Lack of good ventilation in the bathroom can make what should be one of the most comfortable rooms in your home downright unpleasant.
Without good bathroom ventilation, you may be experiencing the following conditions:
- bad odors
- stale air
- uncomfortably high humidity
- mold and mildew
- high levels of chemical pollution (volatile organic compounds) from bathroom cleaners
The good news is that bathroom ventilation is relatively inexpensive, and usually easy to install. Read on and maybe you’ll be convinced bathroom ventilation is a worthwhile investment.
Benefits of Bathroom Ventilation
Ventilation fans exhausted to the outdoors will deliver these benefits:
- Eliminate bad odors originating in the bathroom.
- Remove stale air.
- Reduce high humidity that causes a too-warm feeling, as well as mold, mildew, and fungus.
- Reduce high levels of volatile organic compounds that can cause or aggravate breathing issues.
Bathroom exhaust ventilation can also reduce high humidity that may be affecting your entire house.
Choosing Ventilation Systems
When you’re shopping for a bathroom exhaust ventilation system, you should keep two factors in mind: size and noise level. The fan should be powerful enough to move a certain volume of air out of the bathroom, or else it won’t be effective or efficient. Measure volume by multiplying height by width by length, then dividing by 5, which will provide the volume of air in cubic feet per minute (cfm) that you need to move.
Noise level is measured in sones. A sone of 4 is loud; a sone of 1 is quiet. Quieter systems tend to cost more.
Installing Bathroom Exhaust Ventilation
There is no point in installing exhaust ventilation if it is not vented to the outdoors. You do not want a system that delivers moist air to the attic or into the ceiling joists where it can cause mold or wood rot.
Installing or replacing an old ventilation system is a job best left for an HVAC professional, since you’ll need a vent that goes through your roof.
For more on bathroom ventilation, contact Energy 1 Heating and Air Conditioning. We serve Lorain, including Elyria and Oberlin.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Lorain, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 440-201-2959.
Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning
1 (440) 246-5440
Serving the Lorain, OH Area