Continuous use exhaust fan…fire hazard?
whitenack
| Posted in Green Products and Materials on
Building a house, zone 4A. Not planning on doing a formal ventilation plan, just planning an exhaust-only strategy depending on the blower door test results.
I am planning to use the panasonic whispergreen exhaust fans in the bathrooms so I can set them to continuous use if I need the extra ventilation. However, I had someone warn me recently that they had a friend who ran their exhaust fan continuously and it caught fire and burned the house down.
Is this a concern? Are there ways to limit this risk?
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Replies
Clay,
Panasonic exhaust fans are rated for continuous operation. It's possible that there are cheap exhaust fans out there that aren't rated for continuous operation (but frankly, I haven't heard of one).
I think it's highly unlikely that the fan that caught fire was a Panasonic fan. Tens of thousands of houses have continuously operating Panasonic exhaust fans -- so I wouldn't worry if I were you.
Anything is possible, but I wonder if the fire issue was specific to a WhisperGreen fan.
Panasonic uses high-quality DC motors in these models. Here is the company's expectation for how the fans will perform IRL.
"Panasonic fans are renowned for their long life. Our fans are designed to provide continuous operation for a minimum of 30,000 hours, and a typical life of 100,000 hours. That's about 11 and a half years without ever shutting it off. They will probably last longer."
And.
"Defects are rare - Panasonic fans have a defect rate of less than 0.0006%."
Thanks for the replies. You are correct, I doubt the fan that caught fire was a panasonic. Sorry if I implied that it was. This fire was probably 8-10 years ago and I would imagine it was just a typical cheap bath fan.
I think this is one of those situations where you want to have a maintenance schedule that includes occasionally vacuuming the fan to remove debris--just to be on the safe side.