The little hygrometer on the bathroom shelf read 94% at ten past eight on a Tuesday in March, after one shower and one set of teeth, with the window open an inch. It was still at 79% when I came back at ten. The bathroom in this house has never had an extractor fan. I knew that when we bought it in April 2017, and I have thought about it every winter since, and every winter I've decided that it would be sorted 'once we've done the other things'.
Nine winters of wiping
The bathroom is upstairs at the back, with the shower over the bath, a window that opens about as far as a letterbox, and a corner above the bath that goes grey from about November. In February last year I spent £27.50 on spray, paint and a squeegee, and that kept it down for a year. This January, with the hygrometer in there as well as the bedrooms, it crept back along the edge of the ceiling, and by then I'd stopped being able to blame the weather. A bathroom that damp needs somewhere for the steam to go.
I did get a quote once, in 2019, from a firm that isn't the one I work for now (my boss Martin's lot do boilers and radiators, not electrics). It was £310 for labour alone, and I filed it under later. Later turned out to be nine winters.
What changed was a Wednesday night in April. Rob mentioned the bathroom to Dean in the car park after five-a-side. Dean is an electrician who Rob has known since they were fourteen and who has since acquired a van. 'How much for the fan?' said Dean. 'I'll do it for a Sunday dinner.'
The fan and the Sunday
The fan itself came to £96, which I'd split like this:
- The fan, with a humidity sensor and an overrun timer: £58
- Ducting and a wall kit with an outside grille: £31
- Silicone, filler and a small tin of white paint for the patch of ceiling: £7
Dean came on Sunday 17 May at ten and was finished by half past twelve, leaving a neat hole in the back wall of the house, a lot of brick dust on the landing, and one of Rob's old towels which had been pressed into service as a dust sheet. Rob held the ladder and made tea. Mabel sat in the dust and supervised. I wouldn't fit a fan myself, because I wouldn't touch anything electrical in a bathroom, and I'm not telling anyone else what to do about it. The Sunday dinner was a roast chicken with proper Yorkshires, which I'm not counting in the £96, and neither is the crate of beer that cost £18.
The first fortnight
I can only tell you the numbers. The fan comes on with the light and keeps going for twenty minutes after the light goes off. On Tuesday morning, half-term and a slow one, after Isla's shower, the hygrometer peaked at 84% and was under 65% by half past eight, which compares with 94% and a long, slow decline before. The wall above the bath looks and feels dry. I haven't wiped it once since.
It isn't silent. Linda, who came for the Sunday dinner and stood under it with her cup of tea, said it sounded like a hairdryer in another room. From a retired hairdresser that's a precise measurement. Alfie calls it the aeroplane. Mabel stares at the grille as if it owes her money. On a windy night there's a small draught through the flap, so Dean is going to look at a better grille next time he's in the area.
It's May, and the weather will be doing half the work, so I wouldn't call it proven. The real test is January. But I looked at the corner on Friday night with a torch, like a woman examining a rash, and the grey was no longer spreading. I stood there longer than I needed to, in my socks, feeling more pleased than a £96 fan strictly justifies.
It will add about a penny a week to the electricity, by my reckoning: a few watts for twenty minutes, fourteen or so times. I've written it on the bills sheet anyway, in the margin, in blue pen, in case anyone wants to argue.
