XpelairC4TR 4-inch Simply Silent Contour Extractor Fan Timer Delay

Easy to install, with two optional speeds. Quiet in use and moves air very well. On windy days it can struggle against backdrafts from the vent as its quite genteel. Snap on and off cover takes nerves of steel to remove! Very pleased to date with fan.

Used to replace an old noisy fan that you could hear in the next door room. It was very easy to fit - just tighten the two ready fitted screws, which expand a lug on each side and secure it into the existing 10cm wide outlet pipe. Did not require any drilling of new holes, particularly helpful as the wall around the pipe is crumbling somewhat. The wiring took a bit of checking on the internet as I wasnt sure what the electrician had used for the switched main, but was also easy. In terms of operation it seems highly effective. It is is very quiet, and seems to clear smells highly effectively in what is a small loo. It may seem obvious but you need to set the timer before you put the middle section onto the housing, as you cant access it once the unit is fitted without taking it apart again. I am really pleased with it.

Pros: This is definitely quieter than the old extractor, but does become louder with the cowl on the front, which changes it from barely audible to the combined noise of air flow and a quiet howl/whir. If you have an extractor that sounds like some kind of turbine, this will be an improvement.Cons: The fan includes back-draught flaps in the design. However, there are two issues with them. Firstly, there's a gap of several millimetres around the edge so whilst they cut most of the back-draught, they certainly don't eliminate it. They are also very light (to match the airflow) and the wind can draw air from the room just as easily as it can close them. Even moderate winds result in the flaps opening and closing. With recent high winds the thing was loudly clacking once or twice a second which was very annoying and could be heard in other rooms. It you don't like irritating noises, I recommend removing the back-draught flaps and finding another solution.Fitting: Fitting is easy enough, but be warned that the hole in the backplate is at about the 3 o'clock position. If your power supply comes in from around 12 o'clock you'll need to carefully modify the backplate, and the circuit board is very close to this position.

Good for the money. I’d pay more for a model where I can change motor brushes or a brushless model, but until that happens this is still a good buy.

I bought the wrong one - I wanted humidity sensor- but got confused with selecting- so be careful- however the ramp up is so much quieter than the humidity sensor - same brand I’ve kept it

I bought this fan to replace an in-line fan because it said it was easy to fit and very quiet, and it had a humidity sensor so that it would operate automatically when needed. It was expensive but I was attracted by the ease of use and features.The fitting was more difficult that it would have you believe. The easy to use clips will presumably only work well if you have a perfectly flat ceiling with no artex. The wiring all has to be done above your head. It doesn't fit flat and the clip on cover is an absolute pain to get orientated correctly. Once you have it fitted it is very difficult to remove.You have to fit a condensation drain in the ducting with this fan, otherwise the condensate drains into the electrics. There is nowhere for the water to escape once it's in the body which some of it does anyway as the duct is vertical and you can't drain the first few inches.Once fitted, the fan was quiet, at least to start with. However after a few months it developed a low hum that was noisier than the fan it replaced. It would also come on at odd times - in the middle of the night, at 4pm in the afternoon, when you were in the bathroom cleaning your teeth - presumably every time the humidity reached a threshold. A humid day meant it was on all day - you can turn the sensitivity down, but there is no indication of how much and then maybe it won't come on at all.After ten months it failed completely and had to be replaced. It was badly designed, oversold, and over-complex. Not recommended.

I have heard others remark that this fan is not silent. While I would agree that it is not completely "silent", it is the quietest fan of its type that I have encountered. It is hardly noticeable from my hallway (with the bathroom door open) and inaudible with the bathroom door closed. Having been awoken by bathroom fans (with the door closed) in the past, I can say that this fan is a massive improvement on those cheap and nasty models. The humidistat feature is well worth the extra price just to ensure that it always does its job. (i.e. help prevent mould build up by removing airborne moisture in the bathroom). The timer alone does not give me the confidence that it will always finish the job that it started!

Good design, very aesthetically pleasing and easy to install (fits into duct then tighten two screws to raise "wings" out of sides which secure to duct). Take note when it says install level, otherwise backdraft shutter will NOT work. Wiring simple, although terminals really small so use smallest allowable mains cable.Extraction rate good, noise level very acceptable, timer operation great (mid-adjust is around 12-15mins) . Only complaint is back-draft shutter which has weak "springs" (2 very thin pieces of plastic sheet behind shutter which bend when fan pushes shutter open). These are insufficient to hold the shutter closed when it is anything at all windy outside (maybe this kind of mechanism can't work - if they were very stiff the fan wouldn't push it open?) and therefore the shutter clatters frequently (all night) during windy weather which is pretty annoying. Will probably remove shutter altogether next time I touch the thing.