Cleaning tips for ceiling fans

Cleaning tips for ceiling fans

The Indian summer is in full swing and so are the ceiling fans in households across the country. Your ceiling fan keeps you cool and comfortable throughout the season, so it makes good sense to maintain it properly to ensure trouble-free performance. Like other home appliances, a ceiling fan also requires regular cleaning, which in turn adds to its beauty and longevity.

If left uncleaned for a long time, dirt and dust gathers on the blades and around the motor. It not only makes your fan look bad but could also lead to wobbling, humming and even motor failure. Also, when the fan is running, the dust and grime piled over the blades spreads across the room and settles on furniture and other items. Therefore, you must at least clean your ceiling fan once in a month.

The height at which a ceiling fan is installed and the tricky blade angles might make the cleaning task look intimidating in the first place. However, it’s not a herculean thing. Here are a few tips that would make this cleaning job simple and easy.

First things first. To ensure safety, turn off your ceiling fan and ensure that the blades are static before you start cleaning.

Method 1: Long-handed soft duster

Using a long-armed duster with dry dusting head is one of the easiest ways to clean your ceiling fan. Before you begin, you must place a tarpaulin sheet over the area below the fan to collect dust. Also, you should cover your nose and mouth with a piece of cloth in order to avoid inhaling dust. Start the cleaning process by gently dusting the canopy followed by down rod and fan motor. Now, start cleaning the top of the blades by moving duster slowly from one end to the other end. Repeat the process for bottom of the blades. When done, take the tarp sheet outside to remove the dust. If you clean your ceiling fan quite regularly, this method is highly convenient.

Method 2: Vacuum Cleaner

All you need is a vacuum cleaner with a flat dusting attachment and you are good to go. Avoid the circular attachments. Cleaning a ceiling fan with vacuum cleaner is easy and it also ensures that the dust is not scattered across the room during the process. In order to ensure proper cleaning, the fan blades must be easily accessible, which you can ensure by lifting yourself to a proper height using a stool or a step ladder. Run the brush attachment across blades slowly and smoothly in a single direction at a time, so that the vacuum hose sucks in all the dust effectively.

Method 3: Use a pillowcase

This is an interesting way of cleaning a dusty ceiling fan. For this, you first need to use a step ladder or stool to reach an appropriate height closer to the fan. Get a pillowcase to cover a single fan blade as you would cover a pillow. Once you put the pillowcase around the blade, pull it off slowly while holding the blade from top as well as bottom, to ensure that dust wipes off and goes straight into it, leaving behind no grime. When one blade is cleaned, move to the next and repeat the procedure. You can also use a hand glove or a piece of clean cloth for cleaning. Regardless of the method you use, it is important to ensure that you do not apply extra pressure on the blades as it could lead to de-shaping of blades.

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