Most modern homes come with bathroom exhaust fans already installed, but many of the older homes scattered across Minneapolis are not equipped with exhaust fans in the bathroom. Exhaust fans have an important role to plan in safety, odor control, and home maintenance. Read on to learn why you might consider installing a new exhaust fan in your bathrooms if you live in an older home or your bathroom fan isn’t working properly.
Purpose & Importance of Bathroom Exhaust Fans
Understanding the purpose behind a bathroom exhaust fan makes clear the importance of keeping it functional. A bathroom exhaust fan is designed to remove moisture from an otherwise very moist environment. It does so by ventilating the air in the room, removing moist, odorous, or contaminated air and replacing it with clean air. This ventilation process helps with the following:
Odor Control
It’s a bathroom. Odors happen. Switch on your bathroom exhaust fan and it takes care of those odors for you, drawing out the odorous air and replacing it with clean air. This keeps the bathroom environment fresh over time and clears the air for each occupant.
Humidity Reduction
When you take a long, hot shower, a lot of moisture builds up inside the bathroom. That’s what fogs the mirror and the windows. That’s fine for a few minutes, but moisture buildup can cause damage to your bathroom over time if it has no escape.
Excessive moisture buildup can cause bathroom wallpaper or paint to peel, flooring to warp, and most significantly, creates a hospitable environment for mold to grow. Mold spores grow rapidly, can spread to other areas of your home, and can be very difficult to eradicate if it’s growing inside the walls or under the floors. Bathroom exhaust fans are critical for maintaining a moisture neutral environment!
Fumes
Given the purpose they serve, bathrooms are often cleaned with some of the strongest chemical cleaning products you keep in your home. Using these chemicals in such a small confined space makes it easy for fumes to build up. High concentrations of these fumes can be a health hazard, especially for small children or those with lung conditions. Running the bathroom exhaust fan during and after cleaning the bathroom will help to dispel these fumes.
Not only is it important to have a properly functioning exhaust fan installed in each of your home bathrooms, but it’s also important to know how and when to use it. Many homeowners only turn their bathroom exhaust fan on when they take a shower, but it should be turned on any time there’s a chance for moisture, odors, or fumes to build up in a short period of time.
