On this page, you will find out how many watts an exhaust fan draws.
You don’t realize how useful an exhaust fan is until it is gone. If you’ve ever used a room like a kitchen or bathroom without one, you’ll understand what I mean. The enclosed area quickly fills up with steam or smoke. Having a small 6 inch fan mounted in the wall or ceiling instantly solves this problem. Many people even install them in vans, RVs, and boats to make life more comfortable. If you’re adding a fan, then you should understand the power consumption to ensure it runs smoothly.
Below we will discuss and test exhaust fan wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is an Exhaust Fan?
The average exhaust fan uses between 30 and 80 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your exhaust fan. For such a small device it can actually draw a fair amount of power. This is because the motor needs to spin very fast in order to create enough air suction.
You’ll find that more powerful 8 inch exhaust fans draw 80W while cheaper smaller options will be as low as 30W.
How to Find Out Your Exhaust Fan Wattage
There are 3 ways you can work out the wattage of an exhaust fan.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the exhaust fan’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your exhaust fan to get instant information.
I tested an exhaust fan with an AC plug and it gave a live reading of 35.4W.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your exhaust fan you can use this to find the maximum watts. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Exhaust Fan Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts an exhaust fan draws. Below is a collection of modern exhaust fans with their listed power ratings.
| exhaust fan Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| HG POWER 6 Inch Exhaust Fan | 38 |
| Nalle 8 inch Exhaust Fan | 80 |
| RLOZUI 8 inch Exhaust Fan | 80 |
| Beleeb 6 Inch Exhaust Smoke Fan | 18 |
| HG 6” Silent Exhaust Ventilation Fan | 31 |
| SAILFLO Exhaust Fan 6 Inch | 25 |
| KEN BROWN 12” Shutter Exhaust Fan | 63 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different exhaust fans. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does an Exhaust Fan Use?
You can use exhaust fan wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your exhaust fan.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, an exhaust fan drawing 80W would use 80Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 80W exhaust fan running for 1 hour uses 0.08kWh.
In reality, you run an exhaust fan for 1 hour a day. This means an exhaust fan uses about 80Wh or 0.08kWh electricity a day. That’s 2.4kWh a month and 29kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $0.012 a day or $4.38 a year to power your exhaust fan for 1 hour each day.
Using an Exhaust Fan Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your exhaust fan in an off-grid situation like a power outage, RV, boat, or semi-truck the information above is important. You can accurately select the correct power products and calculate the run time.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to generate electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your exhaust fan. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To exhaust smoke and steam, you will need at least 100W of power capacity.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the exhaust fan for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use a maximum of 80Wh electricity per hour. This is the equivalent to 6.6Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does an Exhaust Fan Use Summary
I hope you now have a clear understanding of how many watts an exhaust fan uses.
These are very small appliances that only use a tiny amount of electricity to run. They are built to be simple and efficient. In fact, there is very little to the mechanism except and small electric motor to spin the fan. The power consumption is low enough to add ventilation in campervans and RVs without depleting your batteries.
