Status update because this script is a doozy
Hi!
The calendar says June today and I was not prepared for that. Once again I've got a classic case of "this is a really simple video topic, it'll be quick!" being completely wrong.
You wouldn't think the story of ceiling fans would be connected to so many issues of our time but my word is this narrative interesting! There are a lot of things I really want to say in this script and it took a really long time to gel into what it became... and then I decided to change it up a lot because it was meandering way too much.
The good news is I figured out my desire to create a "reveal" later in the video was what caused that meandering. That's bad YouTube strategy anyway so honestly I have no idea what took me so long to realize that (and thanks to Dan, our resident ceiling fan expert, for helping me make that realization) but now that I have the dam has broken and the script is flowing. The story really is a "they don't make 'em like they used to" story but it's also a case of that line from The Good Place: a very human thing we tend to do is to take something good and make it a little worse so we can have more of it.
The biggest challenge I face is that... I don't think that's entirely bad in this case, but the way it intersects with fashion and design has led to a market which is mostly slop. I told you it's connected to lots of issues of our time!
Anyway, I felt you deserved a progress report since I've been pretty quiet lately. And I've got a lot to catch-up on outside of scripting work due to how much I was traveling in May so I will probably still be pretty quiet but I'm hopeful the video will be in production by the end of the week and complete by early next. I think you're gonna like it. How it does on YouTube... no idea.
-Alec
Comments (46)
Hey Alex! I found something interesting that you might want to explore. On the Hepa filters for Miele c3 vacuums there is a strip to measure when the filter needs replacing and its quite similar to the battery strip on old duracell batteries. Thank you for your very interesting videos :)
Unrelated comment. I bought a Chevy Bolt two weeks ago and I just wanted to say thanks. The bottom rusted out of my Accord and I never would have even thought of EVs without your videos. I went and looked at a Bolt just to see if I fit in it and I bought the car right away. I’ve been completely recharging my car with a level 1 charger which I never would have believed possible without your videos. So thanks for all that. I’m not at all a car person and you really opened my eyes to all of this.
I was just thinking back on this message and checking in. Can't wait. I've been struggling to find some good ceiling fans for my house with 8 foot ceilings. I just want a dumb fan with 2 switches on the wall and a pull chain for speed. I don't want these dumb remotes and even dumber flickering integrated LED lights with the glare in the top of my glasses. I'm struggling with the low ceilings after living with 9 foot for so much of my adult life. But short ceilings are relative. My parents have a ceiling fan that has been running non-stop from their 7.5 foot living room ceiling since the record breaking hot August 1980 when I was 6 months old. Dad is 6 foot 2. It doesn't have a light assembly. Oh, yah and I know probably not this fan topic but my new to me 1962 house has a whole house fan that was a new concept to me and that thing is pretty awesome during a good chunk of the shoulder seasons before the humidity is ridiculous. It has squished the length of the AC season which is nice. Learning about those was an interesting ordeal because finding information on them and their maintenance and how to oil those incredibly squeaky bearings that have probably not been oiled for decades was a challenge. Because a house fan is not an attic fan but the internet was being all tricky in mixing the two concepts and the old style that don't have sealed bearings aren't sold.
Hopefully this content isn’t a slippery slope to an Only Fans channel…
well that blows! But only in a good way.
Alex Relax! Your work is always wonderful. Even this Patreon post is beautifully drafted. I still remember a video on your second channel of you taking a ride trip. I must go back and watch. I sometimes wonder if your channel isn't based on a BBC programme from the 70's on technology connections by a Journalist called I think was called either ¿Edmund Burke? or Cliff Michelmore. Who l think was Canadian? This was back in the days when the BBC ran to the highest ethical standards!! When it had not been taken over by its News: politics divsion - and every programme wasn't how about how far up the right wings derriere the BBC could get its tongue! So Alec, please relax, I can say that safe in the knowledge that you will ignore me and out do yourself again. Did you see the recent TED talk on Science Teaching & communication by a 40 million subcriber plus YouTube creator. What he is doing is enacting the idea that schools should be about creativity & learning from others. That 'rote' learning should be at home on video where it can be rewatched as much as needed. And maximum production value from carefully scripts onwards: can expended to create the highest quality content! And then used around the planet in places that can only just afford to buy a solar panel, battery and internet reception device to educate all. Thankfully LLM's are happy to teach us all & mark our poor understanding & feedback!! Thanks Alex for showing us the way foward into our future.... Cul de Sac👅
My comment has nothing of value. But I'm happy to see you making more videos. Thank you!
Thanks for the good place reference!
So will this be an only fans video?
Is there anything to be done about a fan that works, but is soooo slow with a loud motor him? It appears to be the same Hunter model as two other fans in the house that work just fine, but its 'high' speed setting is still slower than the 'low' on the others.
send me a picture of it dspiffy@gmail.com
I enjoy your content and am happy to wait for it.
Slop fans? That's a totally different channel. ( I can now see that the term slop is going to find new life the same way spam did.)
Oh Ive had a lot of grievances with ceiling fans… happily will wait for this one.
Fans illustrate perfectly what unfettered capitalism has brought us. In built obsolescence as an art form. My mum has one that's 65 years old that still works like a charm. Now - well you have to try hard to make something so badly. It's like the shoe event horizon from the hitch hikers guide, but with fans
1961? So Emerson or Hunter?
