Do humidity extractor fans work in the bathroom?

tm9

Hi, just refitting bathroom and plumber has recommended humidistat extractor fan so that it only comes on when the shower over the bath is being used. There seems to be differing views as to whether these work ok and we would really appreciate advice from anybody who has one of these fans - does it work ok? Thanks

muckybutt

I used to fit them as standard in council bathroom refits, never had any come back from them and they helped a lot with condensation problems.

Ideally you want it switched via the light so it comes on when the light comes on as well, it should have its own live feed that will then keep the fan on via timer or humidistat.

What you will find is the fan will often start up of its own accord even when you havent been in the shower or run any hot water in the bathroom, that is perfectly normal operation.

tm9

Many thanks the info. Ideally we want the fan to only come on when the shower is used rather than when the light comes on but a few people on the web have suggested that they do no detect the humidity very well and sometimes do not come on when expected? The other option for us is just to fit a fan with a pull cord that we can turn on and off.

muckybutt

As for the humidity detection, I suppose quality of the fitting itself comes into play, we used to use Xpelair Premier LVCF20T not cheap but very reliable, the humidistat was also user tweakable so you could adjust when it came on.

Not cheap as I remember but quality gear never is !

gmgmgm

We had a fancy humidistat one. Eventually we just replaced it with a pull-cord. It's still wired to the light-switch, but we want to turn it off, we can use the pull-cord.

Works perfectly for us, but I don't think it would work for council/rental property.

tm9

gmgmgm wrote: »

We had a fancy humidistat one. Eventually we just replaced it with a pull-cord. It's still wired to the light-switch, but we want to turn it off, we can use the pull-cord.

Works perfectly for us, but I don't think it would work for council/rental property.

Thanks for the info. Did the humidity sensor work ok? We don't need this for rental or council properties, it is just for our own house but we not sure whether to have just an on off pull cord as worried the humidistat might not work very well. Thanks

macman

They work perfectly well. After a year or so you can get a build up of fluff and moisture on the sensor, but if this is kept clean you should have no problems.
They sometimes can trigger if the outside air is very damp and blowing in through the vent.

phill99

Humidistat fans are a good invention. In shower rooms or bath rooms that have a window, an extractor fan wired to the light is pointless because if you have a shower in the day and don't put the light on, the extractor doesn't come on.

A humidistat extractor works when a certain amount of moisture is detected in the atmosphere. The key is putting them on the correct setting, which is variable.

shopbot

Are they normally fitted to a window, wall or ceiling?

WestonDave

We've not had any problems with 2 good quality ones in successive houses. You do as stated need to clear the filter out of fluff etc every so often and the odd thundery day can trigger them off due to outside humidity but they are far better than getting up in the night for the loo, spending slightly too long with the light on and then lying in bed listening to the fan running for 5 minutes. The other point is that most people don't want a fan big enough and powerful enough to extract all the moist air quickly, so having one on a light and timer for 5 minutes after you finish in the bathroom isn't going to result in a dry bathroom, but if you turn it up to 20 minutes its on for a long time after you've just had a shave etc in the winter!

Can be fitted to wall, window or ceiling I would imagine - we've had one through the wall (current one) and the last house we had one on the ceiling venting up through the top of the old soil stack (the lower half of which was capped off) which ran through the bathroom and out through the roof - saved taking it out and resealing the roof!

cyclonebri1

You will want to switch it on when the bog has been "heavily" used.

Go for a excuse the pun, "bog standard" fan with a run on timer.

Get as large a unit as installation allows, 4" units have limited capacity.

Also I find that remote mounted fan units both work better and are quieter.