KAZE APPLIANCE SNP100 | 100 CFM | 0.8 Sone | No Attic Access Required Bathroom Ventilation Exhaust Extractor Fan

For me, a clean bathroom means just that - clean! This starts with great ventilation. My guest bathroom (the one used most by guest) is 28 sq/ft with an 8' ceiling. The original fan that the builder, passes code at 60 CFM, but this is total crap and did not vent out bad odors, often embarrassing my guest). I upgraded to a Home Depot model 90CFM, this vented well, but it was loud, vibrated the ceiling, and burned out in less than two years. I installed this Kaze model (100CFM), and there is no vibration, very quiet, and vents this bathroom really well. All the bad odors are gone before the guest can finish washing their hands. Guest can rest assured the next guest coming in will not be sitting in bad air.

If your bathroom exhaust fan sounds like a old lawn mower, then it's time to get rid of it!Those cheapo home depot basic $25 exhaust fans that home builders put in should be illegal.3" exhaust fan with 22cfm of 5 sones is just terrible to see in a $600k house!So i bought 4 of these because of the 1 sones, 100 cfm and 4" output. My roof vents are 4" (previously use by a 3" fan) and now i don't have a lawn mower on my ceiling, no more foggy walls and best of all, i can enjoy my cigar time in my hot shower!As for install, boxes are larger than the cheapo ones so drywall cutting will happen, you can install it from the bathroom but if you can get in the attic, do it. Much easier to cut and prepare for install than having drywall and dust fall on your face.Few things to make this conversion easier:-Remove the fan unit from the box, it make the box light.-The duct adapter goes in the box first, then the fan unit.-Use aluminum tape for connections to flexible 4" vent duct, not zip ties or duct tape (silver tape) as those will slide off the adapter!-Make sure to have a least 1/2" gap on bottom of door for air to be sucked into the bathroom, otherwise, the fan wont perform well.

Pros:First off I would like to give a shout out to Amanda on the customer service team. I recieved a damage grill cover and she took care of me. The replacement grill arrived three days later after I contacted the service team. Also they have replacement parts on the KAZE website you can order in case issues arise in the future. The unit was fairly straight forward to install even though I had 24" o.c joist. I just modified the included hangers to make them long enough to span from joist to joist. These units are also Energy Star and HVI certified. The unit passes the tissue test as well. This is just a simple test to make sure it applies a negative pressure to the room to facilitate evacuating the humid or stinky air in the room. After a hot shower my glasses are not fogged up either. It takes about 15-20 minutes to clear my bathrooms of humid air. I did test the sound inside and outside the two bathooms I installed them in using the NIOSH sound meter app. The first is a master bath connected to the bedroom which averaged 36.8 decibles (~1.8 scones) outside the bathroom approximately 10 feet away from the closed door. The second is a hallway bath which averaged 36.1 decibles (~1.7 scones) 10 feet away from the closed door. Background noise was about 30 decibles. Granted this is not a scientific test but a real world example of what you might see.Negatives:I don't know what test standard is used to measure the sound level of bath exhaust fans, but I was not getting anywhere near 0.8 scones inside or outside the bathroom. Inside the bathrooms scone levels were on average 52.2 decibels (~5 scones) for the hallway bath and 61.4 decibles (~10 scones) for the master bath. Bathroom size, duct work type (insulated or noninsulated), and duct lenth do affect noise generation though. Both of my bathrooms are on the smaller size. The hallway bath is 50 square feet and the master bath is about 30 square feet. A 100 cfm bath exhaust fan is typically sized for a 100 square foot bathroom. I imagine the noise would be much more diluted in larger bathrooms in terms of square footage or volume (i.e. high ceilings). KAZE does recommend insulated duct be used in their installation instructions. It is code in most places and tends to dampen the noise as well as prevent moist air from condensing back down your ductwork and into your bathroom. I will mention the rise of the duct work in my master bath is only about 2 foot to the roof termiation cap. On really windy days I can hear the backdraft open and close. This does not occur in our hallway bath which has approximately a 5 foot rise to the roof termination cap. Again, my tests are not scientific. I imagine these units are probably tested in a standardized sound proof booth that can eliminate background noise. The noise does not bother me but I know that is a problem for others.Verdict:I would definately recommend purchasing this product. The price, customer serivce, and functionality of these bath fans sold me. Yes, I had to make modifications during installation but that is what I expect with any project. You can anticipate much more noise dilution than what I measured if your bathrooms are larger than my small ones.

I liked it a lot. It is substantial and the instructions are great.I took away one star because the damper is not well designed and will certainly fail. Issue is that when putting 4" pipe on connector the damper falls out. The axles molded into the adapter are too short so when the adapter is inserted into the vent pipe the damper drops out.Fortunately I was test fitting in work area and had pipe vertical. If it had been horizontal I never would have know. After evaluating installation I realized that I didn't need baffle at all--it will vent into a utility room with vents from outside for combustion air, so air can be consumed by combustion or simply flow to outside.I would suggest molding longer "pins" into adapter or better yet, use a full length axle in steel rather than the pin system.

moves air well enough that humidity doesn't build up in my bathroom-- something I couldn't say for my old, noisy fan that dated back to at least the 1980s. Can't really speak to how easy it was to install because I took the easy way out and had a contractor do it!