I’m travelling around and staying in hotels and airbnbs. Have been to Iowa, Chicago, New Orleans, Washington DC. There hasn’t been an exhaust fan in any of the bathrooms. There’s a thing that sounds like a fan and maybe looks like a square in the ceiling… But it’s certainly not effective. What’s going on?
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That thing is the fan.
That is a fan, albeit a low power one.
Most people have little concern about this.
Brosis, that’s the shower vent. It’s to keep the bathroom from steaming up. 😑
I’ve noticed fewer and fewer hotels have exhaust fans in the last like 5 or 10 years, but I have no idea why. Sometimes you can even see where it clearly is or was but they removed the switch for it.
Bathroom fans in the US are designed to be as loud as possible while simultaneously moving as little air as possible
*”…a thing that sounds like a fan and maybe looks like a square in the ceiling…”*
Yeah, that’s the fan, & is designed and sized just to remove some of the moist air from the shower and prevent mold/mildew, not to move air to the point that one easily feels the draft/movement of it.
It’s based on a dumb cost-saving move to use passive airflow rather than active fans.
Hotels often use central exhaust fans that are ducted to each bathroom, rather than a fan in each bathroom. You were most likely seeing the grilles connected to those ducts. They move less air per bathroom than a fan would, so they don’t clear steam as quickly, but the idea is they run continuously, unlike a fan which gets shuts off when the person leaves the bathroom, so over time the bathroom gets at least as much exhaust and remains mold-free (the main goal of a bath fan anyway).
For houses, the code has been for a long time that a fan is only required if the bathroom doesn’t have a window, though honestly they’re so cheap and expected nowadays that they are usually provided even when the bathroom does have windows. Generally it’s only very old houses you will see that don’t have bath fans.
Hotels sometimes don’t have exhaust fans. All the bathrooms in my house do and I believe it’s required by code.
You’ve probably been staying at lower-priced places to save money.
Those guys cut corners everywhere they can and put in the cheapest fan they can find. That means using fans that are designed for rooms smaller than the ones they’re installed in.
But, that’s not the owner’s problem. Nobody chooses their hotel based on the bathroom fan.
I’ve noticed this trend too and I hate it. I assume it’s to save money.
By code you have to have either an exhaust fan or window in every bathroom. At least here.
That is the fan, fam.
I’ve known them as fart fans
You will definitely notice a difference if you run a steamy shower with and without it. The air it needs to move is already concentrated at the ceiling with it. So it doesn’t need to be so strong that you feel it several feet below.
for some reason hotels don’t seem to commonly have fans that you can turn on from the bathroom. they just have those exhaust vents that, as you say, never seem to work very well. it annoys me too.
the airbnbs are more surprising to me. it’s very rare for me to see a bathroom in someone’s house without a fan. even half baths without a shower usually have them for… smells
They may not be fully cleaned. When I first moved into my current apartment I had to give mine a good clean and noticed it worked wayy better. Just bits of fluff etc got caught
> There’s a thing that sounds like a fan and maybe looks like a square in the ceiling… But it’s certainly not effective.
That *is* a fan, which is a low-volume **exhaust** fan. It’s there to remove humidity and odors, not stir up a fart/steam miasma.
HVAC guy here. That’s the fan. We call it a ‘fart fan’ and it is effective. It removes moisture and odors.
I agree-there should be ventilation fans! I haven’t seen any in hotels.
Are you looking for fans that _blow_ air?
In hotels especially, what you think is an ineffective square is likely way more effective than what you’re expecting to see. Central building exhaust is the most efficient and effective way of clearing the air. If it’s working correctly, you won’t hear any noise come from it or feel air blowing out of it—it just continuously sucks air out of the room.
As for any other bathroom, it’s been a ***long*** time since urban building codes allowed bathrooms without mechanical exhaust. Unless you’re staying in a very rural place where there are no building codes (or you are paying very little to stay in slums), there are exhaust fans in bathrooms. The exception would be older bathrooms and/or bathrooms that have windows, which, in places like old apartment buildings in Chicago, is considered sufficient. These kinds of places basically got grandfathered in when the building codes requiring mechanical exhaust went into place.
The noisy square in the ceiling—if the building doesn’t have central exhaust—is still more effective than nothing. It might take 15-30 minutes to clear the air, but if you don’t run it, the end result is quite different.
I don’t like people cheering me on for my bowel movement.