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Best fan placement to move air through the house

Matthias random stuff4 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2021-2025
YouTube
11.5M views · 5 years ago · demo · evergreen

Matthias Wandel uses anemometer measurements to find where to place a fan to move the most air through a house at night. He finds that placing the fan some distance back from the window works better.

Cited in cooling and fan-noise threads as a short video with actual data on fan placement.

Power grid, heating & buildingsHome, DIY & practical skillsEveryday physics & science demos#fans#ventilation#airflow#homecooling#experiments

5 comments from Hacker News

@Sweepi2025 · in “Noise cancelling a fan”

Since all comments seem to agree that noise cancelling wont work, 3 practical tips: 1. use the Bernoulli-Effect, aka get "up to 50+%"(depends on fan model) more airflow by placing the fan 0.2(0.5) - 1.5m away from the window. 2. Blow air out of the window, dont try to suck air in. 3. To avoid noise: Put the fan in another room and open the window in the room where you are. Video with data: ▶ this video (6 minutes)

RecommendsView on HN
@pshc2025 · in “Noise cancelling a fan”

apparently this is the source: ▶ this video The fan increases air speed at the centre of the rotor, creating a low pressure zone which then sucks in surrounding air. So it helps to place the fan away from the window (roughly far enough that the wind cone "fits" the opening).

CitesView on HN
@samldev2023 · in “Cooking Air Quality”

Matthias Wandel made a great video showing how it's better to place the fan a meter or two away from the window to get more air flow ▶ this video

Strongly recommendsView on HN
@nemacol2022 · in “Effects of grill patterns on fan performance/noise (2011)”

▶ this video Matthias has an interesting video that is tangentially related talking about the distance of a fan to a window and air flow. While watching I was wondering how this interacts with PC case fans and if they are losing a lot of performance by being directly against the case.

RecommendsView on HN
@spearo772021 · in “Passive radiative cooling below ambient airtemperature under direct sun (2014) [pdf]”

Matthias tries a few options and evaluates them– ▶ this video > Experiments and anemometer measurements to figure out where to best place a fan to optimally air out the house to cool it down at night.

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