Are Tower Fans Cool

A tower fan makes you feel cooler without making the room any cooler, because fans cool people, not rooms. Buy one if your room stays below the mid-90s, and if it runs hotter than that, skip the fan and get somewhere air-conditioned.

Pick the line that matches what you see in your home:

• The air where you live is dry, you can keep a door or window open, and you want air that is actually cooler: get the Evaporative Honeywell evaporative cooler. Keep it to days when humidity is 60% or less, and don't run it in a closed room.
• You want the fan to disappear at night in a bedroom: get the Tower Lasko EcoQuiet DC. If you want more airflow than it gives, get the Tower Lasko instead.
• The room is large and you want the breeze felt across it: get the Tower Dreo Cruiser Pro, which measured 508.8 CFM and was rated best for large rooms.
• You sit or sleep at different heights and want to aim the breeze: get the Tower Lasko Elevation, which adjusts from 42 to 54 inches.
• You want the fan to adjust its speed overnight from your phone or by room temperature: get the Tower Levoit Smart.
• You want fine control over speed: get the Tower Honeywell, with 8 speeds and timers of 1, 2, 4 and 8 hours.
• You fall asleep with the fan on and want it to keep running all night: get the Tower Pelonis, with a 15 hour timer.
• The room is in the mid-90s or hotter: buy no fan. Move to an air-conditioned place, or take a cool shower or bath.

Heat is where a fan no longer solves the problem, and the agencies give different figures. EPA says do not use electric fans for cooling when the room temperature is in the mid-90s or higher. A 2000 archived CDC press release said fans will not prevent heat-related illness in the high 90s. WHO says to use electric fans only below 40 C / 104 F and that above it fans heat the body. None of these figures makes a fan safe below it.

The research on older adults points the same way. In a JAMA trial of 18 older adults held for 8 hours at 36 C and 45 percent humidity, peak core temperature was 38.3 C with and without a fan. The 0.1 C and heart rate differences at the end were, in the authors' words, small and of questionable clinical importance. A secondary analysis in older adults found a small benefit: rectal temperature 0.1 C lower at 38 C and 60 percent humidity, with a confidence interval reaching zero. At 45 C and 15 percent humidity, it was 0.3 C higher. In hot, dry heat, fans raised core temperature. Don't lean on a fan there.

Once the room is under those limits, the bedroom pick comes down to noise. Lasko gives 23 dBa in Quiet Mode and 46 dBa at high for the EcoQuiet DC, with no distance stated. Bob Vila measured 23 dB on low and 50 dB on high from 6 feet. The two sources don't share conditions, so the gap doesn't make either figure wrong.

If you only want the most airflow and don't mind a bigger base, a pedestal fan with large blades is usually more effective, and CHOICE rated pedestal fans higher on average than tower fans. A tower buys you a smaller footprint. If you have decided a tower suits your room, the best tower fan page is for you.