Jean's Portable Fans Sightings

[Jean Lemieux]

A little WeatherWorks (SUPER) 15 cm desk fan I saw at my local Village des Valeurs this past February. I was surprised to see it dated of 2008. It has the classic late 1980's to 1990's small desk fan shape but it's a recent version from 2008 with clear blades.




An hilarious street scene I saw yesterday while being in town in the Quartier Chinois (Chinatown). Two pedestal fans in the middle of the pedestrian street next to a truck unloading things. The fans and truck were left there alone. The one on the front is a late 1990's, early 2000's Honeywell. The other behind seems to be a mid 2000's AirWorks (SUPER).

[Jean Lemieux]

Here are some pictures I have accumulated since late August to present.

Taken in late August, this black early 2000's SUPER 40 cm pedestal fan at my college. There's a round 3-speed knob on the back of the motor. They are many of these used throughout the college in both the black version and the white & gray version.


Early September. Another fan taken in the streets. Hehe! This mid to late 1990's SUPER 40 cm pedestal fan behind a building in downtown. This one was most likely to be trashed though. It's the older version of the fan above and in white & gray.


A few days ago this very cute late 1990's to early 2000's Duracraft Versatile 25 cm box fan at Village des Valeurs.

[Jean Lemieux]

Here are finally some more sightings from my area.


My local Salvation Army store have at least one Air King 40 cm wall fan like this with opaque gray blades. It's not for sale it's to cool the back part of the store, where clients are not allowed, where the sort out the merchandise. I don't know very much about theses, They are not very common around here. How old are they? They look well made.



Some of you will probably remember a picture Philippe Aubry posted in March 2011 of a KDK pedestal fan at a church near me. I've been able to get much better pictures yesterday. This fan have been in used in my local church for as long as I can remember. It's only out and easy to see it in the summer months though. They put it away for other seasons. I remember playing with the awesome speed slider controller when I was very young. I'm guessing it's from the early 1970's. The grill is very spaced and beside the blades, there's not much of plastic on it. If this specific model was sold only in Canada, the base might be a special for it. I know many Canadian made pedestal fans in the 1940 to 1960's like some Torcans and Clyde used this exact same base. It's a very heavy base probably made of iron. I believe even some Canadian made General Electrics and Vornados used this base too.




The awesome slider speed control.


In the same room as where this fan is they were also two 1990's Super 40 cm pedestal fans. I already posted one a few years ago that can be seen on page two of this thread. Here's the other one. The grill is placed the wrong way and there's an orange sticker in the middle.



Bonus: For those who don't go in the ceiling fan section, a few days ago I visited Ottawa and Gatineau for the first time. Inside the Parliament of Ottawa they were many Xpelair GX6 with green blades installed above doors. In most cases I was seeing only the back part of them, where the air comes out except for one that I saw the front on it. I wasn't able to get pictures of any of them, especially not the front. I only recently learned that Xpelair has a distributor in Ontario for 120V models. They were also a few high velocity fans placed throughout the Parliament.

[Jean Lemieux]

I hope this thread will regain visibility with these different fans I took pictures of.


Here are some old ceiling bathroom fans at one of my work places. I alternate between two locations. The two first ones are unknown to me and makes a loud grinding sound and have a slow startup. They are in a building that was built somewhere in the early to mid 1970's.

No. 1


No. 2



The two other are two NuTones with a stainless steel panel. They are very loud but works well.

No.1


No.2



A 1980's 30 cm desk fan I saw in a charity donation place in the Outremont area. At first the blades looked clear gray but now that I see it posted here, the blades are opaque brown and the button too. It's one of those 1980's brown CROWN.



I'm saving the best for the last. This is a brown 1970-1980's Xpelair GX12 30 cm with ten green blades at my old high school. I finished high school in June 2009 and I went back to see if this fan was still there and it is. This is what it looks like from outside. The indoor face is brown too. It's the only classroom that had such a fan in it. In all the five years I was there, I don't think they've ever used it. I always found it weird and intriguing that this class has this fan. They also had to make a special setup with the windows in order to have this fan there. They put a brown board in one of the window. It takes half of one window. The school was built in 1977 so if the fan is original to the building, that's how old it would be. It was there when I started in 2004. I never had any courses in the classroom where it's installed so I never saw if they had the original 2-speed reversible Xpelair control for it. The indoor side usually has a pull cord to turn it on and off. Correct me if it's not the right size but the blades looks too wide to be a 23 cm model (GX9).




The ones I saw at the Parlement of Ottawa last month, were much smaller, probably GX6 15 cm models, and were all white. The blades were green too.

[Jean Lemieux]

A 2010's Facto 40 cm pedestal fan at a friend's house. Philippe's coup de coeur. Ahaha!



At the same friends house a 2010's Sunbeam 18 cm twin window fan in the basement. It's a simple model, 2-speed not reversible.



Now check this out! In the library at Université de Montréal a 1970's Seabreeze Cool Sweep 25 cm. It's the oldest generation with the brown base, the beige head and the metal mesh grills. Even at that time it used the four louvers located inside the fan to create the same effect as an oscillating fan. The back grill is a metallic mesh grill too. Notice the round knob at the top for the oscillation of the louvers. This fan came out in 1970 and was the first child proof fan and is still made as of today with a different blade set, different knobs and different color scheme. The grills are plastic on todays version. This version has an unique two metal blade set. They still make it in Toronto, Ontario like the Turbo-Aire model I have. I went back this week to get a better picture of it but it was already removed. I guess that's why we call them portable fans. They can disappear very fast. Hehe!


