Here we discuss the history of ceiling fans and why they are no longer made in America and what can be done about it. Since the United States was one of the first countries in the world to manufacture and use them, it is a sad legacy that we have lost that capability, but there is hope. Read on for more information.

Electric ceiling fans were first manufactured in the 1890s primarily by General Electric, Westinghouse, and Emerson Electric. These companies were the largest of the electrical device companies at the time and were at the forefront of developing new electrical products. At first, fans were very expensive for the time and were used almost exclusively in commercial applications such as bars, restaurants, hotel lobbies, and meeting rooms. They were very heavy and made of solid metal castings with bears that needed to be filled with oil regularly. But they worked fine and ran almost forever. Many still function today in restored condition. Fans are generally very simple and unassuming by today’s standards, but were considered a utilitarian apparatus for feeling and not hearing or seeing. There was no air conditioning at the time so the ceilings were quite high and the fans kept the air moving. Fans continued in this fashion essentially unchanged, but gradually fell in price to become more affordable (and lighter) in the 1960s. At this point, they became less popular as central air conditioning and heating became more popular. in the norm and the height of the ceilings dropped to the standard of 8 feet in height. The late 1970s saw a resurgence in fan popularity with the “energy crisis” and a renewed interest in saving electricity, though that faded again in the 1980s when power became cheap again. There was a major change in the evolution of ventilators in the 1980s and 1990s when cheaper production factories were put into operation in Taiwan. But first a little background on ceiling fan manufacturing.

Ceiling fans are fairly simple devices, a motor, a hanging bar, and 3-5 blade arms that hold the blades, usually made of wood. Engines were typically made by a handful of large companies and used across a variety of brands, keeping costs low. You can choose between two motor sizes, but otherwise they were pretty similar. The decorative outer casing and blade arms were the most expensive part to develop. They required very expensive dies and other castings and often took years to recoup development costs. Therefore, few companies wanted to risk developing and paying for new shapes, styles, and designs when there was no perceived need. Therefore, the fan style was kept quite simple and boring. Remember when the upgrade for fans was blades with woven cane inserts? That all changed initially with Taiwan than with China in the late 1990s. Its much lower labor and tooling costs did two things; 1. It allowed existing fan companies to more profitably create entirely new models, and 2. It created an opportunity for new companies without their own factories to suddenly become fan companies. Examples of the latter are Craftmade, Minka Aire, Concord, Fanimation, Quorum, Regency, Copper Canyon, Ellington, Hunter, and many more. In fact, only Emerson remains of the original companies that made ventilators. GE went out of business and Westinghouse went bankrupt and sold the name to a new company.

This was the first big explosion in fan variety and popularity. As more and more options became available, consumers discovered that fans were no longer just for moving air, they were now decorative elements that brightened up the room. Then the housing boom of the 1980s increased sales even more and the options became almost unbelievable. The downside to all of this was that companies that made ceiling fans in the US had to close down or move abroad to keep up with radical changes in style and increasingly finicky consumer demand. After about 10 years, all American companies were either out of business or now just importers. Once this happened, all the supporting industries that used to make the fan parts also moved to different areas or closed as well. For a time, some companies like Emerson assembled fans here with parts made abroad or in Mexico, but they eventually gave up and now strictly import all of their fans. This scenario worked very well for many years, as the housing boom continued into 2007, when disaster struck.

One of the “devil deals” that fan companies had to make with large foreign factories was to buy large quantities of these fans, usually 500 to 1,000 at a time of each model. That was great as long as there was a lot of market. What happened now is that these companies suddenly had warehouses full of ventilators that were no longer selling and they could no longer afford to create new models or even order inventory of models that were selling well until the old inventory was sold, which It didn’t happen very fast. The next major problem was that prices began to rise sharply as the cost of crude metals and petroleum products skyrocketed in 2007-10 due to massive demand in Asia. As the lighting and fan business entered a dramatic turn, many companies had to merge or were bought out and this trend is expected to continue for a while. So the question now is how do companies survive in a shrinking market, with rising costs and consumers still expecting new and different styles? That is a very tough order that will either require a dramatic decrease in fan companies and thus capacity, or companies need to be much more agile and able to produce smaller quantities and still be profitable. In reality, both are happening and in 2011 the market is beginning to stabilize, although there are still ongoing purchases, such as the anticipated one between Ellington and Craftmade.

An added complication in all of this is the change in retail distribution due to the Internet and “Big Box” stores. Traditionally, fans were sold through local lighting showrooms with hardware stores that sold a few very basic models at best. With the advent of the internet and the growth of mega hardware stores across the country, that has completely changed the retail landscape for fans. You cannot buy and check the price of thousands of models from any computer connected to the Internet. Big Box stores are now importing fans directly from China and can sell them for less than lighting showrooms can often buy. The normal profit margin of 2 times or more previously enjoyed by the showroom has also been eroded due to the Internet, so the lighting showroom business, which was the traditional mainstay of these fan companies, has it is reeling Traditional fan companies have been forced to adopt Internet companies and try to sell to Box stores with mixed success. Big box stores are notorious for letting smaller fan (and other product) companies take all the risk in developing new designs, then take proven successes and make them in their own factories in China for less.

There is another option that only a company specialized in lighting and ceiling fans has adopted; reassemble and finish fans in the USA Copper Canyon is known for its artistic western and country style ceiling fans. Even in this very limited, low volume market, they have grown dramatically in the last 5 years by keeping inventory low and offering more variety even as other companies are cutting back. They bring in partially finished ceiling fans from abroad, then add their own decorative panels and made-in-the-USA fixtures and hand-finish the fans as ordered. The cost is higher per fan this way, but it allows for less inventory, US jobs, and more choice for customers.

As more and more companies grapple with rising manufacturing and business costs in China, this trend is likely to continue, to the benefit of all. Consumer-grade ceiling fan manufacturing here in the US will probably never happen again, but just like auto companies, why not assemble and finish fans here with imported and domestic parts? The tremendous profits of the past may never be the same again, but that is the price of staying in business and we need to begin to assess the true cost of losing so many jobs to foreign suppliers.