You know mold isn’t good to have in your home. In fact, it’s downright dangerous, especially for any little fellas or older folks. And to properly eliminate bathroom moisture (from the tub, shower and faucet), you’ll need a bath fan.

But you can’t just install any old bath fan. You’ll need to do a little research and a little math to make sure your new bath fan is powerful enough. To determine which fixture is right for you, check out the VentingDirect.com bath fan calculator here.

Gee whiz, that calculator sure is convenient, but what exactly is it calculating?

Bath fans are rated for their ability to move air in cubic feet per minute (CFM). The Home Ventilation Institute endorses 1 CFM of air for every cubic foot of bathroom space. The HVI also recommends that a bathroom should achieve 8 air changes per hour (ACH).

To calculate your bathroom’s air volume, multiply its length, width and height in feet. If your bathrooms dimensions are 10 x 9 x 8, its air volume is 720 cubic feet—meaning 720 cubic feet of air must be ventilated to achieve 1 ACH.

Then, knowing the recommended ACH for bathrooms is actually 8, multiply 720 x 8 to get 5,760 cubic feet in one hour. Then (last calculation, I promise), recalling fan ratings are determined per minute, we must divide 5,760 by 60 (the number of minutes in an hour).

The result is 96, the minimum CFM rating your bathroom will need (might as well round that up to 100 CFM).

So, when searching for that perfect bath fan, you can do all of those calculations yourself, or you could just let VentingDirect.com do the work for you.

Until next time, Happy Home Improving!

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