My mother-in-law and I have the same problem. We each have a gas fireplace and a 50" 3 speed ceiling fan in the same room. The heat from the fireplace tends to go straight up to the ceiling. So, we want to use the ceiling fan to push it back down. The problem is that the ceiling fan spins too fast. We just want a slow rotation in order to gently push the warm air down, we don't want "wind".

So, maybe Inspector 507 or some others can advice me on how to do this. In both situations, the fan is not connected to a wall switch and is hard wired so the only way to turn the fan on is with the pull chain. I've seen variable adjustable controls that go in place of the switch if there is a wall switch, and I've seen remote controls with variable control at Lowes. The guy at Lowes claims the variable controls will not allow a slower low speed, but will only make it variable between the existing low and high speeds. Is he right about this? Bottom line question: How can I slow the fan down? I'd like to at least cut it in half, maybe even make it a third of the existing low speed.

By the way, we've tried the blower that goes in the gas fireplace and didn't like it because it was too loud.