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Homebase Pedestal Fan
by blonde_girl774
It's possibly the coldest month of the year, everyone's feeling a bit down after Christmas, it's been blowing a gale for the past few days and it's currently raining outside my window... yet I spent the day in a t shirt with a fan on! Sadly I'm not in the Barbados (despite praying every night to wake up there in the morning) and I'm ... actually still in the north west of England where the majority of people are moaning about the cold weather (we Brits are just so predictable aren't we)! I've also not lost my mind by trying to contract hypothermia (even though I don't really want to go to work tomorrow) and I'm not under trying to play those mind games where you imagine the opposite and it'll actually happen to you...
Somewhat more believably, the heating at my work has broken. Now before you get all excited, as I did, by cleverly researching what the minimum temperature you could legally work in was, it's actually broken the other way and is stuck on maximum! Most people would feel elated at this news, as I did after spending the past couple of days freezing, but when the average temperature is 25 degrees in a room full of children it's not an ideal situation! After about half an hour I'd had enough of sweating and resorted to digging out my fan from the summer that I'd luckily stored in my classroom cupboard after rather of lot of them mysteriously ended up in the deputy head's room last year!
The fan is from Homebase and is advertised as a Pedestal Fan. It came in quite a long and fairly thin box which housed the fan head, the base and the stand that connects the former two together. The whole thing weighs 4.8kg when it is in the box so it's quite easy to lift and doesn't require a weightlifter to manoeuvre it at all. Assembling the fan (thankfully) couldn't be easier, after I carried the box into the classroom it took me about a minute or two to assemble the fan and get it working. Once upright it measures 120cm in height, 67cm in diameter and 67cm in width. It has a wattage of 45W which doesn't really mean a lot to me but apparently it's reasonably cheap to run at this wattage.
Operating the Homebase Pedestal Fan is relatively straightforward as well, even for an electrical disaster like myself. After plugging it into a socket you merely switch it on using the buttons on the stand. You can then select which of the three speed settings you wish to use. I tend to opt for the medium setting as the high one is just a little too forceful for me and ends up blowing all my things everywhere! The fan can also be kept still or it can be allowed to turn (or oscillate as the instructions say) which mean the breeze can be shared. Lastly it also has an adjustable tilt if you wish to tilt the head for maximum effect as well.
I was bought this fan back in the summer when they were on offer at around the £19 mark. I've since checked their website and they're retailing at £24.99 although they always seem to have offers on them during the summer months... apparently that's when they're usually in demand! The only downsides I've found are that it can be easily knocked over, especially by children, as the base and the stand do seem a little flimsy. The other problem that isn't an issue for me at all is that it does make quite a humming noise when in use, it wouldn't be enough to keep you awake at night but could be a little irritating for some! I used it from Easter throughout the summer term last year and it worked reliably every single day with no issues whatsoever.
So would I recommend this fan? Abso - freezing - lutely! The main advantages for me are that it requires minimal assembly (thank goodness), it's reasonably priced (considering I didn't buy it), it keeps me cool and it's stood the test of time.
Thanks for reading!
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Bionaire BAC19
by jennikitten
A few years ago when we moved into our house, we had an extremely hot bout of weather. My house doesn't have the best insulation, and once the conservatory gets warm the entire place just gets unbearably hot. So off we headed to B and Q to get a fan.
Unfortunately everybody else in the same area had the same idea, and by the ... time we got to B & Q, there was very little choice. I'd wanted to buy a small desk fan, but the only fans they had left were huge. I couldn't wait any longer or try any other shops, so in the end I picked up this Bionaire fan for £50. I can see it's gone up in price since then, but I can't see it ever needing replacing so it's pretty good if you have the space.
One point to note is that this fan doesn't have a stand and the height can't be adjusted except by placing it on something such as a table. It's large in size, and pretty heavy as it's metal, so not ideal for transporting. I can carry this on my own for a few paces, but you wouldn't want to be carrying it on your own or down some stairs, particularly if you're not strong. It has a small metal handle on the back which is secure enough to carry it by.
The other thing to mention is that this fan is incredibly powerful. I set it up in my lounge, and it's strong enough to blow the canvas prints I have off the wall from a distance of a metre (and a height difference of around 2 metres). For this reason these fans work well in the gym; I've noticed them recently as my local gym and they are used in the advanced spinning classes to keep the cyclists cool. My cats absolutely refuse to walk past the fan when it's on (from any distance), which is useful if you need to do any animal herding.
The fan has three different settings, none of which are particularly mild. I'd say that the lowest setting is probably close to twice as strong as your average standard desk fan. For this reason, you're going to be cold within minutes of sitting in front of this fan in anything less than a pair of jeans and a thick top (unless you're exercising of course).
The fan can be angled simply by pushing the top back (which angles it up) or pulling it forward (which angles it down). It's easy enough to do, and it angles enough to blast cold air onto your ceiling if you wish. You can't angle it left or right; to do this you have to move the whole fan.
I have no idea how much electricity this fan uses, but I imagine it's a large amount, which puts me off using it quite a bit. However, it's so powerful that walking in on a hot day and simply turning it on for five minutes is enough to cool you down. If you want to pretend you're in an advert or on a photoshoot with your hair streaming behind you, you can do that too.
Would I recommend this fan? Well, it's not been nicknamed 'The Beast' in our house for nothing! It's probably not best suited to the home environment unless you like being freezing cold all the time and don't care about your electricity bill. It's still going strong after five years and it's a good fan, but be aware you need space to store it and small animals will literally be blown away.
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Homebase Pedestal Fan
by coventry123
This fan has been in my room for about 2 years, we bought it after a few really hot weeks back on 2009 and bought it primarily to use at night as I found it really hard to sleep and still had to get up early for college exams at the time. Initially we were on the lookout for a desk fan and went everywhere to find one but to no avail - ... there was probably too many people all rushing out to buy fans at the same time!
Despite initial disappointment of not being able to find a decent desk fan we had a look in Homebase and this is when we came across this pedestal fan. Granted it wasn't a desk fan but the pedestal fan still fitted in with our needs and I have quite a lot of free floor space so this was not an issue. I saw the fan erected in the Homebase store and decided that it was a nice size to have in my room during the summer.
The fan came flat packed and I was worried about trying to re-erect it once we had got it home but there was nothing to worry about the instructions were very clear and the diagrams were most useful. The base is a cross shape making it very sturdy in the centre of the base the poles and fan top are connected. It took around 15 minutes to put up including reading of the instructions!
The fan is a typical shape: round with 3 petal shaped plastic pieces which are the bits that whirl around and produce the cool air. Primarily the fan is white and made from a hard plastic. With the fan being a neutral colour it fit in well in my room and didn't look out of place at all despite looking bigger in my room than it did in the shop!
The plug on the base of the fan is over a metre long meaning that I could situate the fan anywhere in my room and it would still comfortably fit into the plug socket which was a big bonus. Once the fan is plugged in there are 3 settings to choose from, the lowest setting was perfect to keep on all night to cool the room down to ensure I got a decent nights sleep!
I can't remember exactly how much I paid for this fan but I think it was around the £20 mark which is a really decent price for a fan that has lasted years and definitely does the job with ease.
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