Although we all want to be able to keep the excess moisture out of the air, there is only so much noise we can tolerate before it becomes too disruptive. When you have planned a nice peaceful soak in the bath, the last thing you want is a loud whirring noise that shatters the peace and solitude of your evening. You don’t have to put up with this, and there are plenty of opportunities out there for you change the situation and find the most silent fans for your bathroom. If you’re thinking of changing your bathroom extractor fan, however, you should always select one that functions well, and whether or not it’s totally silent should be a secondary concern. Choosing an extractor fan that makes little noise but hardly works negates the decision of putting it there in the first place.
If your extractor fan works silently, but your bathroom is still full of excess water vapours, there is a problem there that needs addressing, as this could lead to a serious build-up of damp. It makes much more sense to go with a slightly noisier unit that does the job. However, with advances in technology these days, there is the potential to do both. After all, in days where driverless technology and video doorbells are becoming commonplace, you would think you should be able to get a silent extractor fan, and you would be right. That said, this is not just a case of getting something that keeps quiet so your time is not disturbed, and you can still hear the radio or your favourite music in the shower. It has to do its job as well.
If you plan on letting out the property, getting a good bathroom extractor is even more essential, since you are there less regularly to check up on the state of the house or flat, so you need to know there is something that will keep water vapour from building up. Once the rot sets in from damp, it can be notoriously difficult to fix. But if you cannot expect tenants to open their windows at the right times, especially in the winter, you will need something reliable to do it for you.
Some places do not even have windows in their bathroom, so there is little else you can do but get a good extractor fan in there. Although it is not going to add huge value to your property, if people are viewing it and see a quality product, it can be one of the strong selling points you need to show that your house is fully equipped with top-quality assets. People notice the little things, and if there is a small whirring old heap where a shiny extractor fan should be, they may start to ask further questions about the foundation of the house. Of course, you can always get what they say is a silent extractor fan on the cheap, but not every product lives up to the promises made by marketing people in a company. As the saying goes, you usually get what you pay for. This is also indicative in the long-term ability of the fan to last. For example, it may start quiet, but if it is not well built, it may not stay that way.
Imagine the sinking feeling of buying what you thought was a great extractor fan, performed silently, and then one day within just six months something clicks, and it starts whirring incessantly. These things happen with annoying frequency, and they are often the kinds of distracting noises it is hard not to hear once you start to notice it. As such, it makes sense to buy a great product right away and save the bother of having to address it later down the line. A cheaper quieter fan may also take longer to extract the humid stale air if it can extract it at all.
Even if you do get one with just a little noise, it can be much better than intermittent noise, which is far less welcoming, and if you only hear the odd little whirr of a motor rather than some clunking machinery that sounds like it needs fixing. Choosing a brand that is known for delivering great silent extractor fans for bathrooms with good build quality at the same time can tick all of the boxes. This is where Envirovent comes in. We have been working on solutions to meet all these needs for some time, and there are plenty of options out there. Many of these products have also been well-reviewed by user sites who compile these sorts of things, so you know this is not just coming from us.
The Envirovent Silent 100T is one of the best extractor fans currently on the market. This is according to expertreviews.co.uk, who described it as the “best all-round fan”, and labelled it as “quiet, reliable and effective”. For the price, and for what it can do to give you a bit more me-time during your daily cleaning routine, it also offers the peace of mind that you are doing your best to remove all excess moisture from your bathroom. It keeps the noise down by taking the motor slightly off the unit, as it mounts it on elastic blocks. This means it comes into contact with fewer materials, so it can no longer churn away quite so abruptly, while it also comes with the quality of the brand you buy from.
The fan itself also has an impressive capacity and can take away an additional five litres of air more than most of its counterparts, at 26 litres every second. That means a lot of air is quickly circulated, so all of the moisture caused by showers and baths can be easily drawn away. If you want it to work without thinking about it, and let’s face it – if it makes no noise you may well forget to turn it off a few times, it can also be equipped with what is called an overrun timer. This means you can set it to stay on for upto half an hour after it is switched on, so no matter how forgetful you may be, you will not waste any more energy than you need to.
There is no universal extractor fan that suits every kitchen, and while some might be ideal for a functional, work environment, they could be far too loud for your home kitchen, making conversation a near impossibility while the fan is on.
Some cooker hoods are so noisy it can be hard to hear yourself think, a genuine problem if you are trying to follow complicated recipes or trying to have a phone conversation while you are boiling some vegetables. If you are the kind of person who likes to listen to music while they cook, sometimes it can be impossible unless you opt for headphones, as all the best bits are drowned out by the constant whirr of the noisiest fan in your house.
Of course, despite its annoyance, there are many smart reasons for keeping it rather than ripping it out of the wall or just never using it. For one, they keep the kitchen free of many of the chemicals that are given off through cooking, especially if you’re one of those chefs who tends to accidentally over-cook things at home. If you have a hyperactive toaster, for example, that likes to blacken everything at the earliest opportunity, the chances are that plenty of harmful smoke particles are in the air and can only be removed quickly by an effective extractor fan.
