Extractor Fans

Extractor Fans: The Least Glamorous Thing in Your Home and One of the Most Important

Nobody gets excited about extractor fans. They're not the kind of purchase you mention. And yet a home without adequate extraction is one that's slowly accumulating moisture, cooking odours, and the conditions that cause mould, condensation, and deteriorating air quality. An extractor fan running properly does invisible, unglamorous work that significantly affects both the condition of your property and the quality of the air you spend most of your time breathing. It's worth taking seriously, even if it's not worth talking about at dinner.

Extractor fans are needed primarily in bathrooms, kitchens, and utility rooms — the spaces that generate moisture and cooking vapour — and the right specification depends on the room size, the moisture generation rate, and the type of installation available.

Bathroom Extractor Fans

A bathroom extractor fan needs to shift enough air to clear steam and moisture before it condenses on walls and ceilings — the primary cause of bathroom mould. The standard specification is at least 15 litres per second for a bathroom or 30 litres per second for a shower room. Cheap fans with inadequate airflow rates are a false economy: they run but don't actually clear the moisture, which means mould develops anyway and you get none of the benefit while still paying the running costs.

Humidity-sensing fans are worth the modest premium over basic timer models. They activate automatically when humidity rises and run until it falls back to normal, without requiring anyone to remember to switch them on or set a correct run-on time. In a household where people regularly forget the fan — which is most households — this makes a real practical difference to condensation levels over time.

IP ratings matter: any fan installed within the bathroom zones defined by wiring regulations must have the appropriate IP rating. Zone 1 (directly above a bath or shower) requires IP45 minimum; Zone 2 requires IP44. A qualified electrician will specify correctly; worth checking independently if installing yourself.

Kitchen Extractor Hoods

A kitchen extractor hood tackles cooking vapour, grease particles, and odours at source — directly above the hob, where extraction is most effective. The options are ducted (venting air outside) and recirculating (filtering through grease and carbon filters and returning air to the room). Ducted is substantially more effective for odour and humidity removal; recirculating is the only option where ducting to the outside isn't practical.

Extraction rate for kitchens is typically specified as the room volume multiplied by ten to fifteen. For a 20 cubic metre kitchen, that means 200–300 m³/h. Island and ceiling-mounted hoods require higher rates to compensate for the increased distance from the cooking source and the absence of surrounding walls to contain rising vapour.

Noise level matters considerably in open-plan spaces where the hood runs alongside conversation. Low-noise models in the 40–50 dB range are worth specifying for any open-plan kitchen-living arrangement.

Whole House Ventilation

In highly insulated modern homes where natural ventilation through gaps is minimal, whole house mechanical ventilation addresses background ventilation requirements that individual room fans don't cover. MVHR (mechanical ventilation with heat recovery) recovers heat from extracted air and uses it to pre-warm incoming fresh air — energy-efficient as well as effective for new-build and deep retrofit applications.

Extractor fans work alongside air purifiers and cooling solutions as part of a complete approach to indoor air quality. For the electrical installation work involved, the electricals section covers the wiring components. The building materials section is relevant when installing new duct penetrations through walls. Browse our brands directory for extractor fan brands across the full range — from basic bathroom axial fans through to premium low-noise kitchen hood systems. The deals section features kitchen hood deals particularly regularly, and promotional pricing on reputable brands is worth catching before buying at full retail.

One practical point worth making: an extractor fan only works if it's actually used, and it's only used if it's convenient and quiet enough that using it isn't an active decision. A kitchen hood with an automatic activation linked to the hob removes that decision entirely. A bathroom fan that turns on with the light switch and runs on a timer requires nothing beyond the existing habit. Specifying automation and making the fan's operation as effortless as possible is often what determines whether it actually prevents condensation rather than just being there in theory. The best extractor fan is one nobody has to think about. Paired with decent sealants around baths and shower trays (removing another moisture ingress route) and adequate heating to keep surface temperatures above the dew point, good extraction completes a three-part defence against condensation and mould that genuinely works. Each element on its own is insufficient; together they keep bathroom and kitchen surfaces in good condition year-round.