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Best fan placement to move air through the house

Matthias random stuff · demo · Watch on YouTube

Power grid, heating & buildingsHome, DIY & practical skillsEveryday physics & science demos

What it is

Matthias Wandel uses anemometer measurements to find where to place a fan to move the most air through a house at night. He finds that placing the fan some distance back from the window works better.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Cited in cooling and fan-noise threads as a short video with actual data on fan placement.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2021, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “Matthias Wandel made a great video showing how it's better to place the fan a meter or two away from the window to get more air flow”

    Fan a meter or two from the window moves more air.

    samldev, 2023-07 · Strong recommendation · in “Cooking Air Quality”

  2. “Experiments and anemometer measurements to figure out where to best place a fan to optimally air out the house to cool it down at night.”

    Experiments with an anemometer to find best fan placement.

    spearo77, 2021-07 · Recommendation · in “Passive radiative cooling below ambient airtemperature under direct sun (2014) [pdf]”

  3. “Matthias has an interesting video that is tangentially related talking about the distance of a fan to a window and air flow.”

    Fan distance from window affects airflow.

    nemacol, 2022-09 · Recommendation · in “Effects of grill patterns on fan performance/noise (2011)”

  4. “Video with data”

    Six-minute video with data on fan placement.

    Sweepi, 2025-09 · Recommendation · in “Noise cancelling a fan”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: fans, ventilation, airflow, home cooling, experiments

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