There are some things in life we just don’t give much thought to.

An example is electricity. Our society is powered by electricity. We don’t think about it; we expect it to be there when needed. But when there is a power outage people freak out. When there is a large power outage, such as the entire Los Angeles or New York City metropolitan areas then it is a disaster.

One thing I don’t give much attention to or think about is the Endless Breeze fan that resides in our camper. As a matter of fact, in the nearly 700 posts and pages I have published over the past 4 plus years I don’t think I have ever mentioned it.

Given that I bought it 14 years ago (way back in 2003), it is probably time to do a proper review.

BUILD QUALITY

When I bought the fan I threw away the packing materials because there was limited space in our camper, an itty-bitty ’92 Starcraft Meteorite. I stored it in one of the dinette bench seats.

Now anyone who has towed a camper a lot of miles knows the trailer doesn’t have shock absorbers like a car or truck and over time the constant vibration shakes things – a lot. It isn’t uncommon to find stray screws on the floor and it is a part of camper life to constantly be tightening screws, such as door hinges.

Our Endless Breeze has traveled nearly 60,000 miles in our three campers and nothing has come loose or broken. Over the past 14 years we have used the fan hundreds, if not thousands of hours.

 So we can check off the Build Quality box as exceptional.

EFFICIENCY

Since we almost always are camped off the electric grid and run off of battery power, electric consumption is very important to us. Here are the power specifications:

Low Fan Speed = 1.18 amps

Medium Fan Speed = 1.62 amps

High Fan Speed = 2.58 amps

There is a lot of technical information throughout my blog on solar and electric consumption, but I’ll make this really simple. From this post on interior lighting solutions, our camper came with 921 automotive type bulbs, which draw 1.28 amps each.

Our camper had 10 light fixtures with two bulbs in in each. So a single light fixture was drawing 2.56 amps or almost exactly what the endless breeze draws on high speed!! Older campers usually use 1141 or 1156 bulbs, both of which draw even more amps as the chart below shows:

 So we can check off the Efficiency box as exceptional.

POWER

The Endless breeze isn’t anemic like most 12 volt fans on the market. It has 10 blades and on high speed it moves 900 cubic feet of air per minute. That’s 10 miles per hour.

 So we can check off the Power box as exceptional.

PORTABLE FAN VS. BUILT IN VENT FAN?

Fan-Tastic Vent is best known for their ceiling vent fans that fit into a standard 14” X 14” vent opening. The specifications for air flow and amperage use are about the same as the Endless Breeze, but the ceiling fans come in several models to include remote control, rain sensor to close the vent, and variable speed controls.

I installed a Fan-Tastic Vent in our 2006 Niagara.

However, it wasn’t really for cooling purposes. It helped prevent condensation when we took a shower, which was located in a stall, not a separate room. Also, because the van direction can be changed, we used it as an exhaust fan for those infrequent times we cooked inside. For cooling purposes, a portable box fan, such as the Endless Breeze works better. Let’s discuss how a fan cools you off.

First of all, a fan does not cool the air. If there is a large temperature differential between the outside and inside air, a fan can draw in cooler outside air and push out hotter interior air – but this is rarely the case.

So how does a fan cool you off?

Two ways.

#1 Our bodies lose heat to the air by convection. If the air temperature is 90 degrees and our body temperature is 98.6 degrees, our body will push out heat. However, this convection creates a mini-climate next to our skin. A fan displaces this convection heat away from your body and you feel cooler.

#2 When it is hot our body perspires and as our sweat evaporates we lose heat. Without a breeze, our body creates a condition of 100% humidity on our skin. By using a fan, this hot humid air next to our skin is replaced by cooler drier air and enhances the evaporation – think wind chill.

When we bought our current camper, which was much larger than our two previous tent trailers, I didn’t even contemplate ceiling vent fans. We had a separate bathroom with its own vent, and even though we rarely cook inside our stove has an exhaust vent. Our Endless Breeze fan is all we need for those warm days and nights. However, I am a minority. The Fan-Tastic Vents are very popular.

For really hot days – think 114F and no access to the grid to run an air conditioner – we use an evaporative cooler as I wrote about last year.

Update (16Dec2023): The Endless Breeze fan hasn’t been available for quite a few years. Ours is still working great. I did try a couple highly rated fans from Amazon, but they sucked compared to the Endless Breeze and I returned them. I have no other recommendations.