Vornado 783B - 8½ yards of home comfort

MMM...breeze. Nothing is more refreshing than a nice gentle even breeze. How does one capture that nice pleasant outdoor fresh breeze sensation inside? Installing a ceiling fan is one option if you are mechanically inclined(i'm not). How about a nice noisy box fan that just blows air in one spot along the floor(umm..no). Vornado attempts to recreate our desire for a open big sky breeze feeling with their 700 series air circulator. Sounds perfect doesn't it? Well, it's not quite the whole 9 yards but it comes close. Read on and you become the judge.

I found this fan while trodding along the clearance isle at wally world(wal-mart) for $30. This was certainly a lot better than the lofty $79 tag it had when it was in season. So after fighting off 50 wal-martains(shoppers) i threw it in the cart and away I went.

Assembly was very easy, basically attach the top and bottom part of the pedestal screw it in and wee! I was at first kind of taken back by the appearance of the fan. With it's curly dark grey base rising up to huge light grey fan that sets slightly off center from the base, it's defintley not like the typical pedestal fan. The motor is the basic 3 speed combination (LO MED HI). At first glance, it would appear that he fan has no adjustments. However the fan can be tilted to a moderate degree of angles to adjust the air flow beam as necessary . The pedestal has only 2 settings 27" or 42", thats it take it or leave it. It would have been nice to have a more variable height to use in different rooms if one wishes. So now for the fun part, lets try this fan out and see if it does what it claims to do.

After reading the manual, I turned the fan on MED speed as it suggest to establish and air flow pattern. I was surprised at how well it started to circulate air at every point in the bedroom. No matter where i stood in the room there was a very nice breeze. I was also surprised at the noise that was being produced by the fan. On MED speed there is a very pronounced "whooshing" noise with marked vibration from the pedestal. Installing the cushion feet rings on the pedestal(found inside packaging) will reduce the vibration if used on hardwood floors. On HI speed the noise is even more prevalent. However, the airflow created at this speed is impressive to say the least. LOW speed is dramatically quieter. Although the noise is far from annoying, vornado's claim of "whisper quiet" seems a bit far fetched. The 700 series is intended to be used in larger rooms such as living room, den, large bedroom, hobby room. Using this fan in smaller rooms (100-150 sq ft) is kind of an overkill. If this is your purpose, opt for the smaller 500 or 600 series vornados instead. Unlike most fans, this fan can be useful in the winter time as well. The unique air circulation, much like a ceiling fan, can bring warm air that is trapped at ceiling level down to the floor and mid levels where it is needed the most(unless you want to keep the ceiling spiders warm). The fan is also very lightweight making it easy to transport it from room to room if desired

Cleaning fans is about as much fun as going to the dentist. However,vornado makes this task easy by taking a screwdriver and depressing the safety clips on the back of the grille and the grille comes off with ease. It is my experience that this fan will require a lot more cleaning because the of the amount of air that passes thru it. So dust bunnies can become dust elephants if not cleaned regularly.

Overall I'm impressed with this fan. It combines the strong breeze of a ceiling fan and the small footprint of a pedestal fan to create a unique effect of maintaining home comfort in all seasons. If this unit was a bit quieter on higher speeds it would be the 'whole 9 yards'.