Design Stories: Exploring Everyday ThingsMain MenuViking Roamer RM-315 RadioBlackberry Bold 9000CGE KE 860 Electric KettleGeneral Electric’s 1966 Mixer Gift SetTorcan 886P Desk FanBaby Champ 5110 RadioCGE Hair DryerNorthern Telecom DisplayphoneAmin Asgari, Jason Taylor, Jocelyn ZinSamson Dominion Ten-Ten HairsetterPedro Amaral, Markiyan Palisa, Maria PerriShayna Adivib7dacecf2514976340c9fee58413be50a837e99dMatteo De Sanctis2c7f0439bc7dbbce394cd0e83390508c4316e0f9Dylan Fleuelling724bd216cf74182c9eb4bf85f4606a9f90300f43Sanyukta Ghag97f13f26df5104f991a5c78bb41d5501520945a0Ipun Kandola03d267ee57ad9e450b2bdf7607c2a096f9e5b707Minjoo Kim49e4f45a5b4fbe8b16e096b51064bd70ed6cdfc2Jessica Lo7d943c8a531bf17a92d4ce73f45508d35571048bSam Loiselleb0bb424f55ffc54d35c4c41f04a27d6f1914a83aLuciana Loucel Morales3d71928b274e19c31fb29bde4fc89cfab59747ebShriya Mujumdar401f34f51ff8386c5fd4b09a5def6038ca96da55Binh Nguyen77159e04ccf5c117d1aafcf7d72182271cfe4379Madeleine North1716571a300e1e377a3f5a2800d66ac1abe953e4Hannah Palmier Blizzardb85a64743cf09ec2b4e0c037a864f93027666ab3John Emmanuel Sanchez33ea7858c1ccddd4c50514af2ce70aadfb85d654Veronika Straka4da98006d10b69194fdb4d8ffa5ee51bb82dc8e6Jersey Louise Stuart51967f8e0c22fbade42e8a48d7cf0a44ab625751Michelle Tieu6e71ec02b710e08ac76005bc08f9bbf8e71f73c6Shane Toyama9b06201b77bf32b849e009b2cbd92a7602c6bc69Kesha Upadhyay31af8fb220a8946dc1166ecfdd2597f5dd8d003cJillian Warneraab1e08d9b244e0aed9e36e52219fd40328c6753Amavi Weerakoon806c26de54e888d00f80819bd6ef5040b78ac4c6Jan Hadlawusers/jhadlaw1e125e7557d6dc997197c765699eef9bff624103
TF Nouvelle Revue - July 8, 1969
1media/La_Nouvelle_Revue_07081969_thumb.png2025-03-18T23:18:48-04:00Melanie Chang1f514d4c7dec2021a36745d3c040a1d0cac65edf1355Torcan fan ads in the July 8, 1969 issue of the Nouvelle Revue.plain2025-03-29T12:30:33-04:00Nouvelle Revue. 1969. [Torcan fan ads]. July 8, 1969. Newspaper advertisement. Google Books. https://books.google.ca/books?id=DNQwAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA25&dq=#v.Melanie Chang1f514d4c7dec2021a36745d3c040a1d0cac65edf
1media/Gray_Bg.png2025-03-14T13:42:20-04:00Evolution of Fan and Electrical Safety65plain2025-03-27T13:53:56-04:001882 - 1969While cooling systems evolved, so did fan and electrical safety. The initial 1882 electric tabletop fan by Schuyler Wheeler was extremely expensive and required a significant amount of electricity to run, yet was viewed as extraordinary due to its novelty at the time. In Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything, Salvatore Basile also describes Wheeler’s invention as “frightening . . . from a personal-safety standpoint, with exposed motor works, two metal blades that revolved at 2,000 rpm . . . and no safety grille whatsoever.” The lack of safety requirements is evident in Wheeler’s design choices.
The Canadian Engineering Standards Association (CESA), which is known today as the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), emerged in 1919 to improve safety across various rapidly developing areas. In 1927, CESA published the Canadian Electrical Code, Part I, Safety Standard for Electrical Installations, reflecting the greater need for increased electrical safety at the time. In 1959, CSA-C22.2 No. 113, Fans and ventilators was released under Part II of the Canadian Electrical Code. Guidelines for desk fans, along with several other kinds of fans, were outlined within this document. We speculate that it may have contained requirements regarding power and wiring for desk fans.
Safety of Torcan Fans
Taking a closer look at Torcan fans, safety certainly appears to be a consideration. Unlike the first tabletop fan, the motor is enveloped in casing and the fan blades are encompassed by a cage. Another Torcan fan model, as advertised in a 1958 issue of Ottawa Citizen, completely lacks a safety cage and instead has rubber blades. These fans are described as “safer to operate”, which seems to imply that previous Torcan fans could improve in terms of safety. This rubber-bladed fan is also stated to be CSA approved. Returning to the Torcan 886P, despite it having metal fan blades, the openness of the steel cage is similar to American fans from around 30 years prior. This suggests that safety guidelines remained lenient at the time of the Torcan 886P’s production. Looking at fans promoted in the 1960s, a Torcan box fan in a 1960 issue of the Ottawa Citizen is advertised as “childproof” and appears to have a mesh-like cage covering the fan blades. In a 1969 issue of Quebec’s newspaper the Nouvelle Revue, the cages of the pictured 8” and 10” Torcan fans appear just as open as that of the Torcan 886P. Notably, the 8” fan is described as “pliable” in French, which translates to “foldable” in English. Perhaps this feature influenced the design of this more modern fan cage.
