We just did a complete gut renovation of our bathroom and we installed a fan/light combo unit in the ceiling...The bathroom didn't have one before..The plastic duct goes up thru a foot of insulation into unheated attic and over 6 feet to the outside wall to a soffit vent..Now that is just above zero I get a few drops of water dripping from the fan after a shower..Is this normal and if not what did I do wrong ?? Thanks...
Given the cold temperature, it is condensing before the vent can carry out the moisture laden air. You can probably benefit by insulating the vent pipe a bit further or by leaving the bathroom door open a bit to vent some of that moisture into the rest of the house.
Is the fan running when this happens?
What is the purpose of the fan anyhow? To keep the mirror from steaming up?
I would leave the fan off, let the room fill with steam, which after I opened the bathroom door, maybe a little bit at a time as I dried off, would escape to the rest of the house, warming it and increasing its humidity, which is usually adviseable in the winter.
No wasted heat. Instead of blowing it up the vent outside where it's not enough to warm the outside.
What you did wrong was to run the vent pipe uninsulated through the cold attic. Normally the pipe is below the insulation. I'd re-route it as necessary so that it's on top of the existing insulation, then add more insulation on top. Or as suggested use an insulated vent pipe.
Bingo
*Moisture is condensing from the cold in the attic. Replace the plastic flexible duct with metal duct. Seal the joints with foil tape. Wrap the metal duct with duct wrap insulation and tape the insulation seams with foil tape. If possible, pitch the duct so that water flows away from the fan. Water can pool in low spots inside the plastic flexible duct and lay there for a long time.
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I don't even have a fan. Code does not require on if you have a window. We leave the door open a few inches and have never had a problem. I don't see the need to barricade the bathroom just because someone is in the shower. I do, however, have a cute butt so I can understand that others may want to see me naked.
People use them for fart removers. I don't use one nor need one either. Keep a can of air freshener on the toilet for those who need to cover nature.
The pipe should be insulated or run under the attic insulation but now in winter you can benefit from the free humid heat, just cover the fan with plastic, no warm air will enter and no condensation. Is that a quality unit with louvers that close so warm air isnt always escaping? In winter I dont use my blower vent.
I wouldn't quit your day job for a new career in home construction. A fan is required by code in almost every location in the US for two reasons: Odor control for the toilet and moisture control fror the bath/shower. One is an annoyance, the other is essential to keeping mold under control. Letting the room fill with steam over the long run will at a minimum create a surface mold problem and potentially create a problem behind the surface.
the other is essential to keeping mold under control. Letting the
bull,
open the window in the summer and open the door in the winter.
I've never had bath fans, and have never had mold problems.
Humidity is a good thing to have in the house in the winter.
Bath fans are wasteful of energy and that they are now code in many places is an example of misguided government "help".
Mark
I"m not saying he shouldn't have a fan. And I accept the fan for odor control, although my toilet doesn't smell bad, only my gases on occaions.
I don't believe that. I have a fan in every bathroom because none have windows (and the've all been unplugged or put on their own switch), but prior to living here, everywhere I lived had windows and no fans and no one opened the window in the winter, and they and no evidence of mold, let alone a mold problem.
In the other three seasons, people opened the windows for fresh air, but now that people have AC, this probably applies all year long.
What I think is the case is that a few people have a mold problem so they made a rule to remedy that by requiring a fan in every bathroom without a window and recommending its use by everyone. That is the kind of scattergun solution that is applied to many problems. This is understandable with say, smallpox vaccination, or even measles vaccination, but not here.
My mother was against ever locking the bathroom door. She said people can slip on the tile floor or even more likely, in the bathtub, and hurt themselves falling onto the hard floor or the hard bathtub, lie there unconscious or unable to unlock the door, and people outside won't be able to help them. I think when she grew up** bathroom door locks were harder or impossible to open from the outside, and even now a lot of people don't know how to open "privacy locks". She said closing the door ought to be enough to keep people from walking in (and I think she would add, even if they did walk in, it wouldn't kill anyone.)
**Actually, until she was 10 or more her family only had an outhouse. I don't think anyone locks the door to real outhouses, as opposed to portapotties. >
No fan in our bathroom - if it gets too humid I open the door, or the window. If it gets too smelly I open the window. Never any mold or mildew problems, and as mentioned before by others - it helps keep the humidity up. We don't have a humidifier on our furnace either.
in summer they are good.
On 12/26/2010 9:54 AM Mark spake thus:
Bullshit yourself. Just shows how ignorance goes round and round in the world, now aided by high-speed electronic communication networks.
I installed a vent fan in a bathroom for a client this summer, and it was sorely needed. The bathroom was starting to grow mold on the walls--and this was in a tiny bathroom with a large window that could be (and was) opened to let out moisture.
The Panasonic fan I installed uses very little energy; something like 65 watts for the fan. I installed it on a timer (mechanical wind-up timer), so it will always go off automatically. Not a huge energy waster, and performs a very useful function.
Like someone else said here, I wouldn't be too quick to quit your day job to go into home construction.
On 12/26/2010 12:13 PM EXT spake thus:
With all due respect, I don't see how that's always possible.
The exhaust fan I installed was vented through the roof, so this would have been impossible. I think you were assuming the fan was vented through a wall?
65 watts is not very little. 2, 5, maybe 10 is very little. 65 is as much as a 65-watt light bulb.
You must mean that it's not on long, and that is usually true.
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