Ordinary tasks like showering, bathing and shaving can put home-damaging humidity into the air in your Crystal and Twin Cities home. There’s good news though—a simple bathroom ventilation fan can protect you from warped wood, mold growth, broken drywall and other trouble connected with a humid bathroom.
Even if you have ventilation fans in your bathrooms, do you know if they’re the right size? Are they as soft and energy efficient as they could be? GV Heating & Air is here to answer your questions.
Today’s bathroom ventilation fans are small and smooth and they work more quietly and efficiently than ever before. You’ll find a large range of options, from classic fans that will get the job done to fans with fitted heat lamps, motion sensors and heat-exchanger ventilation that helps prevent warmed air from getting out through your ventilation. While you have a lot of bells and whistles to pick from, the most imperative aspect of your fan is whether or not it’s full-sized enough to do its job.
Graded by the cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air they move, a bathroom ventilation fan should be able to swap out the air in a bathroom at least eight times an hour. With a standard 8-foot ceiling, your ventilation fan should have a CFM rating almost as high as the number of square feet in your bathroom. So, if your bathroom is 5 feet by 8 feet, a CFM rating of 40 would be satisfactory.
If you have a larger ceiling, the equation gets a little more difficult. You’ll want to multiply the width of the room by its height and length, divide it by 60 and multiply by 8. Or, to keep it simple, you can use HGTV’s tips for bathrooms larger than 100 square feet – verify your CFM requirements by adding 50 CFM for every toilet; 50 CFM for each shower, bath and combo; and 100 CFM for each whirlpool.
If you’re unsure if your bathroom ventilation fan is the correct size, or you know it’s come to the point for a new one, give the experts at GV Heating & Air at call at 763-535-2000. We’re here to help you guarantee you have a ventilation fan that will drive hard to protect your home and keep it cozy.