I live in an area with really long, chilly, and snowy wintertime seasons. With un-even temperatures down to eighteen below zero, I hide inside the confines of my heated house. The wintertime sometimes lasts up to six straight months! It’s the perfect time to scrub our home from top to bottom though. I clean light fixtures, walls, ceilings, doors, windows, moldings and even shampoo the rug. I then go to launder the bed linens, curtains and tablecloths. Last December, I was up on the ladder in the family room, washing the overhead light, when I started dripping with sweat profusely. I realized that the room temperature was around ten degrees higher up near the ceiling. The heated air from the oil furnace was rising straight up and leaving the area near the floor feeling much colder. This was truly causing much higher thermostat settings, putting a higher strain on the oil furnace, and also leading to higher weekly utility bills. Unsure of how to combat this problem, I did some much needed research online. I ended up reading all about the benefits of standard ceiling fans. There are a wide range of sizes, prices, and styles of ceiling fans you can buy, and I was able to handle the replacement all on my own. As the fan circulates, it pushes the heat back toward the floor, greatly improving comfort and HVAC performance. Since implementing ceiling fans, I’ve been able to lower the thermostat setting by several degrees. The savings on our energy bills should hopefully reclaim the cost of purchasing of the fans within three to four years. In the summertime, I’ll reverse the rotation of the fan blades to push the heated air up and out, thus also reducing the workload of the air conditioning.