Bathroom exhaust fans venting in attic. Problem?

[Rob]

Hello, I was doing some cable fishing in my attic today and I noticed that two of the bathrooms on the second floor have their exhaut fans terminating in the attic. Actually the end of the exhaust duct is laying on the soffit vent. Is this proper under most building codes? The attic has good ventilation with the soffit and ridge vents. But I am still not happy with what the builder did.

I was thinking of using a wall cap and cutting a 5''x5'' hole in the soffit and venting it this way as opposed to putting another PVC stack thru the roof. Has anyone tried this before and is it any better than what the builder did?

[Joseph Meehan]

Venting through the soffit might be OK but you don't want it located where it will just be picked up by a vent.

You are right to be concerned with what is there now.

[HeatMan]

They do make a vent cover that is designed to go in the soffit.

[George E. Cawthon]

Your builder should be hung as he obviously violated building codes. No exhaust vent may terminate in the attic. Anything you do is better than what he did, so you could run it out the soffit, but the best solution is to run the vent up through the roof.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, B4 he could have a flooding or ice build up in the attic! That's pretty bad and good thing you caught it. Tony

[Roger]

Would be less back pressure if ran straight up thru roof, but that invites other probs of making a leakproof penetration *after* roofing is applied. I would therefore go with a standard soffit vent - with 1/8 or 1/4 inch screen to keep out vermin - for that size of vent duct. Leaving the duct on the soffit vent is pointless, and just pumps warm moist air directly into the attic space. This is really a no no. Could be, this was not the intention of the builder, and someone else was supposed to complete the job, but never showed up, or job was unsupervised. You might compare notes with homes built at the same time in your neighborhood.

[Rob]

Would you happen to know where these can be purchased or a web link that gives more information on this?

thanks

[John McGaw]

I bought two through-the-soffit vents for the remodel of my upstairs bathrooms from the local borg (Home Depot or Lowe's, can't remember which). These are relatively inexpensive plastic units with a screened opening and a snap on hood. Quite easy to hook up from the outside of the house if there is a bit of slack in the flexible duct -- just cut the opening in the correct place, pull the duct through, clamp in over the snout, and screw the vent in place. This is FAR easier than messing about in the attic, especially if you have a lot of insulation up there.

[Rob]

Thanks, but unfortunately, the roof line is about 35-40 feet from the ground so the only solution is to go at it from the attic. I want to fix the problem, but not kill myself in the process.

[tflfb]

I tried that ....up through the roof then I had condensation dripping out of the exhaust fan in the winter I exited it to the soffit.

Tom

[George E. Cawthon]