Updated September 15, 2021
Ceiling fans are some of the most useful fixtures you can have in your home, providing a decorative flourish to any room. They’re also functional year-round, with many providing light as well as moving air up or down to make your room warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.
The best ceiling fans offer some options, including the ability to be mounted where it’s most needed, at the right height, and with large enough blades to effectively move air. Our top picks also offer light where appropriate, easy control by either pull chain or remote, and some can even be installed outside in wet locations.
To find the best ceiling fans, we dove into thousands of user reviews of the best-selling and top-rated products online. After reading through tons of reviews (both good and bad), these are the best ceiling fans that we’ve found in stock on Amazon.
How to pick the right ceiling fan for your room
Since it’s a fixed part of your home—and kind of a pain to swap out once you’ve installed it—it’s important to pick the right ceiling fan for your space.
The first thing to figure out is the size of the blades that you need to move air around your room. If you plan to actually use the fan to help your room feel cooler or warmer based on the season, it needs to have blades large enough to effectively move air.
Though not perfect for every situation, here’s the basic guide to figuring out how large of a ceiling fan you need for your space:
200 square feet or smaller: 44 inches or smaller
300 square feet or smaller: 52 inches or smaller
400 square feet or smaller: 62 inches or smaller
500 square feet or larger: larger than 62 inches
If you’re replacing an existing fan, you can simply measure the blades of the one you have and adjust from there. If you do not currently have a fan where you plan to install one, it’s important that you figure out whether the fan will bump into any sloped ceilings and whether there’s enough structural support at the light fixture to support the fan’s weight.
The second thing you need to figure out is how you’ll mount the ceiling fan, and at what height. If you have a standard eight- or nine-foot ceiling, then you can likely use a flush or semi-flush mount, but you may want to have a low-profile fan that will leave you plenty of headroom so you’re not bumping into the pull chains or accidentally stretching and hitting a fan while running.
If you have larger ceilings—like 10 feet or higher—then you’ll likely want to use a downrod. A downrod is a hollow rod that typically attaches to a ball joint at the ceiling. It extends down, anywhere from four inches to several feet, and the ceiling-fan motor hangs off of it.
In huge rooms like that, you want your ceiling fan to have at least 10 inches of clearance above the blades and nine to 10 feet of clearance below, so you’ll need to figure out your downrod length to hit that sweet spot. You’ll also definitely want a fan that can be controlled by a remote if it’s that high up.
Meet the tester
TJ Donegan
Executive Editor
@TJDonegan
TJ is the Executive Editor of Reviewed.com. He is a Massachusetts native and has covered electronics, cameras, TVs, smartphones, parenting, and more for Reviewed. He is from the self-styled "Cranberry Capitol of the World," which is, in fact, a real thing.
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