bathroom exhaust fan replacement


  #1  
Old 07-05-07, 07:53 PM
R
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bathroom exhaust fan replacement

Hi,

I am shopping around for a new bathroom exhaust fan to replace the one I have. The current one works okay but it is just too noisy. It's a very small fan so I think that make the fan very loud. Plus, it is connected to a 3" vent... tiny... which makes the noise even worse.

I'm not going to touch the vent, just gonna buy the quietest fan I can find.

I'm thinking of buying a Panasonic WhisperFit. It's for a 4" vent but it includes a 3" adapter which will work for me.

My question is... should I buy a powerful fan (110 cfm) or something that is adequate (80 cfm) for my small bathroom (5' x 7'). Would a 110cfm fan be noisier than a 80 cfm. Would a 110cfm be overkill for such a small bathroom? The price difference is only $10 so I dont care about the cost. Just concerned about noise and that the fan will do a good job venting.

Thanks in advance.
 
  #2  
Old 07-06-07, 03:41 AM
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Look at the SONE rating on the fans. 2. is pretty quiet, 4. not so quiet, but not much sense in getting a large fan if you are going to be choking it down. I would replace the duct also. For a 5x7 bathroom, 70-80CFM should be fine.
 
  #3  
Old 07-06-07, 08:30 AM
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Thank you Bill for your help
 
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Old 07-30-07, 08:07 PM
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After much planning, I was able to install the 80cfm Panasonic fan. The noise is dramtically less. I'm very happy about that.

However, when I compare the suction power between the new fan and my second bathroom (which still has the same noisy fan which I removed from bathroom #1), I found that the noisy fan was more pwerful.

I took a small piece of tissue and placed it near the fan grill. The noisy fan sucked it right up but the new fan was not so good... kind of weak.

Is this a good test? I want to replace the second noisy fan with the same Panasonic one but if the power is weak, I'd rather not.

I want to point out that the Panasonic fan is 50% bigger (width x length of the fan surface area / grill size... I had to cut of 4x4 inches of ceiling drywall)... so I'm wondering, although the suction power is less, perhaps the bigger fan size is actually able to suck out more air/moisture??

What do you think? TIA.
 
 

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