In 1999, the Big Ass Fan Company was born. Kind of. Then called the HVLS Fan Co. (that’s High Volume, Low Speed—catchy, right?), we first made our mark selling massive ceiling fans that spun slowly but moved astounding amounts of air. The fans kept large spaces that lacked air conditioning, such as factories and dairy barns, feeling cool and comfortable. Only a few years later, we officially changed our name after customers kept calling and asking if we made “those big-ass fans.” And soon enough, plenty of other customers wanted in. When churches wanted to install fans to keep congregations comfortable, we developed the first silent fan motor to meet their needs.
In 2012, we unveiled a residential fan that blew away ENERGY STAR® ratings and won design and technology awards worldwide. In 2014, we had the bright idea to create an LED fixture so tough you can drive a truck over it, launching a division appropriately called Big Ass Light™.
Soon we automated personal comfort by adding SenseME® technology to our residential fans. In 2016, we launched our Haiku Home division to transform the home through cutting-edge, energy-efficient technology and iconic design.
And we’ve backed everything with serious research, intensive engineering, and an almost obsessive drive to innovate and improve.
Our Haiku® Home residential division launches, confirming the company's position as an industry leader in connected home technology. Products include fans, automated lights, and efficient home heating and cooling systems.
We expand our international reach into Canada by opening an office outside Toronto. The path to Big Ass domination now includes 800 employees in locations including Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Canada.
The addition of SenseME® technology to Haiku makes it the world's smartest fan and connects it with other smart home products including the Nest Learning Thermostat™. Also, Big Ass Light debuts with industrial-strength LED light fixtures for all applications.
We hire our 300th employee and open a new headquarters and another manufacturing facility in Lexington. This becomes the home of the Haiku, which would go on to become the world's most awarded residential ceiling fan.
Our Haiku residential fan debuts. Hand-balanced, wobble-free, guaranteed silent and undeniably gorgeous, it shoots to the top of ENERGY STAR® efficiency rankings. Popular Science recognizes it as the "World's Quietest Fan."
In a testament to our commitment to innovative applications, MASS Design Group installs Big Ass Fans in a new Rwandan health clinic. The seven fans circulate the clinic's air over UV lights, killing airborne pathogens. Take that, germs.
We open the world's only R&D lab built specifically for testing big fans. The building is even LEED® Gold, showing we walk the walk and talk the talk on efficiency.
Element, the first fan designed for quiet, air-conditioned spaces like churches and auditoriums, makes its debut. Our path to worldwide domination begins as we say g'day to our first international office in Brisbane, Australia.
Doubling in size in less than two years, we hire our 100th employee. Our growth gets noticed: Inc. names us to its inaugural Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States. We've been on the list ever since.
We hire our 50th employee and move into a new 98,000-sq-ft headquarters. The facility houses everything from manufacturing and customer service to sales and marketing, as well as an assortment of pool and shuffleboard tables.
The name change to Big Ass Fans is official! We paint a mural of Fanny over an existing liquor ad on our new headquarters. This wholesome choice pisses off a city council member but attracts plenty of amused sightseers.
With products installed in barns, industrial facilities, warehouses and many more spaces, we celebrate the sale of our 1,000th fan. This is a Big Ass deal—and, even better, it's just the beginning. Hundreds of thousands more will follow.
Customers refer to the large fans as "big-ass fans," and Big Ass executives spend several hours convincing a donkey dubbed Fanny to strike a now-famous pose. Postmasters in seven states refuse to deliver the resulting postcard.
The HVLS Fan Company—what will become Big Ass Fans—is born in Lexington, KY. The big fans are perfect for dairy barns, but they're not officially Big Ass (yet). We record our first sale on May 1 and sell 112 fans by the end of the year.
It takes a certain type of person to work at a place called Big Ass Solutions®—which is why our employees are our best asset (so to speak). Our people are smart, curious, hardworking, dedicated and always open to learning new things. Whether they’re building fans, selling lights, designing the tech of the future or crunching mountains of numbers, we wouldn’t go far without each and every member of our growing, worldwide team.
We’re a lot more than just manufacturing, too. With more than 75 degreed engineers on staff, we’re constantly pushing the boundaries of what our products can do. Our sales team includes more than 50 LEED®-accredited professionals who help make projects as green as humanly possible. What we’re saying is we know what we’re doing.
Want in? Learn more about everything from International Sales to IT (and check out our current job openings) on our careers page.
Our…ahem…provocative name originated with our original product: massive overhead fans that brought comfort and energy savings to large industrial and agricultural buildings. Today, though, Big Ass Solutions® is much more than industrial—and much more than Big Ass Fans®. We make fans, lights, controls and innovative solutions for everywhere from the largest workplaces to your bedroom.
Big Ass® means using quality, form and function to solve problems in the built environment. How do we do that? We have more than 75 degreed engineers and the world’s only R&D facility (which is LEED® Gold, no less) dedicated to testing air movement on a grand scale. We speak to our customers directly to understand and solve their problems. But mostly it comes from an insatiable drive to improve, engineer, design, test, re-engineer, re-design and re-test until we get it just right—and then start all over again. We don’t do things half-ass; we always go Big Ass®. And that’s precisely why there’s No Equal®.
We love working directly with our customers. We’ve done it since the beginning. Those conversations let us learn about our customers’ problems (so we can figure out new, better ways to solve them), give us a direct channel to hear their feedback and help us build relationships that last for years.
Why buy directly from the manufacturer? Why would you ever do anything else? Since we’re the ones who design, test, build and ship our products, we know them inside and out. That means we can find the absolute best products for your home, help you install them the right way, and take care of you (and them) for years to come.
We make things here—and we make them the right way. That’s why most of our operations (engineering, design, manufacturing, sales, service) are located within a stone’s throw of each other in Lexington, Kentucky. Things just work better when the people making our products can tell the people designing them what could be better, different and streamlined to make our whole operation run more efficiently.
Like most companies, we want to make sure our customers are happy. Unlike most companies, we reach out to every one of our customers to see how things are going.
Yep. Every single customer. We’ve got a whole team devoted to it.
Our Customer Advocates are a separate, independent wing of Big Ass Solutions®—they’re paid by the company, but they work for our customers. Not only do they reach out to everyone who buys a product, they also handle any issues that come up in the process and serve as the voice of the customer as we develop and improve our products. They love feedback — good or bad but mostly the bad, because that's the only way we improve. And they take pride showing our customers that we really do want to hear from them—so much that we’ll be the ones to reach out first.
It’s just one more way we keep the Big Ass® relationship going. Remember, we’re in this for the long haul.