Holmes Window Fan with Twin 6-Inch Reversible Airflow Blades, White

5 years and going. I never reviewed this, but came to check the wattage and thought about my purchases up to this point. For 5 YEARS this only dinky window buzzer has been my go to in order to keep cool, or ward bugs in the day or night. Living in farmland, there's days I blow air in to cool down. There's days I reverse it to blow out the off fly that shows up now and then. The settings of speeds I usually go max or min and those two of three speeds have done me right. At times I left it in the window mid rain (you are not supposed to.). I have dropped it, cracked areas of the plastic, damn near twisted the temp setting knob off at one point! But it still works. This crappy little fan I bought 5 years ago and treated rough as an untamed horse needing broken in Still Works. Now you might not get lucky as I did, but I'll tell you this. Best hot damned choice of purchase I made in a long time. Enough that when looking for wattage, it was worth time giving a good review too.

Four years ago I bought the Bionaire Twin Reversible Airflow Window Fan to exchange air in my southern suburb garage. It’s still working perfectly, but I wanted another to exhaust air in our open kitchen/tv/hifi/reading area. It appeared that the Holmes Twin Window Fan was a possible alternative to the Bionaire. Although the Bionaire has a remote (so I don’t have to climb over a car to turn it on), the Holmes does not, but its intended location doesn’t make one necessary or even useful.The problem came when trying to find performance data with which to compare the two fans. The reviews either love each of them, or the grousers claim either “it’s too loud” or “it doesn’t move any air” or “it didn’t fit my window” or “the cord’s too short” and on and on and on. Zero help. Having a bit of training and experience in scientific method, I decided to compare the two fans for both produced air speed and noise.I ordered a Holmes and a HoldPeak HP-866B digital anemometer, the latter having only a few complaints that “it’s too big” (for WHAT????). It seems to be a very well made tool. I downloaded the Abc Apps Sound Meter for my (fairly new) Samsung phone to measure the fans’ noise. The old Bionaire has been sitting in a window for at least 8 months of each of those years since 2012, so it being incredibly dirty I took it apart and cleaned it – especially the very thoroughly grime coated impellers.I set each of the fans one at a time on my workbench, two feet away from the wall to hopefully minimize restriction to measure the air speed of each fan both in intake and (turning the fan around) in exhaust mode. It turns out the air speed varies greatly depending on where the anemometer is placed, so I took four measures (3, 6, 9 and 12 o’clock) for each fan at each speed for intake and exhaust. I moved the anemometer around slightly at each position to determine the highest consistent reading I could find at each clock position with the anemometer placed directly on the grill for consistency. I took sound pressure readings with the phone at three feet from each fan at each speed for both intake and exhaust, averaging 30 seconds of data for each condition. I measured sound pressure in all cases from the front side of the fan. Temperature in the shop was 87 degrees, humidity was 41% (in the South in September, no less). Ambient sound level with the garage door open and a ceiling fan running on medium was 25db.Here’s what I found:Summary: The Bionaire is louder than the Holmes at each speed for both intake and exhaust. The Bionaire produces more air speed on intake than the Holmes, but the Holmes produces more air speed on exhaust. I averaged the airspeed of the two fans for each model.Intake Air Speed:Bionaire: Low – 7.4 mph. Med – 8.5 mph. Hi – 9.3 mph.Holmes: Low – 6.0 mph. Med – 6.8 mph. Hi – 7.6 mphExhaustBionaire: Low – 4.8 mph. Med – 5.4 mph. Hi – 5.9 mphHolmes: Low – 6.3 mph. Med – 7.7 mph. Hi – 7.7 mph.Intake Noise Level:Bionaire: Low – 60 dB. Med – 63 dB. Hi – 70 dBHolmes: Low – 48 dB. Med – 52 dB. Hi – 57 dBExhaust Noise Level:Bionaire: Low – 48 dB. Med – 51 dB. Hi – 53 dBHolmes: Low – 47 dB. Med – 49 dB. Hi – 51 dB.Yeah I know, I could have measured sound pressure with one impeller on intake and one on exhaust. I didn’t. Figure it’ll be somewhere in between. Caveats: The Bionaire is four years old. It does not appear to show any signs of wear whatsoever, but it’s possible somehow it’s different from a new one. The model number has changed. I hope the Holmes turns out to be as bulletproof as the Bionaire. For my use, I have the best of both worlds: The Bionaire serves better for my purposes in the garage, and the Holmes works better to exhaust cooking odors from the house. You’ll have to decide which one serves your purpose best.Hope this helps!

