It’s unseasonably hot here, and for a variety of reasons, we cannot turn out all night.
I have a giant TSC fan to blow air down the barn aisle. All stalls have a closed motor, AIr King fan. The motors never feel warm nor do the plugs. Are these safe to be left on all night? I think we’ve left them on in past years. I know people leave box fans on all night….
I’m a paranoid ninny.
I’d rather have fans on than not. If you trust them being on throughout a day when you aren’t in the barn the whole time I think it’s reasonable to trust them at night. As a worrier I do understand your concern though.
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I won’t leave the TSC fan on though, as that plug gets hot.
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If your electrical in the barn is installed properly then it shouldn’t be a problem. I would make sure the fans are on an arc fault or combination arc/gfi breaker.
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Thank you! Yes, they are on a gfi breaker.
I agree with the above posts, if you have correct electrical and your fans are designed for the installation then leave them on all night.
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You need an AFI breaker. A fan motor that is going bad will not trip a GFI only breaker. You can get a breaker that is just AFI or you can get a combination AFI/GFI.
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Thank you for that clarification. I know zip about stuff like this. I’ll call my electrician and ask him. It’s a pretty fancy electrical box and was expensive… I just remember hearing GFI.
might want to clean the fans on a regular bases, I clean ours one a week of the built up dust
Besides the regular fans we also have a large evaporative cooler (swamp cooler) that we use once the humidity lowers as it always does in mid summer here. It is not uncommon for the humidity to drop into the single digits making this evaporative cooler very effective to cool the entire barn by 20 to 25 degrees.
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I leave my stall fans (closed motor type, mounted on the ceiling) on all night.
I can’t remember what the name of the safety feature was when my electrician set the barn up for them, but I know the distinction was that one trips the outlet (I think that’s GFI) whereas the other trips the circuit breaker. The one that trips the circuit breaker is better.
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A big TSC barn fan indicates to me that it likely plugs in with a 3-prong plug, and that your barn has 3-prong accepting electrical outlets. If it is a 2-prong plug (no ground) no way I’d leave it constantly running without at least intermittent supervision,
If any fan is plugged into an extension cord that opens up a whole new concern about wire length and wire gauge.
One of my previous boarding barns had a lot of extension cords plus an rlectrical panel with no cover, and since it was quite old, I’d guess wiring was not code compliant at all. No horses or people were hurt in the fire
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I can’t even imagine. What a dream.
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well the problem is that when we get into single digit humidity the air temperature will be usually 110F or greater, that is why we have the evaporative cooler
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That is so beyond horrific. Each fan has its own outlet. No extension cords here. The big TSC fan does plug into a three prong outlet and has the a 3 prong plug.
That always scared me at horse shows- box fans and a cajillion extension cords.
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On the other hand, I turn mine off at night. I am around most of the day (retired) and also rationalize that in the daytime if something happens, it will have a better chance of being seen since neighbors are actually awake.
It’s much cooler at night once the sun goes down and makes a huge difference.
My friend and I just had the same discussion. Even though my barn has been rewired, correct outlets, breaker box - I just like to sleep at night. I even only use my heated water buckets when it’s single digits in the winter (aww… cold winter snow… 
)
Plus my barn is an old Amish barn and really well ventilated simply due to it’s size.
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In the worst of the summer in the Phoenix area, the temp will still be about 90F or higher until around 3am, and then start climbing back up to 110F or so during the day. Stall fans run all night. Most horses are in mare motels (covered pipe pens, 12x24). Air flow is everything here.
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I have 220 amp service in my barn.
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I much prefer Northern Tools barrel fans over TSC any day. Sealed motors.
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I have my barrel fans on programmable industrial outdoor timers. One fan per timer as they are 42” barrel fans.
My timers are older, which means I can’t find them on line.
Make sure you buy programmable outdoor timers and make sure the cords are long enough to reach your wall socket - NO EXTENSION CORDS.
My two horses can run in/out 24/7. They can both get air from one fan. During the day, the back fan is aimed at the new hay, but turned to blow down the aisle at night, along with the other fan.
With this horrid humidity & dewpoint many of us are locked into, I hve the fans set to run 10 hours daily. I will change the timers as the weather changes or, if there’s an extended power failure and I have to reset the time.
I have used outdoor timers on the barn fans for nearly the entire 22 years I have lived here with zero regrets and a boatload of peace of mind.
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Not sure what your internet service is at the barn, but I installed Nest smoke detectors in my barn. At the very least, I’ll get woken up by the alarm if they go off in the middle of the night. They are battery powered and connect to Wi-Fi.
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That’s a good point. I have heat sensors in my barn that are connected to our home alarm system. Not only does an alarm go off, but the alarm company gets notified and sends the fire dept unless I tell them not to.
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