Bathroom fan

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Jdeal1

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Afternoon! I was curious as to why my half bath had a vent fan like this? Vs. the common broan one.
I has dials under the vent?
 

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Does it have a humidistat to turn it on? Probably a useless feature in a powder room. In a bathroom with a shower if you left the switch on it would turn on automatically when the humidity rises to a certain point and then shut off after X number of minutes after the humidity level drops. That's my guess anyway.
 
Try Googling your model number. The only way the timer function would work is if something tells the fan to turn on, humidity would be the most likely thing to tell it to turn on. I'm assuming you're controlling it with a wall switch when using the powder room.
 
Correct, I couldn’t find the model number sticker anywhere on it.

another odd thing is that the vent on the outside of the house is much bigger then any other bathroom fan on my house
 

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The time function would only work with a dual hot wire function. If on a single hot leg, the time function would be irrelevant, right?
 
It could be set up to come on with the light and then remain on for 1-60 minutes after the light is shut off. Might be more for smells than humidity. :coffee:
 
It could be set up to come on with the light and then remain on for 1-60 minutes after the light is shut off. Might be more for smells than humidity. :coffee:
For the humidity function to work the fan would need to be hot wired or switch left on. If it is on the same switch as the light it would go off as soon as you turned the light off. Looking at the Broan website the humidity level on some models is preset. My guess would be you can adjust the CFM level on this fan based on need (room size and presence of a shower for example) and run time after it turns on for a raised humidity level. In a powder room without a source of extra humidity I doubt the fan would ever operate based on humidity. I believe if it is on a switch it will come on when you turn the switch on. The timer feature may automatically shut it off after the time set on the timer. I can't tell from the angle of the picture but it looks like it is set to around 20 minutes. In a powder room this would be a handy feature if that's how it works. You could set a relatively low CFM and have it shut off 20-30 minutes after you leave the room. It wouldn't turn on automatically when you enter the room though, so you'd need to toggle the switch to turn it on if you wanted the fan on.
 
Perhaps I misunderstand the question but here it goes.
There are several different designs of bathroom ceiling fans. For me, there are two main functional descriptors: volume of air moved (the CFM number) and how loud it is. The basic Broan one at the home center stores is quite a bit on the noisy side (4 sones I believe); I suspect this one is quieter.
 
For the humidity function to work the fan would need to be hot wired or switch left on. If it is on the same switch as the light it would go off as soon as you turned the light off. Looking at the Broan website the humidity level on some models is preset. My guess would be you can adjust the CFM level on this fan based on need (room size and presence of a shower for example) and run time after it turns on for a raised humidity level. In a powder room without a source of extra humidity I doubt the fan would ever operate based on humidity. I believe if it is on a switch it will come on when you turn the switch on. The timer feature may automatically shut it off after the time set on the timer. I can't tell from the angle of the picture but it looks like it is set to around 20 minutes. In a powder room this would be a handy feature if that's how it works. You could set a relatively low CFM and have it shut off 20-30 minutes after you leave the room. It wouldn't turn on automatically when you enter the room though, so you'd need to toggle the switch to turn it on if you wanted the fan on.
I’m far from an expert on fans, but it would be possible if the fan had a timer relay and the power originated at the fan to have a leg run to the switch. When the switch was closed it would operate the light and latch the timer relay on until its preset time was reached when it would then turn the fan off.

I don’t know if anyone makes such a unit. I would actually like one like that for our first floor bath as it gets used for a couple minutes and having the fan run for 10 minutes would be a plus. :coffee:
 
I was typing this as Bud posted his thoughts. Edit to add I would think it is a simple 14/2 connection and as I wrote below you'd need to toggle the wall switch to reactivate it. Far simpler design and actually somewhat useful.

One thought if it doesn't actually have a humidistat in it to turn it on is the timer just turns it off after the time you set. You could test this by turning the time back to a short period and turning the fan on. If it turns off after 5 minutes or whatever time you set it is just a simple timer. So you could leave the fan on to clear odors and not have to come back to turn the fan off. To turn it on for the next visit you'd need to toggle the switch from on to off and back on for it to work. The CFM setting would allow you to adjust how fast the fan runs and how much noise it makes. In a small powder room you could go with a lower CFM setting since you're not trying to clear humidity from a shower.
 
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