My fans get a lot of use here. And yes theres cats too. when I first started collecting them I wanted to keep them nice and just show friends that something old can be restored and actually work, After I moved here we had to have fans and decided most of the new fans cant match the old ones in output, so I keep them serviced and clean then up ocaisonally. Gotta have them!

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That is what I should do with mine....All I did was wipe em down, check the cord, oil em up and run em!!

A friend I work with found two fans in his grandfathers barn and gave them to me. They were filthy and locked up and I thought I might use them for parts. After a while I took the Westinghouse apart and started cleaning it up. It had the cast aluminum body and base and blade. After I got it working I thought it would be cool to polish the aluminum. After it was finished I gave it back to him and he was so happy to see it working and all shiney. I tok the other, a GE and gave it the once over as well and it has turned out to be my most used because its so quiet.

The reason it's so quiet is the blade design.
The wider blades and ones that actually overlap each other, cause less wind noise.
There's a name for that design, but I can't remember it.

Alas, my old Fitzgerald with its narrow blades makes a nice whine that puts me to sleep at night.
That, and the crickets outside my window is total bliss.

Someone mentioned a Light Bill?

Is the opposite of that then a Dark Bill?

Sorry I have tooooooo much time on my hands,

Anybody remember Grandparents telling you not to leave the lights burn as it cost money. I think they were comparing the electric bulb to a gas lamp
My Grandmother was so worried about her light bill that she would have nothing bigger than a 40 watt bulb. My parents alway brought some bigger bulbs when we would visit

I had a mother-in-law that was the mother-in-law of all mother-in-laws. She had a color TV that she never turned on. Instead she had a little portable B&W set. She heard the color TV's had radiation, and one day she turned it on and smelled something sour, so she figured it was radiating and turned it off, never to use it again. She also had lamps around the house with little 7 or 15 watt bulbs in them. Don't EVER leave the room with one of those lamps on -- you'll rack up the electric bill! More than once I've heard her complain that her electric bill was so high, she would call the power company and give them a piece of her mind -- one month it was $25!!!!!!

Complaining about a $25 electric bill is too funny! That must have been 40+ years ago. I did complain about the $250 electric bill that we recently paid; but, that amount was due to the central A/C in the house and the window A/C in my shop. And, the bill will probably be higher next month. I hate having to pay those prices; but, I don't plan on burning up, either.

Regarding your MIL and the B&W TV, she was the type of person that would still buy a new B&W console TV in '78. Yep, I managed to get a NOS '78 22" solid state Sylvania B&W floor model TV from a TV dealer in SC. He said that even as recent as the late '70's-early '80's, they still had older people who would not have a color TV because of the radiation, eye strain, energy consumption, etc. He said it was for those types of people that they kept stocking large screen B&W sets for as long as they could still get them. In the mid '90's, I fixed a 17" RCA portable B&W for a very old lady who claimed that she'd never owned a color TV and didn't have any plans to own one.

Since we're discussing old electric fans
I thought I'd ask if anyone knows where I can
get my hands on a switch for one that's
about ready to be restored.
It has to be rotary with 3 positions,
Off-On-On, turning clockwise.

I love old fans, almost as much as old radios.

Ron,
Ask at www.fancollectors.org

Jerry F Bacon ♫

I use a HUGE 40's Hunter fan... one that would probably chop your fingers right off. I use it out in the shop and on hot days. Man that thing would double as a leaf blower. Anyway, it doesn't really make a difference on my electric bill. I keep it pretty well oiled though. The key is to avoid as much friction as possible.

Hey Bob, I have an old Hunter fan too. The motor size is huge!!!! I will get a pic tomorrow of it. I had it in my office, and on a warm but not need AC day I turned it on low and blew 3 file folders worth of paperwork into the livingroom

Up until just a few years ago the local utility company was called "City Light and Water now it's known as Municipal Utilities, old habits die hard. I don't think that calling it the light bill is as strange as folks in Canada referring to their electric bills as hydro.