I’m Deb Kowalski, and in my Port St. Lucie house, the bathroom exhaust fan is easy to forget once the shower is done. As of mid-September 2026, here in Florida, I know the reflex from my own house: leave it running all day, figuring more fan time must mean a drier house. I used to treat the switch as though my choices were off too soon or on indefinitely. It is a neat bit of household logic, which is not the same as a good instruction.
That reflex mixes up two jobs. One is getting shower steam outdoors. The other is providing continuous ventilation for the house. A bathroom fan can be used for either purpose, but the reason you run it matters more than the reassuring sound it makes. Before leaving mine on by habit, I want to know which job I am asking it to do.
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What the Building America Solution Center says
The Building America Solution Center gives a shower-specific recommendation: “It is recommended to leave the fan running for one hour after a shower for effective humidity control.” That gives me a useful stopping point for the familiar shower-steam job, rather than an instruction to let the fan hum until somebody notices it…