Just bumping this up in hopes that someone out there can give me an opinion on this fan. The alternative the HVAC guy is offering is to use fan-tech in-line blowers for the exhaust fans and a Broan or some other heat lamp. I'm not sure the heat lamps will work for us. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I'd like to know if people like it as well....

I can't really address your particular situation but here's mine (oh, and I love it) :) I'm in Texas (60 miles east of Dallas). Bathroom is 10x11. We have a Trane ac/heat pump. Our old vent/heater were heat lamps (junk!). I'm very happy with the vent (wow!) and the heater too. Excellent product. Fan is very quiet, the heater a bit louder but not distracting. There is only one size for the heater/vent combo. I'm drawing a blank and can't recall which online dealer I bought mine from. "Bill" is very helpful. If I can remember the company, I'll let you know. You can call him and ask about room sizes.
Monica

I have no direct input on the WhisperWarm, but thought I would add my two cents worth. I was planning to use one for my 6.5'x8.5' bathroom, which has 8' ceiling and a large 3'x3' skylight. I went to the local Panasonic dealer to buy one, and was stopped in my tracks by how large this puppy is. It's really quite big ! and I decided it would be too imposing in my small space. Sadly, I came home with the Panasonic WhisperCeiling instead ... I sure was looking forward to that overhead heater :-(

Make sure you see one before committing to it, especially for your smaller bathrooms.

It is rather large. DH and I were both taken aback at the size but I kept it anyway. It has a nice, sleek cover and I'm glad I kept it. Not offended by it's size (in my bathroom)
The grill size is 18 3/4" L x 16 7/10" W

We have the Panasonic Whisper warm in our bathroom.
My opinion on size. I don't notice the size of the unit because our ceiling is 9' high.

Output of heat: We live in the NW, and our bathroom faces north. When we take showers in the morning, the temperature in the bathroom is usually in the low 60's F. I think the higher the ceiling, the longer it takes to heat the bathroom. I would be concerned about using the unit to heat bathroom #1 with 10' ceilings. However, if it is a choice between the Panasonic and a heat lamp, I would definitely choose the Panasonic.

Living in humid Florida, you'll love the exhaust fan (especially if you have it on timer). We always run our fan for 30 minutes after showering, and have not had any mold/mildew issues.
BTW, our master bath has the same configuration as yours, and our fan is located adjacent to our shower. I would place the fan/heat unit so that when you step out of the shower, the warm air blows on you.

Thank you, everyone. Monica, I'll do as you suggest and put out a call to Bill. Ashlander, does someone in a wheelchair use this bathroom now or am I wrong in assuming that just because it's configured the same that it was designed for accessibility? If someone in a wheelchair uses it now could you let me know how it's working out. Right now we could still change anything that won't work but we're about 3 weeks from having everything literally set in concrete. We're just planning for the future having seen elderly relatives struggle with this issue. Many of them would have been able to live at home until the end if they had a first floor accessible bedroom and bath.

Flseadog, this is one place where I'll defer to the HVAC guy. I don't know jack about how to determine which ones will be sufficient to warm the bathroom, or what cfm rating is required to clear the moisture out of a bathroom after showering. I wish I could help more, but you've found the end of my expertise!!

I am pretty sure the Panasonic site has an online tool to determine appropriate CFM for a room. Someone does, I have used it.

flseadog:
No one uses a wheelchair in our house. Our bathroom just happened to be configured the same as yours...but we do have a single story house.

I think the "Bill" that people are referring to is someone at Wave Plumbing, who is very knowledgeable about Panasonic fans and what is suitable for different sizes of bathrooms.
When we bought our Panasonic fan, DH just went on the Panasonic site and read about the correct size for our bathroom.

We have had the WW since 2003. It's an excellent unit but I can't believe a single unit would work for a bathroom so large and high as yours. Our bathroom is 7x13 with 8' ceilings, the coldest room in our Northern CA house. Running the WW for 15-20 min before entering is sufficient to take the nastiest chill off, but our room is only half the volume of yours.

I'd put two of them in if possible (that's a big electrical load plus the 4 switches needed for each unit). Forget about heat lamps, we used those for 15 years and they're useless compared to the WW. There's no comparison in heat output and comfort level; the WW is the way to go if you can.

flseadog,

I can relate to your situation because I, too, am considering the Panasonic because of its reported quiet operation. I had written out a lenghty post to you with my opinions, clicked the wrong button and lost it. ...AARGH! Returning to the Forum to rewrite, I noticed that jkom51 had posted the note above which makes a good point about the efficiency of the WhisperWarm related to the size of a room.

I would have told you that I think the WhisperWarm would serve well in all 3 baths, based on my experience with another product. We used the Nutone heat/vent/light product for 25 years in my former Master Bath toilet/tub room. We hardly had to run heat for longer than 5 minutes (not 25) before the area (a mere 5' x 8') was toasty warm. I realize that this is a much smaller space, but the heat would always quickly spill out into the adjoining vanity/dressing area, leading me to believe that it would have warmed a much larger area.