Here's one on Kijiji in Ontario of the same age so that you can see better the details. Very very cool! It's missing the front sticker though.
www.kijiji.ca/v-art-collectibles/oakville-halton-region/vintage-fan/1018403267?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

Compare it with the current version. I prefer the current version. This version uses a three clear plastic blade set. It probably looked like this since the early 1990's and haven't changed since then. There was a middle version in the 1980's which was constructed like the current version but with the color scheme of the first version. On a period of 44 years they would have been only three versions. That's really not a lot.
www.seabreeze.ca/fans/CoolSweep_/coolsweep_.html

Don't forget to check out what was posted above for those who don't check this thread often.

Enjoy.

[Jean Lemieux]

Here are a few sightings for the month of October.


In a farm in my area are three black Honeywell Super High Tech High Performance fans installed on the ceiling. They are all very dusty. They are two 20 cm models and one bigger model. They were all on. I sued the flast on two of them to stop the motion of the blades.





The bigger one.


That farm also has a few old exhaust fans. Here's one of them:



A Bionaire 40 cm pedestal fan with two sets of blades and electronic controls at a friend's house. I remember these were new around the mid to late 2000's.

[Jordan U]

Those Honeywell fans in the farm are nasty! I've heard those have decent motors, must be so if they've lasted that long.

What's with that fan with the two blades in it, the Bionare? Is that actually effective? I've seen one of those before around where I am.

I have the same telephone as seen in the picture of the 1980's 30 cm desk fan in the charity place. I had no idea those were sold in Canada as well.

I have a Holmes window fan from the early-mid 2000s, which is identical to that Sunbeam one, but my Honeywell one has purple blades. How is that mounted in the window?

[Jean Lemieux]

Here a last one for 2014, a white and gray Windmere 40 cm pedestal fan at Village des Valeurs. The second half of the stand was coming off a little too easily from the bottom half but I'm sure it's fixable. Other than that it's in pretty good shape. This newer version with the plain center is not as common as the older ones with the open center. It's uses the same semi-transparent blades and grills as the older ones. I'm guessing this version is from the mid 1990's. Someone knows the exact age of these?


I hope you liked the sightings for 2014.

[Jean Lemieux]

Nov 5, 2014 21:59:26 GMT -5 Jordan U said:

Those Honeywell fans in the farm are nasty! I've heard those have decent motors, must be so if they've lasted that long.

What's with that fan with the two blades in it, the Bionare? Is that actually effective? I've seen one of those before around where I am.

I have the same telephone as seen in the picture of the 1980's 30 cm desk fan in the charity place. I had no idea those were sold in Canada as well.

I have a Holmes window fan from the early-mid 2000s, which is identical to that Sunbeam one, but my Honeywell one has purple blades. How is that mounted in the window?

I guess the two bladed Bionaire makes a more concentrated airflow in the center.

The window fan is not mounted properly to the window. It's just held in the window frame by two pieces of wood.

[Jordan U]

Nice sightings for 2014! Hope to see more in the coming year.

[Jean Lemieux]

Here are two from January 2015.

A very cool Deco Breeze metal fan with a Tiffany light in the base in store at Place Versailles. The fan has three speeds and oscillates. The low speed is very nice and slow and all the speeds are very quite.



A rare mid 1990's mesh grill Super 40 cm desk fan with the odd base in a church. Notice how flat the center piece is.

[Jordan U]

I like that lighted one, never seen one like that before.

The Super is neat also, haven't seen one of those with a mesh grill before. It looks remarkably clean.

[Jean Lemieux]

Mar 21, 2015 15:35:17 GMT -5 Jordan U said:

I like that lighted one, never seen one like that before.

The Super is neat also, haven't seen one of those with a mesh grill before. It looks remarkably clean.

Deco Breeze have all sorts of decorative all metal fans which are pretty cool for today. This one was very expansive.

I rarely see theses mesh grills Super except for the pedestal versions that seems to be more common.

[Jordan U]

Mar 21, 2015 15:52:45 GMT -5 Jean Lemieux said:

Deco Breeze have all sorts of decorative all metal fans which are pretty cool for today. This one was very expansive.

This style fan, with the four metal blades and metal grill, is pretty common around here as well. While I'm sure there's some cheap ones out there, these seem to be generally better than the regular 3 plastic blade ones. I have one from several years ago, it still works so I guess the quality isn't too bad, but its unbranded. I think I posted a video of it not that long ago.

[Jean Lemieux]

Here are some fans taken in April and May.

An old metal exhaust fan on the side of a building in my area.


In a small department store in Montmagny, QC, I was positively surprised to see that this 30 cm box fan air circulator Forest Air (Sunrise) model still exist. I haven't seen it in a while. It has five blades, three speeds, a revolving grill and a 120 mins timer. They also have quite a few other cool fans for sale including a black five bladed floor fan and a 23 cm desk fan.


In a rest area along highway 20 in région Centre-du-Québec an old metal NuTone exhaust fan. Normally they are chrome but this one was painted in white. A lot of the Mid 20th Century rest areas along highway 20 have those fans in the bathrooms. Another one has it's fans still chrome. They are very powerful. Someone knows the age? The fan has five metal blades.


Enjoy!