While HVLS (High Volume Low Speed) fans were invented in the mid ‘90s, — ancient history to some technologies — the fans represent an important development in cooling technology with numerous benefits over their predecessors.

        In fact, the concept behind HVLS fans was retrieved from ancient history. For thousands of years, people have used hand-held fans on hot days knowing that a gentle breeze feels good. When the electric motor made the mechanization of fans possible, engineers mistakenly focused on using speed to increase air displacement. This wrong turn wasn’t righted until decades later, when Walter Boyd set out to build a fan to circulate air and cool a larger area more effectively.

        Boyd first realized that although most modern technology has been progressively smaller, that was not necessarily the most effective method to create better fans for cooling purposes. He set out to create a cooling system that would employ the laws of physics and consider the aerodynamics of each fan’s moving column of air.

        Boyd discovered that a larger fan would create a large column of air, which travels farther than one with a smaller diameter. The friction between the moving column and stationary air occurs at the edges of the column. Because the perimeter of a column varies directly with the diameter, a large column of air has proportionately less periphery and therefore, less drag. The air column from a three-foot diameter fan has more than six times as much friction interface per cubic foot as the...

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