How Much Electricity Do Fans Use? [CALCULATED]

Dominic Mitton
By Dominic  • Reviewed by Ben  • Updated:   October 19, 2023
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An average fan wattage is from 60 watts to 75 watts and if you consider that it is running 12 hours a day – the average cost would be $0.10/hour. The average weekly cost would be around $7 which is pretty cheap considering how effective fans are.

The hourly cost depends on the wattage, so the costs are usually from $0.04-$0.14.

There’s a lot of factors that affect the cost, but I’ll show you now the simple formula you can use to count the electricity fan cost in your home.

How Do You Calculate The Cost Of Electricity?

The first thing you have to do is find out the wattage of your electricity fan. Most fans are between 50 and 75, but in your case, it might be higher or even lower.

Now, divide this number by 1000 and it will give you how much electricity is output each hour.

For example – let’s say your fan has 75 watts.

Now it’s pure math. When we divide the numbers, we get 0.075 which is hourly kW output.

If we use the fan 9 hours a day, our daily output would be 0.075 x 9 = 0.67kW

Find out how much you pay for 1kW of electricity (it can be seen on your electricity bills).

Let’s imagine that you pay $0.01 per kW. Just multiply 10 x 0.067 and you get $0.67 for a whole day of using the fan. If you ask me, it’s more than affordable and it proves that running an electricity fan is very economical.

Different Types Of Fans

Different types of fans have different wattages, so it’s understandable that some of them spend more energy than others.

Box Fan

Box fan wattage is usually around 100 watts, but it can be even 200 watts (the most powerful ones).

From my experience, the hourly cost of a box fan is around $0.10. Now you can do your own math depending on how many hours a day your box fan is running.

I have a box fan at home and I’m pretty confident when it comes to the efficiency of this type of fan.

Ceiling Fan

Ceiling fans are a bit cheaper than other options.

An average cost is $0.06/hour, so it cost pennies to actually cool your whole room with a ceiling fan.

Cost Of Electricity In Different Areas

You’re probably familiar that electricity costs more in some states than the others. It’s the same as taxes – some states have higher taxes than the others.

For example, Oklahoma has the cheapest electricity while Hawaii has the most expensive electricity.

You’ll have to include this data as well in your formula when calculating the running costs of your fan.

Check out the electricity cost of all the states here.

Electricity Saving Tips 

Although there’s a couple of main factors that affect how much electricity a fan uses, you can still use some tricks to save more energy.

  • Turn off the fan when you’re sleeping
  • Don’t run the fan at the highest speed when not necessary
  • Let the blinds be your friend and block the sun
  • Regularly clean your fan to improve the efficiency

These are just some essential tips I apply to avoid receiving higher monthly bills.

If you find this article helpful, you can give a read on how to properly cool your room with fans.

Hey there! I am Benas, the founder and content editor at Home Caprice. Thanks for reading the article. I hope you were able to find what you were looking for. I and my team are here to simplify heating and cooling for everyone. Please have a look at the About page for more details about our website and feel free to check out our editorial process.