My twenty year old house has cheapo ceiling exhaust fans that clang and make all sorts of weird noises but they still work! If I were an Engineer calculating the fastest way to exhaust "foul smelling bathroom gases"...what kind of exhaust fan would I buy?
I would think running the fan for thirty seconds after the occurance of foul smelling gases should be quite a sufficient amount of time for a well planned exhaust fan to rid the bathroom of noxious odors!
Bill
Well if you want to handle it in 30 seconds, I suggest a couple of full size whole house attic fans and don't forget you will need inlets of at least equal area.
Rather than that, I suggest you get a good quiet exhaust fan of a size rated for your size bath or the next size up and add a delay timer so you can press the button and get 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes of exhaust and then it will turn itself off.
Even the largest of the "common" fart fans is not rated at much more than
100 CFM, which means it can theoretically evacuate a 5'x5'x4' area in a minute. In reality, the actual flow is much lower due to flow losses because of ductwork, grates, bug excluders, etc. You're probably looking at 5 minutes to completely exchange the atmosphere inside even a small bath...KB
Panasonic Whisper Ceiling. Hands down the best you'll find. Not cheap, though.
Run the fan while the 'gases' are being generated!
It's even worse that because the air mixes. So after a few minutes, you don't have a room of new air, you have a room of some old and some new. So to effectively clear a room it takes not one, but many changes.
I appreciate all your responses! I wonder if anyone has experimented with a "vacuum toilet" that actually traps the farts before they escape the bowl? Wonder if I could take a standard toilet and tap a vacuum line into it to efficiently remove foul smelling odors?
Bill
I understand from people who suffer from problems like this, that a dash of "Beano" does wonders in reducing the amount of gas produced in the first place. Available in the supplement isle of your local grocery store.
Interesting thought. I'm sure it could be done, but I would think a toilet
*seat* with this capability would work about as well. One of the advantages would be that it could be installed on an existing commode.I agree with this idea -- tap a vacuum line into the seat not the porcelain, easy-to-crack toilet. "They" make snap-on bidet connections, it might be easy to replace that swing arm with a vacuum connection. But, uh, where's the vacuum coming from?
On the Beano track, we used to try and hide our Dorm room party-odors with various room fresheners. Ozium used to work real well. One drop on a light bulb and it worked pretty well.
Also, on a GI level, consider that rectal gas is merely the leftover from a chemical reaction occuring in your stomach. You could try to adjust your stomach "flora and fauna" to tip the balance of the equation. Something's not breaking down "gracefully" and that's what your smelling...
Howard "amateur gas-producer"
But the most important function of the exhaust fan is to remove excess moisture from the air due to showers, etc., thus inhibiting the growth of mold and mildew. A toilet based device will not accomplish that. You need the fan in any case.
I tried it a few years ago. Took the fire department 45 minutes to get me detached, and the ensuing rush of vacuum nearly sucked a fireman down the drain. But constipation was *never* a problem.
You might be able to change your own diet, but what do you do when visitors arrive? Hand them a jar full of supplements? We have the ideal solution here in Tennessee, we show them the way to the outhouse.
Bob
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