Everybody likes ceiling fans, right? Reduce cooling costs, add a reassuring element of white noise, look futuristic. So far so good. But not everybody is lucky enough to buy a home with pre-existing ceiling fans, or indeed, to live in a home where they could install one if they wished (landlords tending to take a dim view of impromptu remodeling).
Enter the Hanging Fan.
Rather than requiring all that pesky rewiring and bracing and installation of downrods, the Hanging Fan is designed, as the name suggests, to hang from a hook. It gets away with this by being lighter-weight than a standard fan - about as heavy as a potted plant, in fact. Granted, the airflow is somewhat lessened. Also, like floor fans, its blades are contained in a cage, for safety reasons.
As an additional safety feature (this is the clever bit) the motor has a vibration switch, which will shut it off if it starts swinging back and forth wildly or otherwise threatening to become airborne.
The whole thing plugs into an extension cord, which you may need to tape to the ceiling. Or add some more hooks.-- gisho, Jul 21 2010 baked here http://www.google.c...%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1 [xandram, Jul 21 2010] Home Lighting and Light Fixtures http://sararte.comDesign is defined by light. [arisyap, Jul 23 2010] How do you power it? You can put up a regular ceiling fan if you just center on a joist/beam. They aren't THAT heavy and they should be balanced when installed. The next bit is the tricky part, getting it power. (-)-- MisterQED, Jul 21 2010 "The whole thing plugs into an extension cord, which you may need to tape to the ceiling. Or add some more hooks."
You power it with an extension cord, from the nearest 120V wall socket. Regular ceiling fans require an electrical box in the ceiling.-- gisho, Jul 21 2010 Pretty bakeable; convert a standard ceiling fan to hang from a hook, and hard wire it to a long plug.
It would not be anything like something that had a chance of being even close to code, even if you knew what you were doing and could make it safe.-- nomocrow, Jul 21 2010 Does it have contra-rotating blades to stop it wrapping itself around its cord?-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Jul 21 2010 //look futuristic// Wait, what?-- mouseposture, Jul 21 2010 With the right technology, including an array of sensors, and torque-cancelling contrarotating fans, plus some gyroscopes, this could be plugged into a wall socket and would then automatically levitate itself into the optimal position just below ceiling level.
[+]-- 8th of 7, Jul 21 2010 Uh, hang on. I may be missing something obvious, but this thing is on the ceiling, yes? Where you have light sockets, yes? Which have electricity, yes? So just plug it into the light, yes?
Also, is there something strange about American wiring that makes it particularly difficult to remove an existing ceiling light fitting and replace it with a regular ceiling fan if you wanted it to be permanent?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 21 2010 Only the pain in the ass factor.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 22 2010 and the pain in the head factor when you've suspended the standard 15lb torquing helicopter from a fixture designed to carry .5lb static.
However I *really* like [MB]'s idea of a lightweight screw-it-in-to-the-socket fan:could also turn your desklamp into a fan.-- FlyingToaster, Jul 22 2010 The trouble is that light sockets aren't always where you want to put a fan. (And have you ever tried to screw something into a flourescent fixture?)-- gisho, Jul 22 2010 //15lb torquing helicopter from a fixture designed to carry .5lb static..//
Ah, well, there's your problem mate.
It's an unfortunate conjunction of the American tendency to build houses out of what we would normally consider packaging material, coupled with the American tendency to make all domestic electrical appliances out of quarter-inch steel.
I'd always wondered about that line in the song "We've got to install microwave ovens.." (who has to "install" a microwave?) until I realized that most American microwaves seem to be designed to withstand the internal detonation of a 7 kiloton low-neutron-yield lasagne.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 22 2010 I believe Weight-Watchers (TM) offers a low-neutron lasagna for sophisticated dieters trying to lose mass, rather than weight. You've got to watch the baryons if you expect to shed those MeV.-- mouseposture, Jul 23 2010 random, halfbakery