Daily bathroom activities such as bathing and showering can add a considerable amount of humidity to your home’s air supply. Without sufficient bathroom ventilation, that extra airborne moisture can wreak havoc in your home. It can promote mold and mildew growth, make the air feel too sticky and warm, put undue strain on the HVAC equipment and increase its energy consumption. Following these ventilation tips can help you prevent these problems.
Choose Ventilation Fans With Enough Capacity
To rid the average-size bathroom of excess moisture, make sure you have one CFM of fan capacity per square foot of space. Bathrooms over 100 square feet in size need an additional 50 CFM for each toilet, bathtub or shower, and an extra 100 CFM for a jetted bathtub. After figuring out the right capacity, you can choose a single, powerful fan or use multiple smaller units.
Duct Bathroom Fans Correctly
Bathroom fans ducts shouldn’t run up into the attic or between the ceiling joists, since that just sends moist air into unfinished areas where structural decay and
mold growth can take place unnoticed. For proper ventilation, fans should always be ducted directly outside so humidity isn’t retained indoors.
Choose Proper Fan Locations
When you install a fan, locate it in the ceiling above a fixture such as the bathtub or shower enclosure. Separate toilet areas need their own dedicated unit. Make sure fans are placed a distance from the HVAC air vent, and undercut the bathroom door so replacement air is easily pulled in from outside.
Make Fan Use Convenient
For effective ventilation, the fan needs to run for at least 15 minutes after each bathroom use, and you can choose models with features that make this easy. Look for fans with built-in sensors that start them up when the door opens and timers that shut them off automatically. You can even choose a unit with a humidity sensor so it runs whenever the air contains enough moisture.
For more advice about bathroom ventilation or help solving other comfort issues in your Eastern North Carolina home, contact us today at Jackson & Sons.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Eastern North Carolina (including Wayne, Johnston, Greene, Lenoir, Pitt and Duplin Counties) about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).
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