And this is why I subscribe. A video on ceiling fans that becomes a massive, interconnected exploration of modern technology is...quintessential Technology Connections. Worth the wait!
Couldnt agree more!
I would be so interested in hearing your opinion on if reversing fan direction for summer/winter actually matters or not and HOW it changes things. I've had people that I deeply respect their scientific rigor give completely opposite answers to that, and both sounded so plausible that I still don't feel like I know what's going on. I asked a physicist who specialized in fluid dynamics that said he modeled it and that in rooms with very high ceilings it might make a difference but he believed it didn't matter at all in 99% of cases. Fan manufacturers give a very different answer though.
Your friend is right and wrong. It doesnt matter in most cases, but in rooms with high ceilings, it's almost always better to keep the fan in downdraft. All you want to do is bring the warm air down without creating too much of a breeze. Between ~3 fan speeds and 2 fan directions, experiment and see what is the highest level of circulation with the lowest level of breeze. Or if you're like me, you like the breeze year round.
I recently got a ceiling fan and... It's impossible anymore to drive the light from a wall switch. That's annoying. I bought a wifi connected one to drive them from my home assistant.
What a load of hot air
In case you didn't see this on the live stream, If you use Google maps to look up the Pearl Street Grill & Brewery in Buffalo, NY and view uploaded photos, there is a video showing the belt drive ceiling fans.
Very cool example! Those are from the Casablanca Specialty Fan Department which later became Fanimation. They are from the late 1970s or early 1980s.
Don't forget the whole 'Fan death' thing in Korea and parts of Japan, they put timers to limit how long any fan can be on and you must go turn it back on again, they think it will kill you to leave a fan on or some other weird thing. I wouldn't be a fan of this. BTW how the F do people get CPAP treatment there? and how do computers stay cool? o.0
I added some ceiling fans to my house this year and oh boy it had so many difficulties and only some of them from the fans (Like... If they have safety harnesses, why aren't they long enough to actually reach into the ceiling to clip to something substantial?) mostly from the difficulty of wiring a home that's been wired many times in its life but never documented.
Hell yeah. I've always been a fan of you and of fans. I like fans big and slow, but I like people that are fast and nimble (mentally).
Who decided the default fan blade chirality, the direction the blades are tilted? Also big FAN of the channel! (Pun intended but I'm not proud of it)
This is a great question because it didnt used to be consistent across manufacturers!!
Take your time. Anytime you produce a video is a good day for me.
Just installed Haiku fan from Big Ass Fans. Those people do not compromise. Really nice beast, but not cheap. But dead quiet when in use at low speed, and not loud at all at higher speed. Worth every penny!
Oooo boy this is either going to be really good or really disappointing considering I JUST bought $1300 worth of ceiling fans. New fangled, with an app that comes with them and everything!
Depends what you bought!
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/09/the-revenge-of-the-circulating-fan/ Here's my favorite fan-related literature. I've gone two summers almost not using AC.
Are you going to cover the "requirement" for using their relay up in the fan box in the ceiling? Eventually I am going to replace my living room fan because of the noisy bearings and I am going to try very hard not to use their relay box so I can control it with smart light switches.
I'm honestly not sure what you mean but broadly the issue of fan controls might get touched on but I'm not there yet in the script. The biggest issue is that smart fan controls which can actually select between different speeds is difficult and creates a lot of strange compatibility problems which are only getting worse as we move from AC motors to DC motors - a change I don't agree with, for the most part. But if you're into smart home stuff, you might be best looking for a smart ceiling fan which of course exist now. If you're OK just having on/off control with a smart system, my advice would honestly be to just look for a simple AC fan and controlling it with a smart switch or relay of your choice and then use its pull chain to select between speeds. One thing I will be personally investigating is the difference between a solid-state variable motor controller (which exist for ceiling fans) and a dimmer switch. They're both based on TRIACs but people will tell you to never put a ceiling fan on a dimmer switch. I suspect that's because back EMF will hurt the unprotected TRIAC in an ordinary dimmer but many people insist the reason is that it would hurt the fan motor. I'm gonna get the scope out and investigate the waveform from the solid state controls Dan gave me because if it's the same output as an ordinary dimmer, I'm willing to sacrifice an LED-compatible smart dimmer and see if it'll survive. But that's not for this video for sure
“…but now that I have the dam has broken and the script is flowing.” It’s not flowing with vodka, is it? 😏
Whoops, I get it now. I read that way too fast. I better put my glass down. 🫠
Funny the way things happen. I just installed a ceiling fan today. Sure hope it doesn’t fall on me! Can’t wait for the video.
As long as an electrical ceiling fan brace or extra wood blocking was used to which the motor assembly unit is attached to & of course, including proper electrical wire splicing it should be fine.
Congrats on the breakthrough! It's funny how a structural choice can cause writing to be so difficult, but it happens all the time.
Will this go the way of the dishwasher and turn into hours of celing fan content? Because I'd still watch it.
FULLY SUPPORT THIS
I’m a fan! Of this channel, not a literal air-moving fan.
And yet, you breathe
Can’t wait!!!💙