If you’ve spent any time in a hot climate, you’ll have an idea of how popular ceiling fans have become. You probably already have one or are considering installing one. There’s no doubt that they use far less electricity than an air conditioner, but what is the actual power consumption?
Below we will discuss and test ceiling fan wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Ceiling Fan?
The average ceiling fan uses between 20 to 60 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your ceiling fan. For example, a 50” blade fan without a light uses under 20W, while larger 72” fans with in-built light can exceed 50W.
These large ceiling fans actually use a surprisingly small amount of power. In fact, the power consumption is usually less than a box or pedestal fan. Despite the larger blades, they spin at a slower speed so the motor is not working as hard.
This lower power level is intentionally designed, as you tend to run these appliances for very long periods of time. Often this could be for 12 hours or more every day!
How to Find Out Your Ceiling Fan Wattage
There are 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a ceiling fan.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the ceiling fan’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your ceiling fan to get instant information.
I used one to test my ceiling fan which gave a live reading of 18.4W.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your ceiling fan you can use this to find the maximum watt rating. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Ceiling Fan Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a ceiling fan draws. Below is a collection of modern ceiling fans with their listed power ratings.
| Ceiling Fan Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| Sofucor Low Profile Ceiling Fan | 35 |
| Vast Collection 72-Inch | 20 |
| Minka-Aire F896-65-CL Xtreme | 20 |
| Springer Collection 60-Inch | 33 |
| Honeywell Palm Island 52-Inch | 68 |
| Honeywell Carmel 48-Inch Ceiling Fan | 61 |
| WINGBO 52″ DC Ceiling Fan | 24 |
| Monte Carlo 3MAVR60BK Maverick | 26 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different ceiling fans. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does a Ceiling Fan Use?
You can use ceiling fan wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your ceiling fan.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour (Wh) is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a ceiling fan drawing 30W would use 30Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 30W ceiling fan running for 1 hour uses 0.03kWh.
In reality, you might use a ceiling fan for 10 hours a day. This means a ceiling fan uses about 300Wh or 0.3kWh electricity a day. That’s 9kWh a month and 109.5kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $1.35 a month or $16.42 a year to run a 30W ceiling fan for 10 hours every day.
Using a Ceiling Fan Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your ceiling fan in an off-grid situation like a power outage, or remote building the information above is important. It allows you to select suitable power products and know how long you can run.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to generate AC electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your ceiling fan. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the ceiling fan for the required amount of time. As we already know, it could use about 30Wh of electricity for each hour. This is the equivalent to 2.5Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does a Ceiling Fan Use Summary
I hope you now understand how many watts a ceiling fan uses.
These devices are so popular across the world thanks to the low energy consumption. You’ll see them in nearly every property in hotter climates. It’s far more efficient than running air con, plus they use less power than similar items like box fans. Once in operation, you can leave it running all day without a worry. Even when running for 10 hours a day, it won’t even cost you 20 bucks in electricity over the course of a year. You could easily get rid of these expenses too by installing solar power to run your ceiling fan.
