I've had this fan up for over two years, and it's still really awesome. I had a Hampton Bay (a Home Depot brand) ceiling fan before this one, but the pull chain mechanism stopped working after two years; it required 10–20 pulls to turn the fan off, and forget about high speed—it was medium or low only (the fan's choice) each time. Before I settled on this Hunter fan, I looked at 43 other models: 2 Craftmade, 8 Emerson, 2 Hardware House, 18 other Hunter, 6 Litex, 2 Minka-Aire, 3 Monte Carlo, and 2 Westinghouse; as well as a bunch of Hampton Bay and Harbor Breeze (Lowe's brand) fans. I compared the fans' diameters, heights from the ceiling, airflow/cubic feet per minute, number of blades, Amazon ratings, price, and light type and remote (if applicable). Admittedly, this fan is only a 44" fan and pushes 3,157 CFM, far less air than its rivals, which pushed an average of 4,692 CFM (with an average 49" diameter blades). The only fans slower were the Hunter Low Profile III Plus (#53075), Low Profile III (#23866), and Low Profile IV (#51059). HOWEVER, that said, it's still plenty of air in my ~130 sq. ft. bedroom. And when I need a slight breeze, it delivers. Sometimes I wish it could be even lower. Incidentally, the highest CFM were the Emerson Midway (#CF955WW) at 6,085 CFM, the Emerson Sea Breeze (#CF654WW) at 6,492 CFM, and the Minka-Aire Ultra Max (#F588-SP-WH) which puts out an insane 7,077 CFM (and gets nothing but five stars on Amazon but doesn't have a light kit). This fan sits 12.4 inches from the ceiling to the bottom of the light. (The tops of the blades are 6.75" from the ceiling.) This is average for the other models I looked at: a generally-even spread from 7" all the way up to 18.31" (although some didn't have a light). The Hunter Low Profile III (#23866) and the Emerson Snugger (#CF804WW / CF805WW) were the lowest-profile, and the Hunter Astoria (#53059) and Beacon Hill (#53081) were highest. This fan won out over the others mostly because it has an included light kit with *dimmable LEDs* (on a standard Edison base, not a candelabra base) and a nice three-speed remote—I didn't want to worry about compatible light kits/remotes after the fact. It's just so convenient to have the speeds I want at the push of a button, and to be able to dim the lights. It's perfectly balanced too. Installation was easy enough—even with a ceiling medallion, which I had to carve around the top canopy and sandwich around the fan as it was being assembled and hung, which required bending the 90° metal resting hooks down a little (still at a 90° elbow but pointing 45° down toward the floor then bending up at 90° back toward the ceiling to make a V). Then I slid the fan-and-medallion onto the top canopy horizontally and secured the screws while a second man held the fan up. OK, so this fan is great . . . BUT it gets a star off because: *The instructions don't tell you to secure the fan directly to a fan-rated electrical box. This fan has a metal plate with rubber feet that rest on the ceiling, and the instructions imply you can secure the plate to the ceiling and the canopy to the plate alone. Now, I've hung ceiling fans before, and I know better. But Hunter really should have specified how to use a fan box and/or a brace for first-timers. *The balancing kit included also has poor directions. There's not really a need for a balancing kit with 99.9% of installations, I reckon, since the fan has those rubber feet. But the instructions don't explain that there is a balancing kit or what it does. There are brief instructions with the balancing kit, but they don't tell you that the balancing kit is for the light wobble, not blade wobble, etc. And they don't explain thoroughly the many places to try the clip in the balancing kit or that the weighted stickers go above the blade (not its underside). Again, I'm not a novice, but a couple more sentences would go a long way for first-time D-I-Yers. *Some of the holes for the fan blade screws were poorly drilled--too much paint or too dull a bit at the factory or something. I nearly rounded out some screws securing the fan blades. Luckily they included an extra screw, which helped; and I used another screw I had (same width and threading but longer) to widen the pilot hole first. But still, that could be disastrous for other customers. *The included LED bulbs are 800 lumens and 3,000K. This is a very blue light. The bulbs aren't very bright, and thanks to the color, when I leave my bedroom, every other room in the house looks like a red-orange hell by comparison. Another reviewer said he/she got better bulbs and fixed the problem, but I don't want to have to hunt for bulbs to fix something I just bought. *The fan includes a notice that Polywell Manufacturing (Zhongshan Co.) made the ceiling blades with medium-density fiberboard (MDF), which complies to phase 2 of § 93120 ATCM Emissions. Researching what this means, I found info that MDF uses a type of formaldehyde that's a known carcinogen for nasopharyngeal cancers, and there was an Airborne Toxic Control Measure (ATCM) to reduce it. I mean, I do kind of wish my fan didn't spray airborne cancer from China. . . . *The "Safe Exit" feature dims the lights gradually over 30 seconds and turns them off, which would be really cool when getting into bed or turning out the light when I'm done reading, etc. Except both bulbs flash their full brightness off and on three times first, which wakes me up when I'm trying to get to sleep. Why not just have the remote LED flash? The remote LED is pretty bright too, incidentally. I have two stickers over it. *The switch to reverse the fan's direction is under the glass cover. I used to like to have the fan blow air down onto me sometimes and suck cold air up from the vents (or another cooling source) and distribute it around the room at other times. I don't want to get a stool or a chair and remove the glass several times a day for this.