When this happens, you need to be able to do something about it, and quickly so that no nasty smells or toxins linger on. Just flick on the fan then, to give your lungs some relief, but then, with all the noise, you end up getting a headache instead, so you feel like you are not winning on that front.
But now your worries are over. There are some great options when it comes to picking silent kitchen extractor fans, and many of them are affordable choices that can easily transform your kitchen environment with a simply purchase and installation.
However, you should make sure that you are not just picking something quiet, simply because it ticks that particular box. The most important aspect of any fan is how well it performs its vital task by keeping the air as clear of pollutants as possible.
If you end up going for something that is so quiet you may wonder if it even works, it might be worth checking if it actually is. In those cases, a good fan that still makes noise is going to be better for your long-term health and comfort.
That said, technology has advanced to such an extent that people no longer have to choose between enjoying cooking time and having a peaceful room for relaxation. Now you can do it all without posing any dangers to your health in the long-term.
The potential to combine great extractor fans with silent motors has long been a dream for many whose hoods are as loud as a car with a noisy engine. Now, Envirovent has you covered with some great, affordable solutions for your kitchen.
When making your decision, you will want to bear in mind the amount of space you have, as this will lend itself to how big an extractor fan you need. Naturally, the bigger the room, the larger the fan, and the more trouble you might have to go to in order to get that perfectly silent fan.
The quietest kitchen extractor fans are likely to come from the brands that are known for delivering quality and efficiency at the same time. Cooker hoods are often big, bulky things, but they don’t always need to be so large, and nowadays there are some lovely sleek designs that can complement the feel of your home and kitchen without you having to compromise on the important things, like your health.
At the same time, sometimes the size of the cooker hood may not be the most important thing you need to worry about. This is because the hoods tend to be expensive, due to their awkward shape, big size, and inevitable cost of installation. However, if you were to look at more standard kitchen extractor fans, sort of similar to the ones you would find in a bathroom, they can actually negate much of the need to turn on your cooker hood all the time. That way you do not have to choose between keeping the air fresh and drowning out all of the downstairs noise with heavy fan machinery.
You can quite easily get hold of a silent kitchen extractor fan, and Envirovent has some great ones to choose from. The Silent 125 and Silent 150 models are perfect for kitchen and utility room installation, without disturbing the design and finish of the room.
It is worth pointing out that not all excess steam and air moisture comes from cooking, and indeed not all of it will come from the hob. If you regularly use the microwave, if you tend to make several cups of tea and coffee in the day, or if you also use your washing machine and tumble dryer a lot, your cooker hood is not the only appropriate solution for all these issues.
This is where these whisper-quiet models come in, as they can be set on timers to kick in at the end of washing cycles, during periods where the kitchen is in heavy use, and run quietly but incredibly effectively. With the motor mounted on elastic blocks, you will not even notice it is turned on. That way, you can enjoy your kitchen without worrying about any unpleasant additions to the atmosphere.
With the idea that you could get so far into planning your perfect bathroom only to find that you cannot get your extractor fan where you want it, it could send you back to the drawing board at exactly the worst time. Therefore delving into all the rules and regulations is useful, but it can take far longer than ideal to sift through everything to get to the bits you are actually looking for. In short, most of it is based around the need for electrical regulations, and given that showers are a supply of constant water, it is of little surprise that there can be plenty of worry about how many wires are connected nearby.
That said, when everything is wired properly, and to the appropriate standards of government bodies, there are fewer concerns to think about. As a helpful example, it would be extremely rare to find a bathroom without a light, and some even have plugs to charge razors and electric toothbrushes, so it is not like you cannot have any electrics running near your shower.
Of course, where it should actually be positioned may actually negate the need to figure out if you can run it over your shower or not. It may not actually be of much use to have it there if it is not able to do the kind of job it needs to do. This may seem antithetical, but it is all about where the ductwork is and the vents are to run the excess moisture out of the bathroom and elsewhere.
However, putting it directly over the shower may just cause more of a problem as it would lead to you figuring out how you can effectively vent everything without having to construct new air flow channels. This means you can cause more problems than you had initially factored into consideration. This can potentially be avoided by discussing with a contractor or working out where your natural air flow vents are.
Although it may not seem like the ideal thing to hear if you are designing something based on aesthetics, getting the extractor fan to work to maximum capacity always has to be the initial goal. Therefore it makes sense to try and work between these aspects to end up with the best extractor fan for your bathroom that also looks the best and suits whatever build you are aiming for with the bathroom.
Broadly speaking, wherever the most moisture is based is close to where the fan should be placed, but this is not always possible. If you have a small bathroom anyway, the chances are that it will be adjacent to your shower area, and if you have a bath that goes wall to wall, much the same thing will apply.
