Do you struggle to sleep in the stagnant stillness of a fanless bedroom? So did I until I found This easy $99 fix. 

When I was maybe 8 years old, I caught a couple of Crayfish in a stream in North Carolina. I put them in a big container of water thinking I might have some new pets, but soon found that they couldn’t live in that stagnant environment. These things needed running water in order to get enough oxygen to survive. 

Welcome to my world. Without air movement, I may not drown like a Crayfish, but I do feel I could completely collapse in on myself like a dying star. In fact, I would rather drive my car with the hot air blowing in the peak of Nashville summer than have to drive without the fan on in perfect weather. But don’t even get me started on sleeping without airflow. Too late. 

Sleeping in Hell

I bought my current house 4 years ago. It was a new build, but it was an “inventory home,” meaning we had no say in any of the options whatsoever. I was pleased to find that the master bedroom came with a ceiling fan, but my wife was less enthused. She finds ceiling fans too visually distasteful to exist anywhere inside the main house, so I was tasked with removing them all and replacing them with more aesthetically pleasing fanless lights (the one positive: I was able to relocate all of the fans into my garage, giving me respectable airflow for my home gym). 

This was all fine and good until bedtime. I was now in bed feeling like those Crayfish I caught 3 decades ago – suffocating in the stillness. 

I knew I needed to find some kind of small, non-permanent fan that wouldn’t offend my wife’s high-minded sensibilities, so the hunt was on. I checked some local big box stores, and everything I saw sucked – big, unwieldy, plastic, or those ugly obelisk-like oscillating towers. Why didn’t anything on the market have any class?

Suddenly, I was transported back to even earlier days in my childhood than the Crayfish incident: vacationing at a big, old cottage on Lake Ontario. This place had no central air conditioning whatsoever – you opened the windows and used fans. All steel, heavy as can be fans that could cut your finger clean off if you weren’t careful. But these fans had the je ne sais quoi I was after. 

Now, I managed to use those old, ungrounded fans without issue as a small child. But as a proud owner of 3 young kids myself, I didn’t think the risks of a legitimate mid-century fan were worth it. So I went hunting for replicas, and this is what I found:

My Solution: The Hunter Classic D12

I eventually found the best of both worlds: old-timey design + grounded workings and a small enough cage that you deserve to lose your finger if you find a way to force it in. I present to you the Hunter Classic D12. 

This thing really moves air, too. I have it set up across my bedroom, probably 15’ from my pillow, and the lowest setting gives me just enough airflow to feel alive. Crank it up to 2 or 3, and you can nearly pin yourself against the wall. 

For people who like a little noise while they sleep, it provides a very pleasing “whirr” as well. That’s a downside for me, as I’m afraid a pervert will sneak up on me while I sleep under the cover of sound, but that’s another issue for another time. 

Do yourself a favor – ditch that ugly ceiling fan and grab yourself a Hunter.