I will try to cover everything that I know, but I will say this from the start. Some of the info on the listing, is just wrong about the fans. My review is going to be a bit long too, because I am going to try an include the specs on the fan, so you know what they are, all in one place.First, if you, like me, prefer to buy made in the USA stuff, then let me say, this is NOT one of them. I bought this one because it said, "Origin: USA". I got them in, and found that both the box, and the fans, both say made in china on them.I got 2 of these, and found that they were not equal in the amount of power that they use. Since they have a surge of power when you first turn them on, I will give you the readings on them after they were running for about 30 seconds. Fan 1, then 2 respectively. High 49.7, 51.5 watts. Low 35.8, 34.9 watts. I am just letting you know not to expect an exact number, because each fan uses a different amount of power. I saw one person put that theirs uses 53 watts on high. So all you can get is an estimate on these.The power cord is an 18AWG cable, and is 5' or 5 foot long. It is just a standard, 2 plug end.The fan blades are around 6 1/2" wide, each. They are both made out of plastic. They do produce a good amount of air flow too. I would say, on low, it would probably be comparable to a standard window air conditioner's fan on high. It is hard to really give an accurate amount as things very too much, but it does give a good breeze, even on low. There is no information, anywhere on the fan, or in the manual, to tell what the CFM rating is for the air flow. I looked. Both fans also run together. There is no way to turn one off. It is all or nothing.The noise level of the fans is moderate. It is a typical fan sound, from the cutting of the blades into the air, type of sound. Basically the sound level is one that is plenty tolerable to be able to use it in a window, in say, a bedroom, or in a living room, and be able to watch TV at the same time. I would say that this fan on high, is probably about the noise level of my quieter window air conditions, just on fan, on low.. You do not hear much, if any noise, from the motors.They say that these are reversible, and the pictures make it look like there is a switch to do it. But, there is no switch. You have to manually turn the whole fan around to reverse the air flow. There is a switch on the top, on both sides, for you to control the speed, from high to low to off. They are not independent switches. There is one switch in the middle of the fan, and a plastic lever that extends to the outside of the fan on both sides.The fan size is 10" high, 21 3/4" long (about 3/4" of that is the lip to attach the side extension too), and that is with no side extensions in use. One side of the fan has an accordion type of extension, and the other side has a solid extension that slides down on that lip. It comes with one solid extension, but looks to be made so that you can attach multiple of them together, but I have found no way to buy more of them. Each side, the extensions come up to about 5" of extension per side, for a total of about 10" in extension, for a total width, or length of the fan, at around 31" max.It does come with a 1 year warranty too, just like is stated in the listing.The weight of the fan is pretty light too.. Maybe 2 pounds.. Not surprising since just about the whole fan is made out of plastic.I bought these to save on electric, so I can put them in the window, and turn them on at night, to pull the warmer air out of the house, and pull the cooler night air in, and then I just close the windows during the day. I would say it is worth it, vs running an air condition, when you take into consideration that these use around 50 watts on high, vs an air conditioner that uses over around 500 watts with just the fan, and well over 1000 watts when using the AC part of it too.I have only tested mine out so far, so if I have any problems, I will update. My opinion about it. I do like the fan, and I will get a lot of use out of them. I wish that they were made in the USA like they are advertised to be, and I wish I could have gotten some info about how much air flow they give off too. A switch to reverse the blades, instead of having to turn the whole fan around, would be nice too. But, for the most part, I am happy with them.. At least, so far. I took off one star due to false information on where they were made, and lack of info about air flow, noise levels, etc, without having to look through tons of customer reviews and questions.