Extractor fans in bathrooms and showers

[Brian]

I'm fitting a small en-suite in my bedroom. It's going to be a quite small 'thin' room and will just have space at one end for a shower cubicle and a toilet at the other, entrance will be between these 2 items with a very small sink in there also.

As there's no window I was going to put an extractor fan on the external wall, which is the wall where the toilet will be fitted, however my builder is suggesting a shower fan above the shower also. The simplest thing would be to fit the shower against the external wall and put the fan there but there's a gas meter on that wall which I'm going to box in with a small cupboard. There's room to fit the loo next to it but the shower can't go there.

Does anyone know what the building regs are regarding shower cubicles in rooms with no windows? The builder seems to think a shower fan is required but I'm wondering if one wall mounted fan above the loo will be enough to clear WC odours and moisture/condensation produced from the shower.

Are extractor fans quiet nowadays? I was going to wire it to the light switch and have it set so it would run several minutes after the light was turned off (is that also building regs?) but as it's in a bedroom I don't want it to wake up other people in the room when the loo is used. My friend fitted a 'humid-stat' in his en-suite extractor fan and said it kept going off during the night and waking them up, he had to take it out eventually!

Brian

[Owain]

You will have the problem that whichever end you put the fan, the airflow will be sucked from the room door to the fan, with the other end of the room being more or less dead air that will not circulate.

For hygiene, I would rather have shower vapour sucked across the room to a fan above the WC, than have aerosolised shit from the WC wafted over toothbrushes at the washbasin.

If you put a vent grill near the shower and have a snugly fitting door, with the fan at the other end over the WC, there will be a current of air right across the room.

You don't need a fan over the shower cubicle itself, it's the room which must be ventilated. I think TLC website has a fan size calculator.

Fans are quieter than a flush, but if you have a loft above the bedroom (or even just a void above the en-suite) you can use an in-duct fan mounted on vibration-dampening supports.

Owain

[Lobster]

So-called shower fans are typically located in the roof space, connected to a grill above the shower and another in an outside wall; ie the motor is not in the room per se. I fitted ours using big rubber pads between the fitting bracket and a roof rafter; there's no more than a slight hum audible in the bathroom. Wouldn't want it any quieter so I know it's working!

David

[Lobster]

Eew - as someone who not long ago fitted a fan in the shower cubicle, and who has a washbasin in line with the loo - thank you so much for that. I'll think of you as I clean my teeth tonight (and maybe I'll keep my toothbrush in the cupboard)

David

[ren]

So that's why my teeth are going brown!

Steve

[Philip Stokes]

In message , Brian writes

Sounds exactly like the en-suite in my bedroom. I have a 100mm humidistat/timer fan on the external wall above the toilet, and a small vent in the back wall of the shower cubicle, up top and directly opposite the fan.

The fan is wired to come on with the light and go off 20 minutes after the light is switched off, or independently trigger on the humidistat. Some experimenting is necessary with the humidistat adjustment to get the best setting, but the reason I wanted the humidistat was that the timer delay isn't always enough by itself to clear the moisture after a shower, and the humidistat will keep the fan running until its gone.

It actually works very well. Instances of the fan triggering on the humidistat when not showering are actually quite rare (once you get the setting right, as mentioned above) and I've recently replaced a Manrose fan that lasted about 5 years until the bearings started clattering, with a Vent-Axia Silhouette, which is impressively quiet.

Phil

[John Rumm]

It kind of conjures up this image of a small white sphincter with a little arrow on it... ;-)

[Tom]

Try :

: : this helps Regards Tom