I've got a Minka-Aire Concept II fan. The blades are plastic. Mine is white, but it's available in a couple of brushed metallic finishes. It does have the 100-watt halogen bulb, which provides a nice glow that's enough to let you move around the room safely but not enough to be the room's sole light source. It's a very nice fan.

I don't believe I've ever seen a ceiling fan with metal blades, but then I don't shop for them very often. I'll leave this one for others to address.

CFs in fans are an excellent idea. They resist vibration nicely. Try to stay away from the cheap ones, though. Panasonic and Philips are the reliable brands (but don't get Philips' cheap mass-market helical CFs).

Hope this helps.

Hi jon1270,

none of the Minka-Aire fans have metal blades, and also I think they're too big for my bedroom, which is 11' x 16' [9' ceilings]. They make gorgeous fans though.

The ceiling fan would be my bedroom's primary light source, so it looks like I should avoid the 100W halogen models -- which actually eliminates a LOT of options. In fact, I'm not sure I have many options besides Hunter. Do you have any other suggestions?

thanks! :)

Hi davidr,

thanks for your reply, but I'm pretty clueless about light bulbs, so I don't even know what it means for bulbs to vary in reliability. Can you please explain in which sense cheap bulbs are unreliable -- do they expire quickly? Where can one buy Panasonic CFLs? I do have Philips helical CFLs -- the 23W Marathon 100 bulbs from Costco though I haven't opened the package yet. What is wrong with them?

thanks! :)

Beethovengirl-

We purchased 5 ceiling fans last summer -- even with air conditioner, I swore I would not go through another summer in Los Angeles without one. I would look first at the quality of the fixtures -- Casablanca makes WONDERFUL fans -- extremely high quality, don't have the balance issues that many do (although I think it is also tied to installation), and have a variety of finishes/appearances.

It was also important that I didn't have a pull cord, or remote control that could get lost -- instead, I selected a model that had the wall switch (many Casablanca's have either the remote or a wall mount).

I selected the Stealth, one of the more contemporary fans which has a light fixture (albeit not the greatest) included, however they have many. Finally, we added canned lights in almost all of the rooms where we were adding fans, and opted NOT to have the additional lighting unit attached (didn't want to lose any additional headroom, and also, I'm not crazy about fan lighting). Good luck in making your decision.

Here is a link that might be useful: Casablanca Fans

Hi monroviamom,

thanks for your reply. Which brands tend to have balance issues? At this time, I don't think we're going to put canned lights in our bedroom, so I probably would have to get a light kit with the Casablanca. It looks like I can get Casablancas with bowls that take incandescents/CFLs -- how do Casablanca fans compare to Hunter?

I really have a bias -- I see Hunter as an inferior product to Casablanca (IMHO).... Good luck to you!

How are Hunter fans inferior to Casablanca? I just checked out pricing, and Casablanca fans are much more expensive, so I am curious how Casablanca fans are better.

Hi -- it appears your concern about the Minka-Aire Concept II fans is that they'd be too large for your room. I just wanted to let you know we installed three of them last week in our children's bedrooms, the ceilings of which are maybe 8' or 9' high; we got the 44" versions in Brushed Nickel (from Lamp Depot), plus the wall control -- I learned about both Minka-Aire and Lamp Depot from this terrific forum!

Anyway, because they're flushmount they don't protrude into the room (as) much, and the brushed nickel finish is really nice. True, the blades are NOT metal, but that makes me feel good (for safety reasons!). We also love its light source and that it's dimmable (for late-night peeks at sleeping babies ...) -- none of our bedrooms had overhead lighting, so that was important to us.

We are also really impressed with the fans themselves: incredibly quiet. We have a ceiling fan in our bedroom which is so noisy (and a bit wobbly, if truth be told). We've never had a ceiling fan before (moved into this house in March) so we didn't know how quiet and powerful they could be. We're changing the one in our bedroom tout de suite!

Good luck on your search.

Ludwig Lady,

The competition in screwbase CFs today is ferocious. Most brands have given up making their own because they can't compete on price with the Chinese CFs, and purchase price is the only measure that most consumers care about.

Thus, the majority of CFs regardless of brand are now made in a handful of Chinese factories. They are all in a race to the bottom in terms of price - and quality.

Consider that an electronic ballast for a linear fluorescent fixture sells for $15-20, and good T8 lamps run about $2.50 each. Now, how is it possible for the screwbase CF manufacturers to sell a decent quality lamp and ballast combination for 90% less money?

The answer is that they can't.

A good CF costs between $10 and $20. These are the ones which are likely to last their rated lifetime or more. Cheap CFs sell for a fraction of that amount, typically around $2-4. But they're becoming notorious for a large premature failure rate, dying (sometimes spectacularly, with smoke shows and even flames) at a few hundred or a few dozen hours.

This happens because the components used in them are run right at their electrical limits, and are absolute rock-bottom, lowest-bid quality to boot. This is hurting the entire CF industry, IMO.

Philips still make some good CFs. You can tell them by looking at the fine print on the carton. The most reliable Philips CFs are made in Mexico. Some are from Poland and they're OK too. AFAIK, these are all tri-tube or capsule types. Your little helicals are the Chinese-made cheapies.

Ten years ago, Sylvania CFs were tri-tube and made in Germany. They cost around $15 each. They returned very long service lives - I still have several of them in service - but I can't get them any more.

A few years back I was able to get fair-to-middling medium-sized helical CFs from Sylvania. They were made in Taiwan. I had more problems with premature failures with these, but not enough that I gave up on them. Those are no longer available; Sylvania now manufacture them in - you guessed it - China. I'm very hesitant to try them.

Until the last year or two, Lights of America had some helical CFs that were roughly comparable to the Sylvania helicals in reliability. These were made with cheap Asian components, but US engineered and assembled in California.

LoA CFs are now sourced from the Chinese sweatshops, too. I bought four of them recently before I realized they'd changed, and one of the four failed within 2 hours of use.

I'm sorry to say that I simply do not know of any small helical CFs currently available which I consider really good quality. I would love to hear of some.