If you’re like me, you keep an eye on your electricity usage. Personally, I prefer to use a fan than run an energy-guzzling AC unit. This is a great way to save electricity costs in the summer. Plus it’s a low-energy way to keep cool in a campervan or RV. That being said, you’re probably running a fan for long periods of time, perhaps even 24/7! In this case, it’s a good idea to know the power consumption of your appliance.
Below we will discuss and test fan wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Fan?
The average fan uses between 30 and 100 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your fan. Most commonly you will find that a box or pedestal fan uses in the range of 40 to 55 watts. Although, there are a few outliers that use less or more power.
The general rule is that the larger the fan the more power it consumes. This is because it has a larger electric motor to spin the bigger blades.
Many of these appliances also have multiple speed settings which affect the power usage. The power rating of a product usually relates to running at full speed. You can reduce the wattage by running your fan on a low speed setting.
How to Find Out Your Fan Wattage
There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a fan.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the 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 fan to get instant information.
I used one to test my fan which gave a live reading of 43.8W.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your 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.
Fan Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a fan draws. Below is a collection of modern fans with their listed power ratings.
| Fan Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| Amazon Basics Oscillating Dual Blade | 55 |
| Hurricane Classic Box Fan | 55 |
| Hurricane Supreme Wall Mount | 50 |
| Hurricane Supreme Stand Fan | 54 |
| B-Air FIRTANA-20X High Velocity | 157 |
| Simple Deluxe 20 Inch Pedestal | 100 |
| Anyday Pedestal Fan, 16 inch | 40 |
| Dyson Cool Tower Fan | 56 |
| John Lewis & Partners Tower Fan, 42 inch | 45 |
| 2-in-1 Fan Pedestal, 16 inch | 48 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different fans. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does a Fan Use?
You can use fan wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your 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 fan drawing 55W would use 55Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 55W fan running for 1 hour uses 0.055kWh.
In reality, you might use a fan for 8 hours a day. This means a large fan uses about 440Wh or 0.44kWh electricity a day. That’s 13.2kWh a month and 158.4kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $2 a month or $24 a year to run a 55W fan for 8 hours every day.
Using a Fan Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your fan in an off-grid situation like a power outage, shed, RV, boat, semi-truck, or similar, the information above is important. It enables you to select the correct power equipment 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 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 fan for the required amount of time. As we already know, it could use about 55Wh electricity each hour. This is the equivalent of 4.58Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does a Fan Use Summary
I hope you now clearly understand how many watts a fan uses.
As you have discovered, these are very low powered devices that don’t require huge amounts of electricity to run. You could easily run a fan from a portable power station or inverter while off-grid (like camping). The only thing to think about is how long you will run. For short periods it won’t use much electricity, but when in use all day, every day, it will start to add up on your electricity usage! Either way, it’s still far more efficient than air con.
