Keeping it Cool
No hot air from Big Ass Fans
If you’ve walked the hot streets of NYC or waited on sweltering subway platforms during the summer, you know how uncomfortable that can be. With soaring temperatures, it’s always a relief to arrive at an air-conditioned office. We take it for granted that we work in an office environment with a built-in HVAC system, but not every industry or worker has that luxury. Older factories and warehouses can get especially hot in the summer months, but for smaller businesses, modern HVAC systems could be prohibitively expensive to build and operate. Yet they must provide adequate cooling and ventilation to ensure the comfort of their employees and protect their goods from the summer heat.
At A’18, we knew we wanted to visit the Big Ass Fans booth. It was hard to miss, with the 20’ diameter industrial fan hanging from the ceiling and slowly rotating to circulate cool air on us attendees. A company known for its unmistakable brand and humor, we had been looking forward to learning more about their history as a company and new products on the horizon. We spoke with Joe Lacny, their Project Consultant, specifically about their Industrial Fan hanging overhead, and how this particular product was designed specifically for keeping warehouses and other large open spaces cool.
Big Ass Fan’s founders recognized that other industrial fan-makers in the market just didn’t push enough air, or when they did, they were very noisy. BAF’s innovation was to supersize a traditional ceiling fan design, enabling it to move a lot more air in a way that felt much more like a natural breeze than high velocity forced air. Large-scale dairy farmers in California were the first industry they approached. When a Big Ass Fan was hung above milking parlors, cows provided a huge increase in milk production. “Happy cows come from California,” Joe joked, “or anywhere with a Big Ass Fan.” After discovering that the cooler temperatures and quieter operation from their industrial fans made the cows more comfortable and increased production, Big Ass Fans widened their reach into other industries, including warehouses, arenas, garages and other large industrial spaces.
From their earliest design, the Big Ass Industrial Fan was designed with energy-conscious features that make it a great return on investment for money-conscious owners. Today, these fans possess smart-sense controllers like summer mode, where the fan will increase speed as the space gets warmer. Joe explained that this mode is great for manufacturing areas where owners don’t want employees constantly adjusting the fan settings. In the winter mode, the fan enables owners to avoid huge energy bills for heating their spaces. Since hot air rises, a Big Ass Fan helps push that warm air back down to the occupied level of the warehouse instead of being trapped against the ceiling or lost to the exterior.
Big Ass Fans now offers a complete line of commercial and residential fans and have become leaders in the HVAC industry in just 20 years. Their residential fans consistently receive the highest ratings from Energy Star’s independent testing. By focusing on energy and cost savings, Big Ass Fans has proven that it’s not just their innovative products but their quality that makes them stand out amongst the competition. “People are familiar with the culture and with our sense of humor for marketing,” Joe explained. “But none of that really means anything if we can’t stand behind the product which, at the end of the day, need to successfully move a ton of air.”
You can find a range of residential, commercial, and industrial Big Ass Fans on Arazoo, and more information about their products on their website.
