72 
House & 
Garden 
A CHANGE of AIR at HOME 
Lsed for Cooking, Ventilating. Drying and Heating, the Electric Fan Has Become 
a Permanent Item in the Household Equipment 
T he fan is a valuable asset in a room 
because of its power to change the air 
and create a moving air in the room. The 
latest theory in ventilation lore is that mov¬ 
ing air is more necessary than fresh air. A 
radical sounding statement, but one with 
considerable reasonableness behind it. 
For many years people maligned the fan 
and felt that its only function was the mak¬ 
ing of drafts. But at the present stage of 
things the fan only makes drafts when 
drafts are insisted upon or when they are 
desired, and it is probably becoming one 
of the most needed tools in the home. It 
is the same old story that the best of things 
can be used so as to render them a danger 
or a menace while the same things rightly 
used are life giving, useful and endearing. 
It depends entirely upon where you place 
and how you place the fan, and what you 
want it for, as to what it will do. In our 
case during the year—summer, winter, fall 
and spring—we wanted it for many 
reasons: 
1. To keep the air moving and vital 
2. To increase the heat in the room 
3. To dry the hair after shampoo 
4. To dry home laundry 
5. To keep cool 
Taking up these five uses: (1) If you 
put the fan by a window you can whirr the 
air so that the bad air goes out and the good 
air comes in. (2) If you direct the air sent 
off by the fan toward a radiator you will 
increase the heat in the room and get more 
value out of the heat that is generated. (3) 
One of the ways of drying the hair is by 
the electric fan. Do not put it directly at 
the back of your neck. Draw the hair to 
the front and then to the side, and so on. 
(4) It is amazing how rapidly you can dry 
a chemise or pair of gloves when you want 
them in a hurry with the help of the electric 
fan. Drying is accomplished by the means 
of circulating air. The best driers on the 
market are based primarily on circulation 
of air and some have the best electric fans 
in them to accomplish this. (5) Of course 
we all know that the fan will keep us cool. 
Here, unless you place it correctly, you will 
get a too direct draft. But if you place it 
so that you get the air and not the draft you 
will have the change of air in the home in¬ 
stead of going to the e.xpense of beaches 
and hills. 
I F you place the fan so that the air is 
reflected against the wall near where you 
are reclining after a hard day’s work you 
will get the most delightful relaxation and 
coolness. Try it sometime. Keeping cool 
with a fan doesn’t mean that it is necessary 
to be drafted by a fan. 
ETHEL R. PEYSER 
To get the best results from an electric 
fan, without having drafts on any person in 
a room, the fan should be placed toward 
the ceiling of the room, so that it keeps the 
air in circulation, or it may be placed in a 
window, facing it toward the room, in 
which position it draws fresh air into the 
room. 
The winter as well as the summer in¬ 
cludes the use of the electric fan, for as 
we said above, the very fact that you can 
increase your heat by using it would make 
its winter use worth while. Then too, you 
can supply a draft to your furnace if by 
chance the natural draft is faulty. As you 
know, the fact of having a faulty draft 
causes the coal to burn uneconomically, 
but by the use of the fan, which in this 
case (rightly) creates a draft, your coal 
will be properly supplied with oxygen laden 
air and will burn to a finer ash. This in 
itself is a saving. Coal that isn’t used up 
is paid for over and over again. The fan 
helps to burn the coal to the bitter end and 
saves money for you. 
W E have already told you how the fan 
is used in some laundry driers. Well 
that is but one use. It is invaluable as a 
means of wafting out the steam from a laun¬ 
dry so that the worker does not become dis¬ 
commoded by steaming. Oftentimes a laun¬ 
dry becomes intolerable by being steam 
fogged and you can hardly see an inch before 
your eyes. The fan properly placed will 
waft this steam out and through the win¬ 
dow. This is worth considering. The 
office manager considers his subordinates 
and it is well for the Domiologist too, to 
consider her domestic’s comfort.... and it 
seems to us that this is a very inexpensive 
way of insuring comfort in every season 
of the year, and also of insuring the staff. 
As the sick room, more than any other, 
needs to have pure and changing, yet ab¬ 
solutely draftless, air, the electric fan has 
come to be a particular boon here. It 
changes the air while giving no draft and 
the patient is vitalized and not vitiated. 
We could go through all the rooms in 
the house and, say, buy a fan for each 
one. This would include the nursery, 
where, of course, the air must be clean and 
sweet. 
There are several firms who have util¬ 
ized the electric fan in the neatest way 
for kitchen and industrial ventilation. It 
is merely an exhaust fan which is easily 
and rapidly installed over the window or 
in the flue, where it whirrs silently and 
removes smoke-laden, odor-laden, steam¬ 
laden air. This fan is so made that it 
takes little or no time to put in and makes 
absolutely no mess during its swift incor¬ 
poration into the home’s comfort kit. One 
maker is so solicitous of your ease that 
he has this fan installed in a panel which 
you can hang any place, so easy is it to 
put in position. Over the top of the win¬ 
dow it will hang as if born there, so at 
home will it be. Its great good in the 
kitchen affects the whole house, because 
it removes all the odors of cooking. Here 
also the fan can promote flue action when a 
stove won’t draw. 
In this way, too, can the fan not only 
keep the tone of our home in keeping with 
our desires—free from odors, but in re¬ 
moving soot, gas and dust through the flue 
and out of the window, it helps to save our 
draperies, curtains, walls, furnishings, 
floors, and saves over-much window clean¬ 
ing. This exhaust fan can be installed in 
three ways: (1) in a square cut in the 
wall, (2) in the flue leading from the 
hood over the range into the chimney, or in 
a section of the upper sash of the window— 
and in other ways when necessary. As a 
ventilator this is superb, inexpensive and 
un-ugly. An electric fan well placed in 
the kitchen will keep the domestic staff in 
place—and don’t forget this, as it is quite 
as important as moving the air. Isn’t it 
amazing what the element of circulating 
air does—besides driving yachts? For it 
is circulating air that does the trick—and 
that only. 
In last month’s House & Garden we 
told how the fan can be used in drying 
fruits and vegetables for preserving, so 
we need not speak of it again, only to re¬ 
mind you that dehydration saves material, 
time and trouble. 
There is but one way to buy electric 
fans and that is to buy them of the very 
best makers. The test of the fan is its 
motor. If the motor be bad your fan will 
be bad. The only way you can get a good 
motor is to buy the fan off makers whose 
motors are of the highest grade and no 
swerving from this. 
F ans are usually four-bladed and pro¬ 
tected from you, and you from them, 
by some sort of wire cage. However, 
whether a fan has a cage or not, it should 
be taboo as a toy, because no cage is beyond 
the keenness of a child when he desires to 
reach anything. 
For domestic use the fan comes from 6" 
to 16" in diameter. One firm makes a 
very dressy nickel plated fan which is real¬ 
ly a beauty in every way. However, all 
the established makers are making such 
good fans that there is little to choose 
{Continued on page 92) 
