Advice regards fitting an extractor fan in our bathroom.

BertieUK

We live in a 1954 three-bed bungalow and wish to fit an extractor fan in the bathroom. The bathroom is 8ft square with the ceiling almost 8ft. We have a bath, shower, toilet and wash basin fitted.

The lighting (4) is all the spot types running off individual 12v transformers. 50w.

My question is what type of extractor fan would be the best to fit.

Regards

Bob

fluffpot

A vent through the wall one with a run on timer (ie so after you switch off the lights it runs on for 15 mins min)
A main voltage one should be fine, but your electrician can advise

phill99

I don't agree with having it come on with the lights. The reason being (assuming the bathroom has a window) is that when people shower/bath during the day, the extractor won't come on, thereby not extracting the moisture as you want it to.

You would be better with an independently switched one with an over run timer and you just need to get in the habit of switching it on whenever you have a bath or shower.

CaptainKidd

Somehthing like an Xpelair LV100H as its (extra) low voltage and has a humidistat so instead of wiring it to come on with the light just wire it with its own supply, set the humidistat to the required level so that it only comes on when it gets to steamy/humid and then goes off again when its cleared. The expelair one ive given in just an example and there are many like that from other makers.

BertieUK

fluffpot - phill99 & CaptainKidd Many thanks for your inputs.

I take all your points with great interest and thanks.

I have noted that some of the extractors on the market are of various sizes and speeds, which enables steamy / humid conditions to be cleared faster.

Would I be better fitting say a 6" rather than the more common 4" ? or would you suggest fitting the one with the greatest extraction speed ?

An independent supply I seem to favour, because we have two windows in the room and do not require lighting during the daytime. The humidistat seems to be the perfect suggestion.

We have a very large loft area and one friend suggest putting the motor there, but that would make it difficult to vent to the outside world.

Again many thanks to you all for your comments.

regards

Bob

Spiritseeker

Sorry to slightly hi-jack the thread, but I have a similar query.

My bathroom has spots also, and unfortunately was wired by a cowboy builder who took lots of money and left me in a hole (let's not go into that story!). The bathroom was 'made good' by a builder who finished the job, and all seemed fine.

However, I did start experiencing major condensation - and therefore mildew - problems when my 2 lodgers moved in and the shower was getting a whole lot more use. I tried to replace the standard fan with a much better quality fan with a humidistat and timer. the extra neutral wire that was required was taken from an outside power source up the wall. That's when I found out the bathroom light switch had been wired the wrong way round (every other potential problem has been eliminated - I am not in a position to afford to tear into the bathroom ceiling and it's inaccessible from above as there's no loft above it). it looks like the pull cord has been wired with the neutral/live the wrong way around. So the humidistat and timer do not work at all.

To avoid the expense of cutting into the ceiling and replastering (not just the expense, but with 2 paying lodgers I just can't make the bathroom out of bounds for a few days to do this), I was wondering if there is a fan out there that simply activates with the humidistat function? The wire coming in from an external source has both a live and a neutral. The existing fan size (and therefore hole) is 6 inches.

Do these fans exist? or do they simply have to be connected to a pull cord too, in which case it won't work for my situation.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

CaptainKidd

BertieUK wrote: »

We have a very large loft area and one friend suggest putting the motor there, but that would make it difficult to vent to the outside world.

What do you mean when you say this? You can fit the fan to the ceiling if you wanted but then you would need to vent it somehwere else and not just into the loft, for example pipe work onto a roof tile vent.

A 4" vent is suitable for you size of bathroom, the size of fan ive reccomended would be ideal and even although its only 12v its still works well and is also very quite when on.

BuntyB

Hi, Just fitted a 4" standard `humidity` fan in my own bathroom. Its mains wired into the lighting circuit and comes on when the humidity reaches a certain level then runs `on` after the humidity has dropped before switching itself off. Both the humidity and `run on` settings can be individually set to your own requirements, it took a few days of tweeking to get the settings right for our usage. In my previous house we had a normal switch on switch off fan but it often got turned off long before the steam had cleared. the new Humidity fan is doing a brilliant job and I cant fault it. Its from B & Q and was £39. I had problems with excess moisture settling on surfaces after showering etc and this has sorted it out

macman

Look at the Airflow Icon range with modular plug-ins; humidistats, switched, timed etc.

BertieUK

Thank you everyone. Your comments have been noted.

The comment that was made re one friend suggest putting the motor there was that he has fitted his vent into the ceiling, and had the tubing running from there to the motor and venting into the loft area. I have seen these advertised on the internet. Not ideal I would have thought.

regards

Bob

jamesperrett

There's nothing wrong with putting an inline fan in the loft but you need to run ducting from the outlet to the outside world. Venting into the loft isn't good.

James.