I am building a new home and want to start buying my own fixtures and ceiling fans. In my present home I have Hunter and Casablanca which have served me well. I have been looking at some Hampton Bay fans at Home Depot and they seem comparable to the Hunter but I am concerned with reliability. Any advise or thoughts.
If you have brands that have served you faithfully for some years it would be logical to use them again barring some very compelling reason. FWIW, I installed a new Hunter fan recently (my first of this brand). Everything from packaging to instructions to parts quality was first rate. It will probably come down to appearance and fit to your decor, since there is about a century of refinement in ceiling fan technology. Doing a Google search on other brands is recommended, since there may some clunkers out there in pretty boxes.
Good luck.
Joe
I have a $12 Hampton Bay, two Casablanca, and one $125 Hunter. The Hunter is built like tank and it is used the most. Did not have any problems with any of these--all quiet. There is some wind noise when the Hunter is on "high." All were installed with a wall switch, and it was the wiring that was the most work. I hated crawling in the attic fiberglass insulation to install the wiring but I did wait for a cool morning to do it. The wireless controls eliminate the nasty work, but the wall switch looks a lot more professional and clean.
HD uses multiple vendors for HB fans. Most have lifetime warranty on motors. All have at least 15 or 20 year warranty. I have had as good as luck with HB as with Hunter.
-don
I installed a Hunter in the master bedroom and a Hampton Bay in my son's room last year. The Hampton Bay is making noises already. The three Hunters in my house are all still working perfectly.
I also installed both (one hunter and one HB). The Hunter is a nice fan but could use a multi stage lights (it has on/off... would be nice to have (1 bulb, 2 bulbs and 4 bulbs option. The HB gave off a burning smell for the first few days.
The smell went away, but I am still concered about it.
C_kubie
One aspect not mentioned is motor noise. Cheap fans with few poles especially on lower speed can give off a pulsing electrical motor sound. Look inside the fake outer metal of the motor housing and see how much copper and how many discrete poles the motor has. The original hunter style hunters have poles around the whole outer housing and some cheaper fans have a tiny motor inside the housing.
I am year by year replacing a cheape with an original hunter and started in the bedrooms.
Louis
My last house had 2 Casablanca fans. One was a electrnically controlled Intellitouch, which worked fine until the power went out and returned. Once power was applied, the lights would stay on full brightness until shutoff at the switch. This was the correct operation but it was very annoying. The fan itself ran fine. My other Casablanca fan was a standard unit that after about 7 years developed an annoying tick, tick, tick sound and medium and high speeds.
My current house has 3 Emerson fans. They been in use for 6+ years and I'm very happy with them. The fan in the great room runs continously all year and still runs like new. However, at the highest speed, it also has a tick, tick, tick noise. Not really loud, but it's there.
I would buy Emerson fans again.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.