Panasonic WhisperFit Ceiling Mount Bathroom Exhaust Fan with Dimmable LED Light, 50-80-110 CFM, FV-0511VFL1

Overall, I’m happy with the fan. It does exactly what I wanted. That said, it is not a slam dunk installation. Let’s go through the good the bad and the ugly.

GOOD:
It is as quiet as they say it is. I have a small bathroom with a shower in it. 85 ft². The old New Tone fan was driving me crazy with the noise. In theory, I should set the new Panasonic fan to 85 CFM, the middle setting, but I decided to go for broke and set it for 110 CFM. I am able to hear it when it’s on, but it is very quiet and not intrusive. It’s comforting to know that if I get cranky I can slow it down and it should do a good job.

It does come with instructions which will get you through the project. I would give them a “C” .

It came with a 4-in to 3 in adapter which was nice since my rain hood that goes through the wall of the house is a 3-in. I ran 4-in aluminum flexible ducting and it is very quiet.

The Fex-Z-Fast mounting bracket is a good addition. I initially thought I wouldn’t bother with it, but it makes things much easier.

They have a template for marking where to saw the drywall to make the mounting hole. That also is simple but very effective.

THE BAD
Not much in this category. It’s a pricey bathroom ventilation fan. Amortized over 20 years, who cares?

THE UGLY
The instructions were written by somebody in a hurry. I was spoiled recently by buying a wheelbarrow online. It came with A+ instructions: the parts came on a blister card; each blister numbered with a step from the diagram. Each step in the diagram contained only one step. It was well illustrated. Expect the opposite here.

There are screws in little packs or taped in various places with only minimal explanation about what they’re for. I’m either very smart or very lucky, but it all went together eventually with nothing left over. It was a challenge!

The first problem with the instructions is you are apparently supposed to mount the control unit and the main fan body by using self-drilling screws that go through the sliding rails of the bracket. I’ve never seen anything like this before. I finally gave up looking for mounting holes or attached nuts and decided to just go through the drywall and the rails of the mounting bracket. That seemed to be what you’re supposed to do. It would help if they told you that.

There are two sets of instructions. One is an overall set of instructions; the other is primarily for the Flex-Z-Fast mounting bracket, but it also includes abbreviated instructions for mounting the fan. It took me a while to figure out that these were more or less parallel instructions. They are not labeled as such, so you have to read through each several times in order to figure out what domain they cover. Of course, they could have written one set of instructions that included everything. Maybe the instructions were written by a committee?

OVERALL
The fan is great once installed. It is quiet, really! The kit is complete. All you need is tools, tape, and ducting to an outside wall.

It is possible to install from below, but you would still have to deal with what you do with the other end of the duct! Still, it’s nice to be able to work in a warm well-lit environment at the top of a step ladder, rather than balancing on rafters in the attic.

The instructions are somewhat disorganized and slap dash. If you have experience with DIY projects, you’ll probably get through it. I wish they would ask me to rewrite their directions. The writing skill required is to look at the project from the point of view of the consumer, preferably a medium-skill consumer. There’s a whole field of engineering that studies how to make machines and projects easy to use. It’s called Human Engineering. In essence, it involves giving a project to a newbie and watching where they stumble. Then revise, repeat, revise.

When it’s finished, it is quiet and effective, and a big improvement over economy fans.

4/4/24: revised review: the speed setting makes no difference. You would think that between 55 CFM and 110 CFM there would be a detectable difference in sound level. I realize it takes a minute, literally, to spin up to speed. Nonetheless, a meter shows no difference in dB. I don’t have an air flow meter, but placing a damp hand near the intake doesn’t suggest any difference in air flow.

Panasonic customer support is zero, nada, indifferent, eliminated to generate more profits? I have tried four different phone numbers. They all either go to voicemail or are disconnected. I got a return text from one, which sent me to a different department, which didn’t respond. Emails, four of them so far, have gone unanswered. Evidently, my question about malfunctioning of the speed switch is not important enough to bother with, or they have cannibalized the customer service department in order to keep stockholders happier. Capitalism at its finest!

For residential proejcts, thisis one of the top qulaity product. Good qulaity and quiet.
The product is pricy though!

It’s shocking how quiet this fan is. I tried all three speeds, and left it on the fastest, since it was still barely audible. We paired it with a timer switch, and a six foot length of the accordion tubing, and it is working really well. The light was split to a separate on/off switch.

Although I have not installed this fan/light yet, I have installed many of this model. Ultra quiet, easy installation, does a great job of ventilation. # 1 in my book

I bought this for our bathroom renovation and I don’t know who was more impressed; me or the contractor. I wasn’t 100% sure how much air I wanted to flow from this bathroom, so we set it on the middle setting, but it gives me some piece of mind to know if I need more airflow, I can just pop off the cover and adjust it to the high setting if needed. A word of warning, when you switch the fan on, it starts slow and then speeds up. It takes about 30 seconds for it to spool up enough you can even hear it. The first time I tried it, I assumed it wasn’t working and got laughed at by my electrician who urged a little patience. The light is great too. He wired it up so one switch turns on the fan and one turns on the light. This unit was exactly what I was looking for. Quiet. Looks great. Super quality unit.