (who then refused to price match even though it met all their criteria).

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

Thanks - some good tips there. I'll definitely give them a closer look.

I would never buy from somewhere like John Lewis - I buy all my household appliances via the web these days, and I've saved hundreds of pounds so far (the best was an american fridge freezer - £2000 in Comet, £1350 online!).

I had a look at their website to see how the fan speed was controlled - I'd like to integrate it with my other home-automation stuff so I wouldn't want their remote - I might have to buy one of their wallplates and customise it a bit :-)

Bob

Reply to
Bob

Could be, but don't forget the trade suppliers as well. I bought mine from Koltrane Lighting in Reading. The pricing was 40% less than John Lewis

You could, and I think it would be reasonably easy.

Do consider the safety aspects though. The rotor and blades are fairly heavy together. If your head were to come into contact with one with the fan in motion, you would know about it.

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

I'll be sure to compare. A branded product will be the same whoever sells it, so I see nothing to gain from buying from a high street chain.

Unlike "he who is kill-filed", I don't go in for the energy saving 7ft ceiling :-)

At 10ft, there will be plenty of clearance. I don't want dangling chains though, so a wallswitch will be a must - I just need to make sure I can get it to work with my existing control system too.

Bob

Reply to
Bob

Sure.

I was thinking more of situations where you have the fan under some kind of automated control, climb up some steps or something and wallop.

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

Ah I see what you mean now :-)

I wasn't planning to automate turning it on or off - just to integrate it with my home automation system's method of remote control (ie via the PC using a wireless PDA or X10 rf remote). It would actually be possible to have the PC turn it on or off automatically, but as you say that could be dangerous (and I can't see any need for that anyway).

The bedroom is probably the most likely place for getting hit by the fan - I've had my hand whacked by a blade loads of times when pulling on a t-shirt!

Bob

Reply to
Bob

Andy, could you describe for us how to figure out where to put the weights? It would be nice to know if theres a better way to balance the more common fans than with a felt tip.

Regards, NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

Just for interest, a long rod usually makes wobble a non issue. It can wobble like a wobbly thing and a rod that long will be quite happy with that. It is short rods and ceiling huggers where no wobble becomes important.

Regards, NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

Sadly I can no longer find the instruction sheet.

There was a specific procedure for it, and IIRC involved the weights being positioned in the correct quantity and the correct positions both lengthwise and widthwise on certain blades. I believe that one step was to balance the blades individually and statically off of the rotor, and then to fit them and do the final setting.

However, the procedure may assume a certain degree of accuracy of the blades in the first place.

I can only suggest being a bit dishonest and giving Fantasia a call and telling them you've lost the instructions and could they fax you a copy or something.

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

How does a long rod make it a non issue? Surely the woble will be more noticeable, not less - and certainly more noticeable than if the fan was clamped to the ceiling itself (and therefore unable to move about).

Bob

Reply to
Bob

I installed one of their 4' bamboo fans ....... it was painless to install and ran wobble free, I think due to the rubber ball mount they use.

However be warned that there is a fair amount of transmitted noise through the ceiling to floor above - this was daughters bedroom and she always complained noise of fan would stop her getting to sleep. Maybe a consideration.

Rick

Reply to
Rick Hughes

Interesting point. It shouldn't be a problem for me bacause the room above is used as an office - but worth keeping in mind if that room should ever become a bedroom again. Cheers.

Bob

Reply to
Bob

Comparing long and short rods with wobble: the amount of sideways movement will be the same in each case, as that is determined by the fan imbalance. With a long rod the fan moves freely, and operates fairly happily, albeit it slightly offcentred. With a short rod the change of angle on the rod is much greater, and this is more likely to reach the limit of movement of the non pivoting bottom connection. The result is it gets stressed and squeaks. Also the repetitive impact forces are transferred to the fan, the whole of which is repeatedly stressed. None of this happens with a longer rod.

Regards, NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

Comparing long and short rods with wobble: the amount of sideways movement will be the same in each case, as that is determined by the fan imbalance. With a long rod the fan moves freely, and operates fairly happily, albeit it slightly offcentred. With a short rod the change of angle on the rod is much greater, and this is more likely to reach the limit of movement of the non pivoting bottom connection. The result is it gets stressed and squeaks. Also the repetitive impact forces are transferred to the fan, the whole of which is repeatedly stressed. None of this happens with a longer rod.

Regards, NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

Ah, OK. You're looking at it from the fan's point of view :-)

I was more concerned about wobble from an aesthetic angle. As long as I can balance the fan, I guess both problems will be satisfied.

Regards

Bob

Reply to
Bob

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