apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

i have three of the Concept II flush-mount in my house. we have a small house with 8 ft. ceilings and a distinct lack of enough air returns for the central air/heat. the ceiling fans that were in the house when we moved in were much too large and hung too low, making it almost dangerous when the fans were on. plus, they were really ugly!

these are great because they're simple looking, move a lot of air, have a dimmable center light and work on remote controls. i have them on almost year-round (in reverse when the heat is on to help circulate the air).

nattles: i have the same fan in my bedroom! i love it so much, i'm debating putting it in the other bedrooms as well. you're right - it's perfect for small areas that don't have high ceilings. i also like that it's a fairly quiet fan. when it's on low, you can barely hear it.

We have very low ceilings upstairs in our house (7.5'). After tons of research, the non-flush mount fan with the shortest profile (including the light(s)) was the Ball fan from Modern Fan Co. It hangs only 12" from ceiling to tip of light! The flush-mount Ball Hugger hangs 2" lower!

We considered the Concept II hugger-style, but although it only hangs 11.5" inches down, one of our three bedrooms has a slanted ceiling where the electrical box is, so the flush-mount wouldn't work and we wanted to keep all 3 fans identical.

Also, I disagree that black is good for a generic fan, unless your ceiling is painted dark. I would want white so it dissappears into the ceiling. In fact, even though the Ball fans are beautiful, we got them in white due to the low ceilings.

I had this same problem in my new place. Three fans needed total. That made cost an issue, obviously. But what people can overlook is the size of the fan blades. The industrial style fan from Lowes, for example, would only be appropriate for a great (great) room. I went with the Modern Ball Fan in gloss white. I appreciated the variety of down-rods included, as well as the choice of blade length. Really well-made product. I like how the regular ball fan with the 3-inch down-rod looks better than the "hugger", and it's more versatile anyways (especially if you move). Ylighting is clearly the best distributor...competent site, best price, and fast:

http://ylighting.com/ball.html

Yep, we've got a Concept II in our living room with the cap over the light (don't need overhead light in there) - and people comment on it frequently. Some of them hate it, but they're mostly the folks who like "Plantation Faux Leather with Brushed Antique Brass Trim," and as such I don't much mind that they hate it. It works unbelievably well and was very reasonably priced at

Hmm, looks like I screwed up my link, there - Bellacor http://www.bellacor.com/productDetail/34775.htm
That's what I get for trying to be fancy.

Do you Concept II flush-mount people have the wall switch as well? We're just about to buy that fan for the bedroom in our new house (the one there is mugly and low hanging) and we're nervous that the only way to turn it on and off is a remote.

If you go to Mark Gajewski's website (he designs a lot of fans for Minka, including the Artemis but not the Concept) there is a lot of really good information on choosing a fan for your room

http://www.g2art.com/page/how_to_order_ceiling_fans_and_lights

and you can customize any fan they sell on their site (many have different blade lengths, blade colors and downrod lengths).

The other thing you can get is a wall switch for the Concept. We're trying to decide whether it's worth it, especially since we're renting now.

regards,
trillium

i wish they made more nicely designed ceiling fans for small apartments. most of these things are HUGE!

I just put in a Concept by Minka Aire. Very good price through ylighting. It runs very quiet and cool and I'm happy with it. That said, the light it puts out is not very good. Perhaps a different bulb could be used (it was a small bulb, maybe a halogen), but something to keep in mind.

This list reminds me of the old Wendy's commercial spoof on a soviet Fashion show.

The same model wears the same house dress but adds a flashlight: "iz eveng vare".

s

What about the sycamore fan ?

http://www.sycamorefan.com/

Looks great and so much more energy efficient than normal fans

See treehugger article
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/sycamore_ceilin.php

Colin, looks like we posting almost identical posts simultaneously!

We got ours through a local vendor (http://www.centro-inc.com/). We asked if they could come down on price and they ended up giving us basically the same price that can be found online (and I didn't pull the I-saw-it-on-the-internet-for-less card). I loved that I could use a local guy.

As for the controls, I will always favor hardwired wall controls. I've had bad luck with those remotes going haywire. I might do it if I were renting, though.

In terms of actually being GREEN, you missed the most energy efficient fan on the market--the Gossamer Wind fans. They were developed at the U. of Fl to move move the most air for the least energy (they claim that the fans use half the energy of normal ceiling fans).

they're not bad looking either. I still want one or two of the Windward II for my apt.

http://www.gossamerwind.com/

We have the plexiglass version of the Artemis fan. Its awesome. Our ceilings are 9' and it works great. We especially like the light dimmer on the remote.

I've got the Artemis in the light wood (the one pictured). I get more positive comments on that fan than anything else in my apartment. I put the concept I fans in the two bedrooms - while I like the hugger style of the concept II's, I wanted something slightly less modern so that if I should sell my apartment they'd appeal to all - plus, they were cheaper than the concept II's. I really don't use any of them for light, but it's nice having the option of a little extra lights. My energy bills have been about $35 a month all summer, and that's for a 1000 sq. ft. apt. It is amazing how much higher you can have the AC when you've got ceiling fans. My AC has been at 75 almost every day and it's been perfectly cool inside, even when we were hitting 100 degrees on a regular basis.

I have the same problem many have, low eight foot ceilings - not much room for a fan. Does anybody have experience in hugger fans? Most fans seem to just give you a really short tube to hang the fan close to the ceiling, but this looks really dumb! Any ideas?

That ceiling fan in the picture is crazy looking. I wonder how it holds up over time. The blades look like they might separate from the base eventually.

Remote controls are great for ceiling fans and I would believe they make you more apt to use.