With how hot it got this summer in Cleveland, Ohio, I finally found the motivation to buy a floor fan for my garage/workshop. After doing some research, I settled on Harbor Freight Tools’ Central Machinery 20-inch High Velocity Floor Fan, and I’m very pleased with my purchase.
There aren’t a lot of features to review with something as simple as a floor fan, but for the $59.99 plus tax that I paid for the fan, I feel like I got my money’s worth .
Harbor Freight often has coupons for the 20-inch fan, but I had some mid-summer maintenance to do on my 2008 Yamaha FJR1300 and didn’t want to put off that work to save about $10.
I researched several similar fans from other retailers and, in terms of cost and value-for-money, it came down to the Harbor Freight model and a similar one from Menards. I chose the Harbor Freight product because it got very good reviews (4.8/5 stars and 98 percent customer recommended). The Menards website does not allow buyers to leave product reviews.
The fan is straightforward to assemble – though it took a little persuading to get the tab on mounting arm to line up with the hole on the second leg of the three-point stand.
To sum up my review, this fan blows – in a good way. It really moves a good amount of air. It has three fan speed settings, which are demonstrated with my beagle mix Papi’s ears in the video below.
I set up the fan next to my workbench and it indeed cooled things down a little in my slightly oversized two-car garage. I didn’t take any temperature readings in areas within and outside the fan’s reach, but I can say it felt refreshing every time I stepped in front of the fan to cool off while I was working on my motorcycle.
I also really like how stable the fan’s base is. The base is fairly wide for the fan’s size but doesn’t stretch much to the rear of the fan’s body. I’ve bumped it a bunch of times with my leg walking by it though, and have yet to knock it over. The fan’s angle is adjustable to a fair degree, so you can aim it directly at yourself if you’re staying stationary or adjust it about 40 degrees. The fan is advertised to move 4,800 – 6,000 cfm per the product specs (depending on the fan setting). Though every fan makes some degree of noise, I haven’t found this fan’s working sound to be at all excessive.
The power cord is reported to be about seven feet long – which is fine for a fan of its size.
Overall, I’m very happy with the functionality and lightweight-but-sturdy design of this Harbor Freight product. It’s met my expectations and – given how much prices have gone up on most everything – I think it’s a good value that I expect to last for a while.
The Motorcycling Blog 