I’ve found a serious side effect to using a fan all week – and a way to fix it
I finally found a solution to my fan earache
The UK was hit with a major heatwave this week, with temperatures getting as high as 37°. I loved the weather when I sat outside, but inside was a different story. For the past few days, I’ve been sitting at my desk or lying in my bedroom with multiple fans going at once, and it’s led me to find a serious problem that many fans have.
As T3’s resident fan expert and tester, I’ve been using multiple types of fans to beat the UK heatwave, including desk, tower and handheld fans. While they’ve been more than helpful at cooling me down, I started to notice that no matter where the fan was located, I started to get a really bad earache.
The biggest cause of my fan earache problems was when I was using handheld and table fans at my desk. I had the fans quite close to me so I could really feel the chill, but I could barely use them at full speed because the noise hurt my ear so much.
Fans in general, but especially handheld fans, are insanely loud. A couple of the handheld fans I’ve recently tested – see my Dyson HushJet Mini Cool vs Shark ChillPill feature for more details – are so loud that I can barely use them over level three. Of course, night mode helps minimise a fan’s noise but they also lower the fan speed which isn’t what I needed when trying to sleep in a heatwave.
So, to solve this problem, I looked into ways to make my fans quieter without reducing their power – and I’ve found a few solutions.
1. Place a soft surface under your fan
When placing desk or floor fans in your desired spot, it’s important to think about the surface they’re on as if it’s a hard surface, the fan will create a louder hum and vibrations.
As mentioned, I’ve been using handheld and table fans which, as I've needed both hands to work, I’ve been placing them on my wooden desk pointing towards me. The wood of my desk has been amplifying the noise of my fans, so to fix this, I placed a soft surface like a mouse pad or even a towel underneath the fan base. This way, the material underneath absorbs the vibrations and sound to lower the noise.
2. Point your fan away from you
Continuing on where to place your fan, I’ve been putting my fans as close to me as possible to get the full chill. But I realised that having my fan too near me was actually making my earache worse. Instead, I increased the distance between myself and my fan so I was still getting a comfortable breeze without being blasted in the ear.
3. Hang a thin towel over your fan
This third trick is great for minimising your fans’ noise while also increasing its cooling power. Draping a small cloth or towel over the back or sides of your fan can help block the noise while also letting the fan still work as normal. As the towel comes in contact with the fan, it shouldn’t be wet so as not to damage the fan, but there’s a damp towel trick you can also try to reduce noise and amplify cooling.
Start by wetting a cloth in cold water and wringing it out. The key here is for the cloth to be damp but not dripping. Next, hang the cloth in front of your fan – not directly on or over it – so the fan’s breeze blows through or across the towel. As this happens, the cloth will muffle the noise while the fan’s breeze gets colder as it flows through the damp fabric.
Want more heatwave tricks? Try these 6 clever hacks to make your fan cooler.
