Hunter 42" Beacon Hill in Bright Brass | Living Room Install, Longer Downrod

Here is the Hunter 42 inch Beacon Hill in bright brass installed in the living room on the two foot rod, which I think is the best height rod to use for this room. As much as I did like it mounted up at the top of the ceiling on the standard two inch rod, I do think that this looks better. It overall fits the room nicer. It brings the fan down into the living space. It's at a good height with the beams. Your eye just kind of gets drawn across the ceiling and everything is at the right height. It matches. It's fluid. This brings the fan to be more of a part of the living space versus just kind of up at the top out of sight, out of mind. They're both totally different installs and I like them both for different reasons. But at the end of the day, this looks more correct. Somewhat to my surprise, it actually moves considerably more air in this configuration than it did before. When I had it in the bedroom and when I had it in here on the shorter downrod, the performance was about the same. It being a couple feet up higher didn't really make any difference in how powerful it felt. It was always a strong fan, but it had a very gusty air pattern to it. It was strong gusts, but it was very gusty. Now installed like this, the airflow is about as strong, but it has become very smooth. It's a very constant and smooth breeze and it's quieter. I think it's much quieter mounted like this than at the ceiling, up on the short rod. This is the other rod I'm talking about. This is the one it comes with and this rod is probably a two inch rod. Let's go down to medium. Now it's logical enough that the fan would push more air if you move the blades away from the ceiling so it has more clearance to get air on top of it. But I wasn't really expecting that difference here because out of the other fans I've tested, especially with larger fans, I haven't really noticed that to be as much of a difference as I thought it would be. I would expect a larger fan would be more sensitive to that difference in air recirculation over the top. But this one made huge difference. So I guess the two inch rod really is not as long as would be ideal. Now this fan might be an exception to a typical case because this is just so powerful. This is moving a tremendous amount of air. As far as I'm concerned, this is probably the most powerful 42 inch consumer grade ceiling fan you can get, perhaps topped out only by the Bayport which I haven't used one so I don't know. But the Bayport is pretty much the same thing as this but with four blades. So if it has a similar spec motor it probably is considerably stronger. Now we'll go down to low. I actually really like this install even though the fan is kind of too small for the space. I don't know why but this fan has a very strong presence. I remember when I first put the Antigua in here without the light, the space at the ceiling here just felt so empty. And I don't know why. That's a big 56 inch fan with huge blades, pretty thick motor, and the space just felt so empty. This fills the space perfectly. This doesn't look, you know, it doesn't cause the ceiling to look empty like the Antigua did until I put the light on then the Antigua filled it nicely. I think this looks a little bit smaller than it did up at the top but it very oddly, I don't know why this is, but it doesn't necessarily look too small for the space. I'm going to drop it down to low on the fan control as well so we can get that nice aesthetic low and then we're going to start to lose all the heat in the room. And there's something about this install I just particularly like. Everything just matches nicely. It looks like it belongs in here. And I remember seeing a lot of these Hunter fans, you know, 20 years ago. Some, most of them actually, in commercial applications, some mounted on long rods like this. So there's something very nostalgic about this. And it's kind of a bummer that we have to run the fan so high to get the heat back down because this looks so nice running at this slow speed. I don't know if the video will pick it up but the rod does not match the finish of the fan which is kind of ridiculous because that is a Hunter branded Hunter OEM rod. It should be the same finish. In fact I think that rod is pretty poor quality. It looks dirty in person during the day so it looks like it's all tarnished. That's how awful on on the higher speeds. Once the bearings are replaced this will definitely be a contender I was able to find a house with this. This is one of the things that was important to me when I was looking and I really didn't think I was going to end up with it but I'm so glad I did. All right let's go back to high. Put the fan. Wow is it hot up here. You know what since we can feel or since we can reach the switch now I'm going to put it to reverse for a minute and I want to see how the air kicks around the room. The performance of this thing is just off the charts. This blasts the Princeton out of the water in terms of performance and it's a smaller fan. Oh yeah I can feel the air coming down all around the walls. I think I talked about this in the other video but for those that didn't watch it I'll mention it again. I have tried to run the fan in reverse in this room for heat reclamation before and it's kind of a double edged sword because it does even out the temperature much better because these windows are so drafty in here that the edges of the room are always colder than the center by a considerable amount. Sometimes it can be a five or ten degree difference just sitting on the couch or at the computer versus at the table in the center and so when you put the fan on reverse it distributes the heat out to the edges of the room and that problem goes away. It becomes a very comfortable even temperature. The problem is I found that I was going through way more wood to do that because what happens is the wood sole pushes the heat out into the middle of the room and it's the draft starts to go up right around underneath the fan. So when the fan is on reverse it takes that air and pushes it out towards the windows and then most of the heat just goes out the window. Whereas at least when it's on forward that draft comes out of the stove it starts to go up underneath the fan and then with the fans on forward it just pushes it back down and yes it does create kind of a warm concentration spot in the middle of the room but at least the heat's not just being wasted out the windows as much. So is it more comfortable to run it on reverse? Absolutely but it goes through too much wood it wastes too much of the heat. As far as the air is concerned I can see the plants moving on the outside of the wall here when I stand up against the wall I can feel a significant amount of air coming down the wall. This is just such a powerhouse fan it's incredible. This all this movement here is all from the the air drafting down the wall. I can just feel a curtain of air coming down from the wall here as I stand in the doorway. Even the stuff down the floor is moving. I've only had this on for a couple minutes here but it's already reduced the temperature by two degrees. This was 73 when we started or before I reversed it and now it's already gone down to 71 in just a couple minutes of operation. So that's what I was talking about where I said it uses a lot more heat which you know makes sense because now it's filling the room more evenly than it was before but it's not economical as nice as it feels. So we're going to go back to forwards. Now see look at this thermometer this is the thermometer that was at the computer this one's actually going up it went up to 72. This was about 66 before so very very different airflow pattern with very different results but it just it uses up too much heat. Now if I come over here and sit on the couch yeah so now I can feel all this this is just a stream of hot air coming down now. If I come over here and sit on the couch the amount of air kicking up off the floor onto the couch here is really quite remarkable. Aside from the Dayton I think this is probably the highest performance fan I've had in here which is crazy because it's the small one of the smallest. The Dayton 36 was smaller but this is the smallest residential grade fan I've ever tested in here. I'm sitting here on the couch and I can just feel the air wafting up the front of the couch here as it moves across the floor and even the plants are getting disturbed able to thoroughly cover the whole room is quite impressive and it definitely circulates the air better in this configuration. I don't think it's because of how high off the floor it is but just because of the increased performance that we noticed from using the longer downrod. Even sitting here on the couch I can still feel a tremendous amount of air. It really is just it's remarkable how strong this is. I've had this in here for days and I'm still amazed by it. Unfortunately the unit does kind of sound like a computer mouse at times so we're going to have to replace the bearings which is not a big deal. We can certainly do that and will but until I do that we've got to put something else in here because it's really quite an annoying sound and that's able to be heard over the wood stove running. Imagine how much more annoying this is in a quiet bedroom at night.