Engineering Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professionals and students of engineering. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
As the title suggests, why not use high-powered air pumps instead of ceiling fans to inject hot air from the ceiling down to the cold, bottom floor?
I understand it may seem silly (especially since it may require a lot of energy), but wouldn't it work better than a series of fans in a large, tall warehouse for example?
Wouldn't the pressure differential in air pumps be sufficient to force the hot air at the ceiling down to the floor further and faster than ceiling fans?
Mainly cost difference.
And also, a fan is sufficient for the job. The problem being solved is thermal stratification. That's caused by a lack of vertical mixing; the warm air rises to the top, the cold air sinks.
Normally, there's quite a bit of movement in the first two metres or so from the ground - thermal stratification starts when the ceiling gets to around 3 metres or more.
Fans introduce enough vertical mixing, that when combined with general activities at ground-level, the thermal stratification gets sufficiently disrupted, for pretty low capital and operating costs, and with a device that's very easy to fit and to maintain, has a long life, doesn't have filters that need cleaning, and is generally quite quiet in operation.
