It’s very important to have good ventilation in the bathroom. A bathroom extractor fan should not be considered a 'nice to have' luxury, but an essential piece of equipment for your home. Dampness can cause all sorts of issues if ignored in bathrooms and shower rooms.
The damp and hot air which builds up in a bathroom after you’ve had a shower or bath can lead to dampness on the walls, mould or mildew if it cannot escape from the bathroom quickly enough.
Modern building regulations often insist that a ventilation fan is fitted in a new bathroom or shower room. You will need to ensure if you have something like a fan fitted to electrical wiring then you hire the services of an electrician or another person competent to fit electrics to areas where there are water (bathrooms and kitchens).
For those living in a ground floor flat, or when they don’t have a window at all in their bathroom, having an extractor fan fitted is a definite bonus.
Types of bathroom extractor fans
Definition: A bathroom extractor fan is a ventilation appliance used to expel moisture and odours from domestic bathrooms.
There are 3 main types of bathroom extractor fans.
These types are:
- inline
- axial
- centrifugal
Inline fans
Inline fans are usually found in roof spaces and have ducting fitted around them. They may also have external and or internal grills fitted around them. Inline fans are often very powerful and quiet fans for bathrooms and kitchens. They may be found in kitchen canopies.
Axial fans
In axial fans the air which is extracted gets pulled through a parallel (the rotating blade shaft) impeller. You will often see axial fans used for most of the domestic wall fans used. These usually use an axial impeller. You will often see axial fans used in bathrooms, en-suites and cloakrooms and areas where the air duct is piped into a wall or may be fitted in a window itself.
Centrifugal fans
The air from a centrifugal fan gets extracted at a right angle. The air is then spun out again by deflecting the air and by centrifugal force. Hence the name centrifugal fan. Centrifugal fans can be very powerful as they produce more pressure and can push the air they extract along larger runs of ducting. Centrifugal fans are also considered to be very efficient. They can often be found in such products as Vent Axia.
Installation
There are a few different options when it comes to installing bathroom extractor fans. Most fans nowadays are installed on an outside wall, rather than into a window as was common in the past. Fans can also be switched on and off manually by pulling a cord. They can also be linked to a light switch so that whenever you switch on the light, the fan comes on automatically.
Fans which operate on a pull cord are generally more expensive to fit as the electrician will need access under the floor of the room above or into the loft space to run the cables to the point in the ceiling where the cord comes through. If you are buying the extractor fan yourself rather than asking your electrician to supply it, expect to pay around £25 for a fan from a large DIY store or builder’s merchants. Some fans are more powerful than others so to get the right one for your bathroom work out the cubic volume of the room.
Take into account how much air the fan can deal with.
Fitting the fan
When fitting your extractor fan in a bathroom, you have to be aware of the rules regarding installing electrical items in a bathroom. You are not allowed to position your fan too close to the sink. Naturally, the wiring has to be kept well away from water too. Unless you know exactly where your existing wiring and pipes are and have experience in fitting electrics in the home, it’s probably best to get the experts in. Seek the services of an electrician, or ideally, compare several quotes from electrical contractors.
Expect to pay around £300 for an electrician to fit your fan for you, and remember that if you are having the fan fitted by knocking a hole in the wall, you might have additional costs for plastering or decorating too.
Extractor fans and their suppliers
Some of the more popular bathroom extractor fans are as follows:
Vent-Axia PureAir Sense: On the higher end price wise, but with built in sensors for just about everything (including odours)
EnviroVent Silent 100T
Vent-Axia Silent Fan VASF100T
Manrose QF100TX5
Xpelair C4HTS
