Why You Want a Good Exhaust Fan in Your Home

One really important installation that we make pretty much every day is for something that a lot of people probably don’t even think about as affecting their home that much: a bath exhaust fan.

The exhaust fan has one pretty obvious function that we all know about –  It helps to relieve moisture from the bathroom. Yes, this is still an extremely important role that it plays into your home comfort. If we didn’t have this, we would all have mold and mildew creeping up our bathroom walls and ceiling...yuck!

But, moisture and mildew aside, there is still another role that the exhaust fan has to play. It has to do with the circulation of air in your house. When we are weatherizing a house, we make it a priority to seal-up all of those nooks and crannies that air could be leaking out of. This makes sure that your house is retaining all of that warm/cool air that you are paying to pump into your living space. This is, quite obviously, a good thing. Your house becomes more energy efficient, more comfortable, and healthier. The only thing that we have to watch out for is that you have enough air flow in your house to keep it from becoming stagnant and unhealthy. That is where the bath fan comes in to play.

The “bath fan,” which we don’t actually have to install in your bathroom alone, acts as a mechanical ventilation system that pulls the air throughout the house. Now, how much air circulation does your house need? Well that depends.   

Every house is different and needs a different amount of air flow to keep it healthy. What we do is perform something called an ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) test. This involves a lot of number crunching and technical observations, but basically it tells us how much ventilation your home needs. Based off of those calculations, we figure out how many vents should be installed and how often they should be on.

We install the vents and put them on a timer switch. Based off of how much circulation you need, we may have the vent come on for something like a half-an-hour every hour (just as an example). This is usually the part that freaks clients out a little bit. When they think of a bath fan running, they think of those loud, noisy vents that you can hear through the whole house. They’re worried about being kept up all night.

We quickly put those customers at ease when we explain how our fans work. The kind of fans that we install run very, very quietly. We’ve actually had customers call us worried that they’re not working because they can’t hear anything. In actuality, those exhaust fans are working harder than ever!

We pride ourselves on the level of concern and dedication we put into each and every one of the houses we work on. That’s why we make sure to install these fans where needed and keep your house running as best as we can. We will keep your home comfortable and we will keep your home healthy. If you ever think about getting your home weatherized by a trustworthy company, give us a try! Call us at 1-410-867-1202 and we’ll set you up with an energy audit to see what you need. We proudly serivice Brandywine, MD, Fort Washington, MD, Upper Marlboro, MD, and surrounding areas.