Hunter 20810 Low Profile lll Plus 52-Inch Ceiling Fan with Five Blades, White

Comment: I installed two of these in our bedroom and nursery. Each room is small by today's standards measuring roughly 10' x 10' x 9'. I wanted a low-profile fan with a light that wouldn't be too much of an eyesore. The Hunter fit the bill and Amazon had one of the most competitive prices. I coupled both fans with the remote unit (Hunter 27185). Complete installation of the first fan was about a three-hour process by myself and the second went up in less than two hours. We have been using them pretty much nonstop for the last month and are very happy. The fans are extremely quite at lower settings and still push enough air to feel. At the highest speed the fan is still relatively quite but there is more noise from the turbulence of air.

Comment: A couple weeks ago I bought two Harbor Breeze 52" fans at Lowes (Springfield model, if it matters). I installed them in two upstairs bedrooms. They went up quickly and easily, they don't vibrate, and they look good.

This past weekend my Hunter fan arrived from Amazon. Thought I'd go higher up in quality for the game room.

Having just put up the Harbor Breeze fans, I had some perspective on design decisions that make installation easy or hard. Hunter's engineers should take a look at the work of Harbor Breeze.

For example, attaching the fan blades to their mounting brackets (called "blade irons" by Hunter). The Harbor Breeze bracket gets pushed through the blade's three holes, then secured with one clever restraining clip. Total time for one blade, about 10 seconds; one minute for all five blades. Hunter, on the other hand, gives you 15 rubber grommets, each to be pushed and pulled into the 15 blade holes, then screwed to the mounting bracket with, of course, 15 screws. Not hard, but an example of the engineering that went into the Harbor Breeze that didn't go into the Hunter.

The Hunter came with a CFL bulb that didn't work. No big deal, but the two Harbor Breeze fans came with a total of 8 lamps (incandescent), all of which worked. The fit and finish of the Harbor Breeze lamps seems better than the Hunter; even the pull chains look better. The Harbor Breeze fans in general look better (pewter finish vs painted white), run quietly (except for wind noise) even at highest speed, and at $77, I wish I'd bought three of them.

Who knows, maybe in ten years the Harbor Breeze fans will stop working and the Hunter will be going strong. But for now, the Harbor Breeze fans seem much the better value.

Why have I wasted so much time relating this? Heck, the Hunter is installed, and it's not coming out. Maybe it's to pass a tip of the hat to the Harbor Breeze engineers who did such a good job making the fan easy to put together for the average homeowner. I have a feeling they didn't skimp on the motor or switches either.

Comment: I've installed many Hunter fans over the last 35 years or so and it gets easier and easier. Once you get a properly reinforced ceiling fan mount, it's a breeze. Anyone who can stand on a ladder will be able to install this fan. The motor is light weight, and setting it into the bracket is very easy. It runs very quietly and the included energy saving bulb puts out a nice light.

Comment: We bought this fan after looking at both of the major home improvement stores and not finding anything we liked there. Installation was simple, and the air movement is very good as well. We also like the low profile of this fan since we have 9' ceilings in the room where we placed it. Our room is smaller than what is recommended for a 52" fan (it's about 10x10), but this fan still feels like the right size (compared to the 44" model).

There is one issue that I have with this fan, CFL bulbs hum when in the light fixture. The product comes with 1 CFL bulb and we also tried another one and there is an audible hum. We have CFLs all over our house and the hum is new to us. Once we used an incandescent bulb the hum disappeared. It's certainly possible that there is some wiring issue since we ran new wiring there, but be warned if you notice the noise.