Hi. Has anyone had any good experiences, and therefore can recommend, a good bathroom exhaust fan that isn’t too noisy?
I recently bought a Ventair Ultraflo Exhaust Fan, which is great at doing the job but unfortunately sounds like a jet engine.
To replace it I’ve got a Luna PRO 200 Ceiling Exhaust Fan coming in the mail, but any personal experience with something good would be greatly appreciated.
Does it interfere with your reading or meditation?
Since the bathroom is right next to my bedroom, if I ever have a “friend” over who might put it on during the night it would definitely wake me up. Also, early in the mornign not long after waking or late at night just before bed, such a loud noise does f with my chi
I assume you did not have a fan previously. If you did the first check is to assure there is no dirt in any related ducting you may have in the ceiling. If not, if the installation put any out of plumb stress on the fan housing it could cause fan noise in numerous ways. If you can loosen the mounting screws a few turns each so the fan is ‘floating’ rather than ‘hard fastened’ it will tell if that has any part in it…
Second is that if the fan is oversized for the room the amount of air it moves and the strain on the motor from sucking what could be a relative vacuum will cause noise. A quick way to get a clue is to close the door with the fan running and see if it slows more than a modest amount (you are effectively ‘measuring’ suction in the room - a properly sized fan will create some but not a lot of room suction.). An overcapacity fan might have benefits in exhausting humidity and odours quickly but at the cost of noise. Larger fans are also louder than smaller ones just because they are larger, all things being equal. The solution might need to be a slower (fewer RPM) or smaller (less CFM) fan.
Then maybe your Luna Pro will be a straight forward solution. Good luck with it.
Another solution I have used is putting rubber washers between the wall and the motor. Sometimes the wall acts as a sounding board and amplifies the vibration from the motor. If you put enough absorbing material between the motor and the wall to stop the vibration being passed through, the amplified noise may diminish or cease.
Another answer is mounting the fan away from the area on the end of some flexible ducting and perhaps venting to the outside. Some fans have some shaping that reduces the “jet noise” which can be caused by the “cutting” of the air as it moves over and around the blades.
https://www.fantech.com.au/FanRange.aspx?AppID=C6&RangeID=2027
Thanks everyone for your responses. I’ve been trying to respond for a couple of days but I keep getting a “500 error”. I’ll keep trying
Hi TheBBG, meltam6554 and grahroll
Thanks for your responses, appreciate them.
I did have a fan previously, which hasn’t had or needed ducting. It goes up into a large enough roof cavity (not a wall-mounting), which also has a whirly bird directly above it.
I don’t believe how it is mounted (i.e. the tightness of the screws) is the issue, it’s just purely a noisey fan because it is too powerful. Having said that I’ll still try loosening the screws to see how that goes, although thinking about the physics of it, if it’s trying to suck air up that means the unit is moving downwards, so will still be hard up against the ceiling it sits on. I’ll also give the washers a go.
As an fyi, my “sound meter” app says at 3m away it’s about 63db, and closer to the unit (about .5 to 1m) it’s just hits 70db (considered “loud music” by the app).
It’s only a 200mm fan so don’t think it’s too big, and it’s just a replacement to what was already there (cheap Bunnings Hellier if memory serves) so I don’t think I do a smaller unit even if I wanted to unless I redo the whole ceiling. I think it’s just too good at sucking air out, which as you say is at the expense of sound levels. Just don’t want to get stuck with a loud one again.
Also, the fan is pretty much the same noise level whether the door is open or not, so it’s not struggling for air.
Thanks again for your responses
finally worked.
Just an update - installed the new fan and it’s great