Since everyone raves over the WW, I just assumed that surely it must be better, or just as good. Perhaps the "heating for the volume of the room" as jkom51 mentioned, is an issue and you may need to consult an expert salesman. What we found was important was "heating a Hiney" once you stepped out of the shower, because everyone feels good with a warm Hiney. :) Therefore, my 2 cents:

Bath 1: In this toilet-shower-soaking tub along one wall configuration, I agree that placing the WW in front of the shower would allow for direct heat when stepping out, as well as this central position would warm the room generally when you needed to take the chill out of the air.

Bath 2: In an 11' x 6' vanity-toilet-shower along one wall format, I would position the WW between the shower and toilet, allowing for both bathing warmth and vent usage.

Bath 3: Personally, I feel to use a WW in a 6' x 9' tub/toilet room is not overkill. You are looking for the CONVENIENCE of a heat/vent/light type product. We had the Nutone in a 5' x 8' tub/toilet room, and it worked just fine. Size appearance is another issue. Someone mentioned that the WW's grill is 18" x 16". The Nutone grill was 16" round, and it was attractive. I would suggest going to a dealer and actually seeing it firsthand, however.

How much does the WW cost, anyway? Can anyone recommend an online source?

Good luck with everything. My vote is on the WhisperWarm if 3 of them is in your budget.

Thank you for all the responses. Yesterday DH drove 50 miles to a semi-local dealer picked up a Panasonic pamphlet that had instructions for sizing a ventilation fan. No one in the store could explain the chart to him and he couldn't figure it out although he is both mathematical and handy with most mechanical things. Early tomorrow we'll try to get Panasonic on the phone or on-line but for now maybe one of you could tell us what this all means since the pamphlet doesn't define these terms.

Basically, the chart says we are trying to "achieve 8 ACH per HVI". It gives, for step 1, a formula for determining area of the bathroom: for 8' ceilings just width x length, for 10' to 12' ceilings area x 1.25, for 12' to 16' ceilings area x 1.5. For step 2 we need to find equivalent duct length and it gives an example of length of duct, elbows and wall cap of how to arrive at EDL. Then using the chart the intersection of EDL and area shows what fan to use.

We could get the EDL figure from the HVAC guy but what I suspect is that what this chart is really doing is just telling us what fan is the right size for exhaust and not for heating. Any insight will be appreciated.

P.S. Whatever we do with the exhaust and heat DH does say that the light with the 2 compact CFL's that is supposed to add up to 100 watts is rather wimpy so we'll be using another light source.

flseadog,

Did your DH actually see a unit...was there one on display? I looked on the internet last evening and found a page that addressed 'size of unit' for a WW. There seemed to be a lot of the same 'technical jargon' you referred to above. This is what I did:

Went to the Google search engine window and put in 'panasonic vent fans' or something like that. Several dealer names came up and I navigated to the page below:

http://www.rewci.com/panwhisfv.html (the page for the Heat/Vent unit)

Then navigated to :
http://www.rewci.com/panwhisfv1.html (the page for Heat/Vent/Light unit)

Somewhere along the way, I found the link to "How to Size". It is shown below. I only skimmed it briefly, but I remember it having a lot of 'technical info'. On this page, be sure to press the "NEXT" button to get to the part that explains 'how to size'. It may be the same data your DH picked up. If it is, he didn't need to drive 50 miles...but don't tell him I said so. :))

I found a dealer in my town, and I will go and look tomorrow. I wish us both good luck.

Mommielady

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Size your Vent

flseadog: I'd suggest you do the calculations before jumping to conclusions on this one. I used to keep a space heater in my master bathroom to help me deal with the chill after stepping out of the shower, but have stopped using it -- my heat pump costs less to run! My space heater draws 1500 watts on high and just barely does the bathroom, my central heat pump draws ~870 watts on low stage, ~1600 watts on high stage and does the whole house.

I have a kilowatt-hour meter (www.theenergydetective.com) meter installed and have the display sitting on the kitchen counter. I've actually measured my electrical usage of having the space heater on in the mornings vs. whole house heat pump and the heat pump wins each time. As a bonus, my whole house is warm, not just my bathroom.

I'll admit that I do run a bit of an unusual heat pump setup. With the way I had it designed the system the low stage is capable of handling the load, high stage is used only for peak usage (ie: rapidly changing the temperature or extreme conditions such as 95F ambient). I also use the extra capacity for a dehumidifcation algorithm that converts the air con into a large dehumidifier. 45% relative humidity feels awesome, especially in Florida, and my garden loves the 30-50 gallons/day that the system dumps out there.

With that said, on you've been looking at: The heater in the Panasonic heater/fans is a 1400 watt heater, just like a regular space heater (1500w), so expect about the same performance. These ceiling-mounted heaters have a much stronger blower in than than your conventional space heater, thus will heat the areas directly below them quite quickly, with it taking a bit of time for the heat to spread elsewhere throughout the room. I don't see the 9 & 10' ceilings being a major issue, it's not really THAT tall.

How fast are you wanting the the bathrooms to heat up? ( # of degrees / # of minutes) Is standing/sitting beneath the heater an acceptable option for you?

As for locations, I'm with ashlander on this one -- locate the heater/fan so you can sit/stand directly underneath it.
Also, for the master bathroom, I'd probably suggest using 2 vents. 1 by the shower area, 1 vent only in the toilet closet for obvious reasons.

What about heat for the enclosed toilet area?