Panasonic WhisperWarm Ceiling Mount Bathroom Exhaust Fan with LED Light & Heater, 50-80-110 CFM, FV-0511VHL1

I hadn't ever been asked to install one of these, but with three user-selectable fan speeds to choose from (just pull down the panel and move the 3-position switch), we selected this Panasonic heater/vent-fan/light unit for use in our own home, as a replacement for the old heater-only unit that came with the house. The wife is now very happy - fantastic! We had to add a 3-conductor (w/ground) Romex NM cable in order to get enough conductors for the additional functions that this unit added, but that wasn't hard. It still uses the same 20-Amp service from the original heater and lights in the bathroom. The availability of double and triple Decora-type rocker switches made the changeover in the switch box easy, although we gave up on having a dimmer for the vanity lights in the 2-gang switch box on the wall, instead of installing a 3-gang switch box (it's a very small bathroom). That's okay, because the separate "night light" built into the unit serves the same purpose for us, i.e. allowing low-level light at night when we have houseguests or don't want to turn on bright lights in the middle of the night. I'm glad that Panasonic chose 3000K for the color temperature of the LEDs in this unit (both the main and night lights), because that's the same color of light put out by halogen incandescents, only using a fraction of the electricity. I'm not sure if they're using a "wax motor" to move the damper between heater and fan modes (there's just one fan motor for both functions), but it takes about eight seconds to silently move between the two positions, and I don't hear a gearmotor. There's also a "soft start" on the fan motor, so it starts gently, without any jarring sounds at start-up (nice). On the MEDIUM fan speed (80 CFM), when installed in an 8-foot ceiling, the warm downward draft of air from the heater is a real treat while toweling off after a hot shower on cold winter nights. With my short hair, I can almost use it as a hair dryer.

When we used this as a replacement for an older fan that had a heater unit, we found that newer units require different wiring for the heater than previous ones. If you don't, you will blow out the heater unit. Also our previous fan was vented to the crawl space and this unit contains more electronics and is sensitive to condensation - odd for a bathroom fan. We didn't realize the problem and it ended up causing the fan to short out when condensation from our crawl space collected in the unit. Our first installer didn't recognize these differences and we ended up eating the cost of this unit. After getting lots of electrical diagnosis performed to determine the issues - we got another type of unit that doesn't have the heater. Also we now have our fan venting outside. This turned out to be a very expensive project.