Bathroom Insulation and Ventilation
Choosing The Best Exhaust Fan
Choose the quietest, most energy-efficient fan that will accomplish what you need. There are a ton of quality brands like Nutone, Panasonic, Ventech, and Broan.
Most fan labels have Home Ventilating Institute (HVI) ratings so you can compare noise and energy efficiency.
When looking at the fans consider how much noise they make. Bathroom exhaust fans measure noise in sones. Many bathroom fans come as a 4 to 6 sone fan. Instead, look for a fan that is close to or at a 1.5 sone rating, which is a quiet fan.
Tip: choose a fan with a ball bearing motor for quality and longevity.
Determining Your Rooms Cubic Feet Per Minute [CFM’s]
Before purchasing your fan, you need to make sure it can handle your bathroom needs. That means you matching the fan CFMs to the size of your bathroom. To do this you need to determine the Cubic Feet Per Minute [CFM] of the room and buy a fan to match that.
Determining the minimum CFM of your bathroom is easy, simply multiply the rooms width x Length x height x 0.13.
Example: [W x L x H x 0.13 – minimum CFM.]
