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Missed out on a fan this summer? Chill your space with our pick of the best still in stock, including tower and misting models
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The Filter — Caramel Quin
Our world is getting hotter . Summer heatwaves are so frequent, they’re stretching the bounds of what we think of as summer. Hot-and-bothered home working and sweaty, sleepless nights are now alarmingly common.
Get a good fan and you can dodge the temptation of air conditioning. Aircon is incredibly effective, but it uses a lot of electricity … and burning fossil fuels is how we got into this mess in the first place. Save money and carbon by opting for a great fan instead.
Fans are more energy efficient than aircon. A typical portable air conditioner uses 1,000W of electricity, which would cost about 26p an hour to run. The fans I tested used between 8W and 60W; my favourite, the AirCraft Lume , used 18W on its top setting. You could run it on max for 56 hours, and it would still use no more electricity (money, carbon) than a single aircon unit going for an hour.
I tested 20 fans of all shapes and sizes, so you can pick the best one for you. I tested them for size, noise, power use and, of course, how much they cool you down. I also tested a few “evaporative coolers”, which use water to cool the air blowing at you while using significantly less energy than aircon.
Following this summer’s fossil-fuel charged heatwaves, many of our favourite fans are out of stock. Our favourite misting fan, the Shark FlexBreeze Pro Mist, is still in stock in blush pink, however.
£259.99 at Shark Our best powerful tower fan, the Meaco Sefte Smart 36in, is also available. It’s slim, quiet and one of the most powerful fans we tested.
£99.99 at Meaco For smaller spaces, our best mini tower fan, the Meaco Sefte 19in, is compact and energy efficient, while still packing a decent cooling punch.
I’m an award-winning consumer tech journalist with decades of experience testing gadgets. I’m also a menopausal woman in her 50s who honestly can’t remember the last time she felt cold: I think that might be why we gravitate to wild swimming in middle age. Oh, and I have a degree in engineering. So I’m triply qualified to put these fans through their paces, scientifically and subjectively.
I chose 20 fans, each from different brands, aiming for a mix of new and highly rated models plus a few stellar bargains. I wanted to make sure there was something for everyone before I put them through their paces.
I used a power meter to measure how much electricity (and therefore money and carbon) the fans use, an anemometer to measure the air speed they generate on the top setting, and the Sound Meter app to measure the noise on the top setting (they were all too quiet to register on their lowest).
I measured everything from 1m away, although in reality, you’ll probably position a tower or pedestal fan farther away and a desk fan closer to you. That means the noise a desk fan makes matters more.
I also measured them myself, as sometimes the official specs can be misleading or wrong. For example, I measured a tower fan that was supposedly 17cm wide, only to find that wasn’t including the base. Here I’ve stuck with each fan’s largest dimensions, including their footprint.
I used a thermometer to measure the impact of the evaporative coolers I tested, and took note of everything from how cooling each of the fans felt, how annoying the noise was and how good the controls were. I also considered how they looked and how small they packed away, as well as the price tag.
All the fans that weren’t returned to the manufacturers were donated to Furnishing Futures , a charity that furnishes the empty social homes in which women and children are placed after domestic abuse.
Searching for more inspiration? Read our guide to the best evaporative air coolers
Pedestal fans are tall fans where all the hard work happens at the top. They don’t have to be old-fashioned; some have modern designs. And some are convertible, with a pole you can remove to turn them into a desk fan. They can be good for a focused blast of cooling wind.
Bladeless fans aren’t magic; they just don’t have visible blades. The work is done in the body of the fan, and then air is pushed out of a nozzle. The Dyson, Vortex Air and Shark on test are all bladeless. They look modern and are easy to clean. And there are no moving parts on show, meaning zero chance of getting your hair caught.
Tower fans are tall and narrow. They produce a lot of wind and oscillate from side to side, making them good for a room like an office.
Desk fans are like pedestal fans without the pole. They’re not only for desks, they’re good on a bedside table too. And they take up less storage space over the winter.
Evaporative coolers use water from a reservoir to cool the air that blows at you. They don’t produce a powerful wind like a fan, but they genuinely cool the room and are much more energy efficient than air conditioning. Note that they only cool the room a little – they won’t turn it fridge cold like aircon.
Handheld fans are lightweight, portable fans to cool you on the move. We’ve tested a wide range of handheld and neck fans.
Most fans oscillate (move back and forth) by swivelling on their base, and some let you select how wide an angle you want. If it’s just for you, pick a narrow angle; if you’re cooling the whole office, go wide. Some fans achieve the same effect in other ways, such as by moving louvres. Some also oscillate up and down, so the fan can circulate air all over the room to create a gentle breeze.
