How Effective Are Industrial Fans? Answers To Protect Your Employees

Do you have an industrial space like a factory, warehouse, or shop floor that you think would benefit from an industrial fan? If so, you might wonder, “exactly how effective are industrial fans?”

The answer is that it depends on what you want the fan to do.

Industrial fans are effective in some situations that require only moving air.

However, industrial fans are not effective at cooling.

How Effective Are Industrial Fans? Depends on the Purpose

Industrial fans have essentially one function: moving air. The good news is that they can do it very well. Industrial fans come in many shapes and sizes so that they can move air in all different situations.

You can always find an industrial fan for your setting that will create airflow.

Moving air makes industrial fans very effective for purposes like air destratification, ventilation, pressurization, and drying.

Air Destratification

When the air is still, it can create zones of air that are very different from one another. It is common to have zones of hot air accumulating above zones of cool air.

However, cold air discharged from overhead vents can also be held aloft by rising hot air. Stratified air can lead to your building overheating and considerable energy waste.

Industrial fans can break up stratified air to make the temperature more uniform in large spaces with high roofs. The result can be good energy savings and more efficient functionality of already-installed cooling systems.

Ventilation

Many industries work with solvents, paints, and other chemicals that give off dangerous, even deadly fumes. To maintain safe working conditions, it’s important to exchange the air in the workspace regularly – that is to have adequate ventilation. Industrial fans can draw air into the workspace, discharge it out of the workspace, or both, to create the necessary airflow to maintain safe air in the workspace.

Pressurization

Fans can also be used to draw air into a space to create positive pressure. Sometimes additional pressure is necessary for specific chemical reactions, but usually pressure is used to help keep contamination out of certain workspaces.

Drying

Moving air can facilitate the evaporation of water and other liquids. By moving air around the workspace, fans can expedite drying paint or help to mitigate sweating slab syndrome.

How Effective Are Industrial Fans for Cooling?

However, as a general rule, industrial fans are not effective at cooling a workspace. They can be used to cool a workspace if:

• A reservoir of cool air is available
• Workers can have exposed skin

If there is a reservoir of cool air available to draw from, an industrial fan can cool a workspace. This is effective if, for example, one corner of a machine shop generates a lot of heat, but other parts do not.

An industrial fan can help distribute heat among the different parts of the shop so that the one part doesn’t concentrate dangerous heat levels.

Fans can also help cool people if they can have exposed skin. In that case, a fan can make a workspace feel 6° to 8° F cooler. Without large amounts of exposed skin, the cooling effect from fans alone is negligible.

If you can’t meet one or both of these conditions, then an industrial fan is unlikely to provide reasonable cooling. But there is an alternative: industrial evaporative coolers.

Effective Portable Cooling for Industrial Spaces

How effective industrial fans are depends on what you are using them for, but when it comes to cooling, industrial evaporative coolers are a better option. They not only move large amounts of air, achieving good ventilation in many situations, but they also cool the air.

How much can they cool it? In ideal conditions, an industrial Portacool APEX™ portable cooling unit can drop the air temperature by 30° F.

This can provide a comfortable environment in even hot, demanding industrial work environments.

Are you looking for an industrial evaporative cooler? Portacools have been made in the USA since 1990, and we are the industry leader in large-scale movable evaporative coolers. To find a Portacool that’s right for your industry, please visit an online or local retailer today.