This needs to be mapped out in tandem with how your ductwork works, how long it is, and where it is located. Generally, the longer the amount of ducting you have to take moisture from one point to another, the more likely it is that you will end up with a buildup of condensation in your ductworks, and this just leads to more problems down the line.
If you can see the mould, it is at least treatable to a degree, though obviously annoying. However, if you end up getting a fair bit of condensation failing to make its way out of the pipes, the mould can easily build up and become a real pain to fix. This can lead to nasty smells emanating from these places, can block up your extractor fan as layers build up in delicate places, and prevent you from being able to keep a healthy home in order.
Therefore the question of if you can put an extractor fan in a shower area keeps coming down to the answer that you can, but this does not mean you should. When doing so current wiring regulations will need to be adhered to. There are plenty more aspects to consider, too, which can make it much easier to know ahead of time whether you should be pressing ahead with this intention or not. Otherwise you can end up putting a load of work into realise it maybe is not the best idea.
Even worse, you could get a year down the line only to discover that the intent to match the fan positioning to other aesthetic notions means you have failed to draw away enough moisture effectively, and it has not solved any of the major problems caused by showers and baths. This is why considering the primary purpose of the tool has to be the most important aspect factored in to any planning.
So what else do you need to know? If you are thinking about ways to shorten the amount of ducting involved, it is always worth thinking about any overhang that can occur. It is generally recommended to limit the distance from the exterior vent cap to 1.5 m with a standards axial fan.
This enables the most effective way to get the moisture to go out and follow channels set by gravity. If you try and overcome gravitational effects it will either require more energy to power it, a better ducting angle, or less of a distance to sort.
Although the duct can be terminated straight off the roof or gabling, it is vital to make sure there is no overhang roof angle that can cause problems. If you shoot the vent straight out of the wall and it goes directly underneath what is called a soffit – where the eave overhang for the roof is – or condensation will get trapped. If you opt going above the soffit, you will still need to use a special duct cap.
While all of this may seem unnecessary to answer the original question, it can only be viewed in such a way that appropriately factors in all of the other bits. If it will effectively take out moisture through the ductwork, and this can be positioned close enough to the shower for it to work, it is very possible to get the extractor fan in the shower area. It just so tends to happen that most locations do not have it directly under the shower as this is often further away from either the window or wall that can take the moisture out, as this is where it is easiest to pump the water in the first place. If you are confident you can tie all these issues together, getting an extractor fan in the shower area should be no problem at all, and something worth looking at.
If the need arose, many of us would probably prefer to install an extractor fan in our bathroom or kitchen alone, but it’s never quite as simple as that. What are the logistics? Where would it go and how do you make sure it works properly? For these reasons and many others, plenty of people are much happier to pay that little extra to hire a professional to fit it for them.
However, apart from the obvious satisfaction of a successful bit of DIY, there are plenty of reasons why you can install your own extractor fan at home. One of the biggest reasons tends to be the cost. While you can purchase an Envirovent fan for a great price, getting it fitted can be much heftier, with some day labour prices meaning that you could end up paying more than £250 in total.
Of course, there are reasons for these high costs, and not just because you need to pay the professional for their time and effort. The other main aspect is that day labourers are qualified to do what they do, while you may not be. After all, if you were a qualified electrician, you probably wouldn’t be worried about whether you could fit your own extractor fan or not – such skills are not soon forgotten.
Although fitting one yourself is easy enough if you have the right tools and are experienced in fitting fans, using power tools and closely following instructions, it’s not for everyone. There are even some who would rather not even think about doing it themselves.
For example, what happens if you mess up? Then you would just have to do it all again anyway and pay for someone else to do it. Or, worse, you may have made such a mess that there is no choice but to pay even more to get it done to the same standard as it should have been in the first place. Many simple installations, like a fridge or washing machine, do not require any professional qualifications. This is because the job only requires making a few connections to wires that have already been earthed in places that have already been assessed for their safety and suitability.
However, installing an extractor fan is an entirely different job. This sort of work requires signing off and needs to be assessed by professionals to avoid any serious accidents. While many of us would say that we could install the fan, knowing exactly where all the wiring goes is vital to ensuring everyone who uses the fan is safe enough to use without worrying that they may not be safe.
That said, the labour costs involved in a full fitting, especially if it requires extra work to shape out the hole and deciding where all the connections will go, can seem like a lot if you feel it is unnecessary.
You may actually discover that the wiring in your house is not in the state you envisioned, simply because the people who lived there before you did not take care of the house the way they should have done, or just due to the fact that wiring gets old over time and needs an update to make sure the house is safe as it ought to be.
This is why an electrician needs to be qualified to carry out these installation checks in accordance with Part P of these building regulations. At the very least, you will need to pay for an electrician to check and sign off on this.
As a result, however, you will end up with an electrical installation certificate which will come in handy if and when you decide to sell your home, as these certificates show you have taken every appropriate step to safeguard an asset and make sure your electrics have been dealt with properly.
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