Bathroom Exhaust Fans
Bathroom exhaust fans are an essential tool to give your home the extra TLC it needs. Although everyone is aware of the importance of keeping a bathroom clean and healthy, it’s easy to forget how important a bathroom fan is to achieve this. A bathroom ventilation fan draws air out from the room, taking with it steam, moisture and other impurities. Without one, steam and moisture linger in the bathroom, leading to mould and mildew growth. In order to avoid this, it’s important to choose a fan that suits your needs.
Lumera Living’s range of bathroom exhaust fans gives you access to a lot of options. We have exhaust fans suitable for ceiling, wall or window installation as well as 3-in-1 models, which include heating and light functions. We also stock DIY inline fan kits which are put together based on room size.
Please note that the advice on this page is general in nature. If you have any questions about your own installation please contact us.
3 Steps to Choose a Bathroom Exhaust Fan
Finding the right exhaust fan depends on getting the airflow right. A fan’s airflow capacity indicates how much air the fan will extract from your bathroom. If the capacity is too low, steam and odours will linger in the room for longer. So it’s important to get this figure right. Luckily, figuring out the amount of airflow you need is not too difficult. If you follow the steps below, choosing the right bathroom fan becomes a breeze!
Step 1: Bathroom Size
To work out how powerful your fan needs to be, you will need to know your bathroom size. More specifically, you need to know its volume. This tell you how much air your bathroom contains.
Finding the volume is fairly straightforward. All you need to do is measure the length, width and the ceiling height in metres.
Once you have the measurements, multiply them together:
Length x Width x Height = Volume
Perfect! Now you know the volume of the room in cubic metres. This tells you how much air your fan will need to extract.
Step 2: Air Changes Per Hour
Air changes per hour tells us how many times a fan extracts the full volume of a room in an hour. This is why you needed to know the volume of the room in step one.
Multiply the volume of the room by the amount of air changes you would like to achieve. This will tell you the capacity of the fan you need.
Volume x Air Changes Per Hour = Fan Capacity
How do I know how many air changes I need?
As a general guide, somewhere between 15 and 25 air changes per hour is a good target for most bathrooms. This might seem like a broad range, but there are a few factors to help work out what you need to achieve. For example, bathrooms with lots of tiles or mirrored surfaces are more likely to need a stronger fan. If you need advice, please contact us.
Step 3: A Fan that Fits
There are a few more measurements you need to think about before you make your decision. You need to make sure that the fan fits in the location where you plan to install it. So make sure you check the following dimensions:
- 1. Height/Depth of ceiling or wall cavity
- 2. Duct diameter
- 3. Hole Size & Shape
- 4. Duct Location
These things may affect your decision, but they may also indicate how much work you have to do. For example it might be hard to find a fan with the right capacity to fit the hole in your ceiling. If this is the case, you may need to have the hole patched up, or made bigger.