Month: January 2020

Ceiling Fans

If you have tall rooms a ceiling fan can make a real difference to your comfort without large bills.

Summer

While a ceiling fan does not lower the temperature it will make the room feel cooler by:

  • The breeze improving the ability of your body to lose heat by perspiration.
  • It mixes the cooler air near the floor with the warmer air near your face.

The combined effect is that you feel several degrees cooler.

So you may not have to run the air conditioning as much.

Most ceiling fans use less than 100 watts, which equates to less than 3 cent per hour to run.

Winter

Ceiling Fans can also help lower heating costs in winter.

You can run the ceiling fan in the reverse mode.

This stops hot air staying in the top of the room by pushing warm air up against the ceiling and then down the walls gently re-circulating warm air through the room.

Fan Selection

It’s important to consider the size of the room when selecting a ceiling fan.

The larger the room size the larger the blade diameter and the more powerful the fan motor will need to be to generate enough cooling breeze.

Also a small fan in a large room can make a space look unbalanced whereas a large fan can look overpowering in a small room.

Room Area

Fan Diameter

Up to 7m2

92cm (36inches)

7m2 – 13m2

92cm – 107cm(36 – 42inches)

13m2 – 20m2

122cm – 127cm(42 – 44 inches)

20m2 – 36m2

127cm – 132cm(44 – 46inches)

Installation

Any ceiling fan should be at least 2.1 metres from the floor to the blades of the fan and at least 300mm from the ceiling.

This is a minimum and if you have some basketballers, or ruckmen in the family it may need to be higher.

If you are planning on ceiling fans for a new house it is well worth making the rooms higher.

If you have got cathedral ceilings you can get a ball type fitting to allow them to be fixed to the sloping ceiling.

You can also get extension rods to lower the fan if they are too high to give an effective breeze.

 

For similar posts see Electrical

 

Keeping Records – 5 things to do

My old contract management tutor at university always said that the three most important things when managing a construction contract are:

  • Records;
  • Records;
  • and Records.

Over 40 years in the civil engineering industry I have often reflected on the wisdom of those words.

So what does this mean when you are building your new house.

Well here are a few things you should do in case problems arise in your build:

A. Buy a one page to the day diary and record everything that happens about your new house from the start of the process until all defects from your three-month inspection have been fixed. Sign and date every entry. (Include a summary of any conversations)

B. Keep all correspondence from the builder, council, power supply companies, suppliers brochures, etc, etc.

C. Confirm all discussions and verbal agreements by either an Email or a letter.

D. Write a letter about any concerns immediately you think there is a problem.

E. Take photographs of progress, and any items of concern, with a camera that record dates.

For most builds this will just be an interesting record of your build.

However if major problems occur these records will give you the best chance of a satisfactory outcome.

Did you use your records to get the result you wanted?

 

More posts about the build are in the Construction Section

 

Ship House

This is not just a house that looks like a ship…..Its actually part of a ship that has been lifted onto a cliff overlooking a lake.

The ship was called the Benson Ford, owned by the Ford Motor company, it was used to transport iron ore and coal through the Great Lakes to the Ford factory in Detroit.

After 50 years service the ship was scrapped but this section of the bow was installed in South Bass Island.

To find out more about this house see the shiponthebay website where you will find more photographs.

For more unusual houses go to What the………………….?

 

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