Sone Levels Bathroom Fans
One sone is equivalent to the sound of a quiet refrigerator in a quiet kitchen.
Sone levels bathroom fans. While the ceiling installation style is the. Your 4 sone fan will be more than four times a noisy as a 0 9 sone fan. One sone is equivalent to the sound of a quiet refrigerator so a quiet bathroom fan will be rated at about 1 5 sones or less. Sones do generally increase as air volume increases.
You will be able to hear it in the hallway but it is a bit more muted than the 4 0 sones level. On the sone scale 0 5 to 1 2 sones means the fan is exceptionally quiet 1 5 to 2 0 sones is acceptable in many homes. In other words the lower the sone number the quieter the fan. As a general statement an exhaust fan with a lower sone level rating is an overall higher quality fan when compared to an exhaust fan with a higher sone level rating.
A bathroom fan at the 3 sones level is on the level of background office noise. Fan noise is rated by sones it is the unit of measurement for evaluating how loud a bathroom fan is. The quietest bathroom fans have a sones rating of 0 3 or lower while the loudest have at least 4 0 or higher. The lower the sone rating the quieter the fan will be.
Understand the noise level of the product you are considering. With bathroom exhaust fans most of the 0 3 sone fans move 80 cfm or less while most of the 1 0 sone and louder fans move 140 cfm or more. See our decibel level dba comparisons and sones to decibels conversion chart at industrial fans direct. Power in cubic feet per minute cfm cfm is a measure of the power of a bathroom exhaust fan.
When your bathroom fan reaches the 4 sones level or higher it is equivalent to having a television on in a bedroom. The lower the rating the quieter the unit. 4 0 sones is the sound of normal television which would be ridiculously loud for a normal bathroom fan though i ve heard some this loud 3 0 sones is office noise still very loud for a fan 1 0 sone is the sound of a quiet refrigerator about as good as it gets 0 5 sone is the sound of rustling leaves. This article series explains why bathroom vent fans are needed and describes good.
Measure the fan sound level. One to two two to four is doubling the sound level twice. Doubling the sone value is equivalent to doubling the loudness i e. An exhaust fan that has a noise level of 4 sones is louder than an exhaust fan that has a noise level of 1 sone.
How to install a bathroom vent fan. Think of the sound of a range fan or household fan increasing as you move up each level of volume. Those that offer ceiling mounts wall mounts or both. Bathroom fans are available in three models.
Here we explain how to determine the necessary capacity in cfm for a bathroom exhaust fan. But it is not quite that simple. How to choose a bath vent fan based on its noise level rating in sones. It is the accepted unit of measurement when evaluating the level of noise for bathroom fans.
Bathroom vent fan size noise level choices specifications. Bath exhaust vent fan sizing noise rating choices.