With Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in the news recently with draft guidance on IAQ in homes, now is the time for wholesalers to consider stocking smart fans. Stephen Totman at Vent-Axia explains the many benefits of the smart fan.
Not only will smart fans give households peace of mind on the IAQ front, but the latest smart fans provide easy install and adjustment and can be tailored to a household’s individual needs. With the health implications related to poor IAQ well established, how can the latest smart fans help improve IAQ, and so health, and what features should wholesalers look out for that will benefit electricians and households alike? Here are the top seven features for wholesalers to consider when deciding which fans to stock.
1. Odour sense technology
Designed to improve the air households breathe, pioneering odour sensor technology is now available that ‘smells’ the air. When the bathroom fan senses the air in the room is poor, the fan speed increases and quickly extracts the odour to help ensure the air remains fresh, giving peace of mind to households and creating a comfortable, healthy living environment. With the final National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance set to be published in December, this feature is a definite winner for electricians wanting to reassure households this fan will help improve IAQ. Wholesalers should look out for the Vent-Axia PureAir Sense which features odour sense technology.
2. Humidistat that learns
Intelligent, fully automatic humidistats are a great addition in the fight against moisture. Fans with this feature, such as the PureAir Sense, learn to run only when it can make a difference to IAQ. Continually monitoring the moisture content, these fans map a home’s annual humidity profile. This enables the fan to run only when it can lower the moisture content in the air, helping control damaging humidity levels that can lead to condensation and mould, reducing nuisance running and helping ensure a healthy environment. So, it’s a win, win for households.
3. Light sensor controls
There are now highly intelligent controls available that can sense when someone is in the room and then activate the fan. These intuitive sensors can reliably recognise room occupancy through light movement and shadows, but can distinguish between car headlights flashing and people moving about to avoid nuisance running. The light sensor also acts as an overrun timer, without having to be controlled through the light switch. This means households with a basic fan can upgrade to a timer fan without having to carry out costly and time-consuming rewiring. So, this enables electricians to offer smart fans to more customers. Fans such as Vent-Axia’s PureAir Sense or the Lo-Carbon Svara offer this technology as well as a delay-on feature that can also be set to avoid the fan being triggered in the night during quick bathroom visits.
4. App control
App control just got smart with the latest fans using an app to help electricians set up the fan at installation and giving households the ability to adjust the fan’s settings to suit their requirements. For example, the ground-breaking Svara and PureAir Sense both feature an intuitive app that unlocks a whole range of different functions and settings, such as silent scheduling for overnight and automatic cycles, offering flexible ventilation to suit a household’s lifestyle. The app can be used to alter humidity and light sensitivity, gives the option of intermittent or continuous ventilation, and allows the speed of the fan to be adjusted within set parameters. This is particularly useful in properties with high humidity where standard settings would prove inefficient.
5. Airing feature
For people who are away for days, weeks or even months at a time, or have a guest bathroom that is only occasionally used, the quality of air in a bathroom can become very poor. To combat this, some fans now include an airing function which runs for an hour at 15l/s if the fan has been inactive for 26hrs. This rids the room of stale air and so means no more worries about stuffy, musty odours in the bathroom.
6. Quiet
It’s not smart to have a noisy fan. Everyone wants to use their bathroom in peace and quiet and this just isn’t possible with some noisy bathroom fans, resulting in households so irritated by the noise they turn off their fan altogether. However, there are smart fans on the market that offer great IAQ features, all the latest control options and low noise levels too. For example, the PureAir Sense has whisper quiet operation of just 19dB(A) and the Svara operates at just 17 dB(A) on trickle, so households can relax knowing they will be breathing in healthy air, undisturbed.
7. Easy install
Last but by no means least is an easy install. It doesn’t matter how smart the fan is, if it is tricky to fit, electricians won’t buy it. Wholesalers therefore need to look for smart fans that ensure easy install. Fortunately, there are new smart fan options to look out for that really speed up installation.
Firstly, the PureAir Sense is delivered with factory settings that are perfect for the majority of projects. This means the fan install only involves fitting and there is no need for set up, speeding up install. But if a customer requires additional customisation, the fan’s features can easily be altered via a user-friendly LED touch panel or a downloadable app on a smart phone. Plus, the PureAir Sense boasts other helpful features that speed up install including multiple cable entry options and an integral spirit level to help ensure that the fan is fitted straight.
Meanwhile, both Vent-Axia’s app fans, the PureAir Sense and the Svara, provide simple, speedy install by offering multiple installation and commissioning options via the app. Here, the app makes set-up simple allowing the choice of intermittent or continuous ventilation; whether the humidistat triggers operation or not; and whether the overrun timer is required. This again makes the fan ideal for the vast majority of projects so wholesalers don’t have to carry as much stock, freeing up space in cramped warehouses.
With the negative health effects of poor IAQ increasingly on consumers’ radar, the latest smart fans are sure to be a popular choice for electricians and their customers thanks to a range of features, low noise levels and easy install. Electricians will be pleased the fans are easy to install and call backs are a thing of the past, while customers will benefit from improved IAQ and being able to easily adjust the fan.
For more information on Vent-Axia, visit: www.rdr.link/WH021
