We called in someone to quote for fitting an extractor fan, he has suggested a low voltage 4" fan, the bathroom is quite small and apparently a 4" fan should be sufficient. We can choose the fan, and I like this one:
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do you think of that fan?
Has anyone got this kind of fan fitted?
He has told us that it will cost between 180-200, this includes drilling the hole and fitting the fan, the bathroom is upstairs and the walls are solid he will also have to go in the loft to do some wiring.
We had that exact fan fitted when we re-did the bathroom in our old house last year - can't fault it, but with it having the humidistat it can be prone to switching on when you're not using anything generating steam simply due to the relative humidity in the air.
You can tweak the sensitivity easily enough (it's the lower of two adjusters inside IIRC, the top one is the timer once it activates) but you're probably better off leaving it a little "over-sensitive" than under-sensitive to the point where it doesn't switch on when you need it to :-}
To remove the cover to get to the adjusters, there are two simple "push with a screwdriver" points, one either side.
To power it, you get something that looks like a bell transformer in the box - 240V cable goes in, 12V cable goes out to the fan.
It's not a "cheap" fan to start with, and he'd probably be charging the same for labour either way* - I went with the low voltage solution as you can spray water directly at it without risk of killing yourself (ideal for fitting in the immediate vicinity of a shower like ours was).
it just occurred to me that the cost is JUST for the labour, not including the fan - ok, it's looking a little more expensive now :-}
With having the humidistat, it's essentially a "fit and forget" item, whereas another type might need him to install a switch to control it situated somewhere "safe" - both probably (technically) need Part P authorisation, but there's a lot less chance of killing yourself with the low voltage variant :-}
Haven't checked the flow rate vs number of air changes, but I would certainly recommend going with Xpelair (as link) or VentAxia. IIRC the last Xpelair unit I bought had a 5 year swap out guarantee. Try getting that product confidence from the stuff they sell in the sheds! Worth spending the extra, particularly if you don't feel confident replacing them regularly in future.
I'm not sure that low voltage is really necessary unless there are children who are likely to shower together and spray water everywhere. Just how much likelihood is there of water coming in contact with the power ?
The one function that you are missing is the ability to switch the fan on to expel smells. Look for a fan that has a humidistat and a pull cord to switch the timer on. The one I have has the initials RDL on it.
What is the purpose of the timer? I thought the fan switches on when it get's humid and goes off once humidity has returned to normal.
Thank you for all of that very useful information, he quoted 180-200 for supplying a fan too but he said the fan he supplies is not the best quality. A cheap fan in his book is one around 60-70 pounds.
The fan will be in close vicinity to the shower which is probably why he suggested a low voltage one.
To be honest, it's a circuit board mounted resistor type of thing, and I just turned it all the way down to the highest sensitivity (anti- clockwise) then up to about a third of the total travel of the resistor.
The timer just tells it to run for a set length of time once triggered
- you can set it to pretty much anything you like afaik so as soon as the humidity drops it can stop again, or "run on" for a while.
Ours was mounted above the centre of the bath, so was in close proximity to the shower as well.
What about a fan with a heat exchanger in it? Such a fan would draw in (dry) air at the same time as sending it out but recovers 80% of the heat of the outgoing air, using it to heat the incoming air.
in work was being replaced, and had heat recovery units as part of the=20 design.
I happened to ask what the guy heading up the build what his thoughts=20 were on them, and he said for a large industrial premises they might=20 have some value, but not for a domestic environment.
His reasoning for this was the additional cost of the unit and ongoing=20 maintenance, versus a dirt cheap fan you could bin and replace.
In his words, the ~=A3150 you're saving up front buys a whole lot of=20 electricity to replace the "wasted" heat from a bog-standard fan.
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