Hi all,
Finally got up into my attic today to poke around and see what was what. Yes, I bought my house two years ago, but never had a reason to go up into the attic before. The reason I was going up there was to assess what I had to do to add a ceiling fan in the bathroom.
Good news: ceiling of 2nd floor appears to be framed with 2x6's, and I mean real old-school 2x6's not what passes for same today. Also roof was scratch built, no trusses, so even though I have a tiny house, the attic space could actually be usable for storage if it became necessary.
Bad news: as is normal practice, the ceiling joists run crossways across the house and tie into the rafters, unlike the lower floors where the
1st and 2nd floor floor joists run the length of the house (spliced above a load bearing wall next to the central stairwell.) I was surprised to find this, however, because it makes my proposed fan install more difficult, and because I actually had reason to believe that it wouldn't be like this (see below.)Why I thought my house was framed oddly:
In the master bedroom, the ceiling has several parallel cracks running exactly parallel to the long dimension of the house. They are very evenly spaced about 13-14" apart. I ASSumed that this was due to wet insulation (the roof was replaced by the POs of the house) causing excessive load on the ceiling between the joists, but the cracks are running perpendicular to the joists. Also the insulation is bone dry, but that doesn't tell me anything as it's had several years to dry out. The wall/ceiling construction in this house is plaster over gypsum lath. Any ideas as to what this cracking could indicate?
Finally, my immediate issue and reason for being in the attic was to try to plan the install of a vent fan for the bathroom. Since I'd thought that the ceiling joists would run lengthwise, my initial plan was to simply install the fan between two joists in the bathroom ceiling, point the outlet towards the side wall of the house, and cut a dryer-vent type vent hood on the outside wall, connecting the two with a straight piece of duct. Obviously, since the joists run perpendicular to the direction that I suspected that they did, I can not do this, at least not easily (I'd have to cut a 4" hole in a 6" board until I got to the side of the house, which would probably indicate reinforcing each joist with angle iron or similar, that's a lot of work.) My house does not have any soffits at all - the roof ends just past the edge of the exterior wall, so I can't use a soffit vent. I do not want to cut a hole in the roof for a roof vent, as it is this weird pressed aluminum stuff that I guess is supposed to emulate the look of cedar shakes. So that leaves me back to my original plan which would be to go out through the side wall. But to do this now would involve two 90 degree bends in the ductwork (I suppose I might be able to get away with a 45 and a 90) and the ductwork would be above the joists meaning that I would have to then use insulated duct. No big deal, but would the extra bends in the ductwork cause an issue, and should I then uprate the CFM of the fan? The bath is 5'x7' including the bath/shower area (yes, it *is* a tiny house, why do you ask?) so I was figuring on a 50CFM fan, specifically one of these:
thoughts, comments, concerns?
nate