The Importance of Bathroom Fans

You may not realize it, but your bathroom exhaust fans play an important role in maintaining good air quality in your home. If they don’t work properly, are undersized or installed incorrectly, your exhaust fans won’t be effective at removing bathroom odors or:

• Keeping excess humidity in check. Too much moisture in the air encourages mold and mildew growth, and can cause paint and drywall deterioration, or wood trim and structural component decay. Additionally, if your air conditioner is overwhelmed by high humidity, you’ll notice a decline in its efficiency and an increase in your cooling costs.
• Removing cleaning product fumes. Many of the cleaning products formulated to kill bathroom germs can add toxic chemical compounds to your air supply. A well-functioning exhaust fan is vital to rid your home of these hazardous fumes and preserve your air quality.

How to Ensure Good Bathroom Ventilation

Whether you already have fans in your bathrooms or you plan to have them installed, here’s how to make sure they’re effective:

• Verify proper capacity. A bathroom should have one or more exhaust fans capable of moving sufficient cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air. As a guideline, the capacity for an average-sized bathroom is one CFM per square foot. Bathrooms 100 square feet and larger need an extra 50 CFM per shower, tub or toilet, and 100 CFM for a jetted tub.

• Vent directly outdoors. Fans shouldn’t exhaust humid air into the attic or other unfinished spaces to avoid causing mold growth/structural deterioration in hidden areas.
• Check for efficient operation. Fans should be installed over the tub or shower, and the bathroom door should have half-inch clearance on the bottom for adequate replacement air intake.
• Make fan use convenient. If you don’t run your fans for the recommended 20 minutes after every bathroom use, invest in a model with a start-up sensor and shut-off timer, or an automatic control that activates/shuts off the fan based on the bathroom humidity levels.

To learn more about the importance of having bathroom exhaust fans in your Middletown home, contact us today at C.R. Wolfe Heating & Air Conditioning.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Middletown, New York about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about bathroom fans and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 845-367-4482.

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