Most fans have a sleep mode, where every 30 or 60 minutes the fan lowers its setting until it reaches a certain point. This is a good compromise that helps you get to sleep without wasting energy, minimising the risk of waking up in the middle of the night suddenly cold.
Start by lowering the fan speed to the point where you don’t find it annoying. In fact, some people find the white noise of a fan helpful at bedtime. Then switch to sleep mode.
Related: The best eye masks in the UK to help you sleep better – tested
Wh ere is the best place to position a fan?
For personal comfort, simply point it towards you. The cooling feeling is because the moving air from the fan displaces the warm, humid air near your skin, which in turn helps your sweat evaporate, cooling down your body. It’s like a breeze rather than a still day. Or why it feels colder swimming in a river than in a lake, even if the water temperature is the same. Evaporative coolers, of which I’ve included two above, use water to actively cool the air.
Never place a fan up against a wall because air needs to flow into the back. If the air’s cooler outside, put the fan in front of an open window or door to bring in the cooler air.
Fans are very energy efficient compared with the electricity used by tech such as air conditioning. Fans cost pennies to use but can make you feel much cooler. Note that they circulate air rather than actively cooling it. The effect is like turning a still day into a breezy one.
I’ll set out the maths. For each fan here, I’ve measured its power use on the top setting, in watts (W). Electricity costs are in kilowatt hours (kWh). If, for example, you were using a 30W fan for five hours, it would use 150Wh. Divide by 1,000 to convert it to kilowatt hours: 0.15kWh.
The energy price cap for 1 July to 30 September 2026 is 26.11p per kWh. Multiply this by the last figure and you’ll discover it will cost just under 4p to run that fan for five hours. Or just over £14 to run it for five hours every day for a year.
Running fans is pretty cheap, then, and a good fan will keep you cool enough to dodge buying any kind of air conditioning. An evaporative cooler is a good alternative to aircon. The Swan Nordic here used 26W, so less than 3% of the electricity of a typical portable air conditioner (1,000W). The effect isn’t the same: you can’t turn your bedroom into a fridge. But you can cool the air enough to make a big difference when there’s a heatwave.
For most of us, there are good energy-saving alternatives to aircon. It’s tempting to turn your bedroom into a walk-in fridge on a hot day – or night – but fans are great and use much less electricity (and therefore money and carbon) than aircon. We are in a climate crisis. We got into this mess by burning fossil fuels, and we continue to do so, so the carbon footprint of your cooling matters.
There are valid reasons to own air conditioning though, even during a climate crisis. Older people, young children and those with health conditions are more vulnerable to extreme heat, and some homes are simply much harder to keep cool. My guide to portable air conditioners and alternatives takes in how much energy they use, as well as how well they cool the room and their refrigerant’s global warming potential.
Note that the electricity you use won’t contribute as much towards climate breakdown if you’re on a good renewable tariff – or even better, producing it yourself with solar panels. Solar panels and batteries are becoming a popular choice for homeowners as they become more affordable.
Fan blades tend to gather dust. Make sure the fan is unplugged, then remove the front grille and wipe the blades with a microfibre cloth. If the grille doesn’t come off then a dry paintbrush or a small cleaning brush (like a bottle brush but smaller) might let you dust through the grille. Never use water on electricals. A can of compressed air is also good for blowing off dust – keep your fingers away, though, because it will of course make the fan blades spin.
If your old fan works, try to find it a good home on a local swap site or street WhatsApp – they work better than the front wall, where it might get rained on. If it’s not working, you could take it to a local repair cafe . And if it’s beyond repair, check your council website or check Recycle Your Electricals : they don’t belong in general waste.
If you’re wondering whether you need air conditioning, read our guide the best portable aircon units, plus the pros, cons and alternatives
Caramel Quin is a journalist specialising in consumer technology. She prides herself on real-world testing and plain language. Her pet hates are jargon, pointless products and over complicated instruction manuals. Caramel is an engineering graduate who has won awards for communicating hi-tech subjects to normal people. When she’s not testing gadgets, she’s feeding pets (16 beasts at the time of writing) or pottering at the allotment
• This article was originally published on 17 June 2025. Reviews published in the Filter may be periodically updated to reflect new products and at the editor’s discretion. The date of an article’s most recent update can be found in the timestamp at the top of the page. This article was amended on 3 September 2026; the Meaco Sefte smart 36in tower fan and 19in tower fan were added after testing, and prices and stock levels were updated throughout.
Get a good fan and you can dodge the temptation of air conditioning. Aircon is incredibly effective, but it uses a lot of electricity … and burning fossil fuels is how we got into this mess in the first place. Save money and carbon by opting for a great fan instead.
This report is published with credit to theguardian.com. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on theguardian.com →
Source: theguardian.com · Caramel Quin. Published 3 Sept 2026, 02:00 pm.
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