Ventilating a 'sealed' shower cubicle?

[Lobster]

Am finally finishing my refurb of the ensuite shower room, which has involved lining out the new shower with laminated board ('Multipanel').

I'd reckoned on almost certainly having to put an extractor fan in through the ceiling, but as this will be an easy add-on later, thought I'd suck-it-and-see, ie just try the shower out first and see whether it's definitely needed.

However, the shower has a sliding-door, and the area above the door is boxed in, which means that in effect the shower cubicle will be a fairly well-sealed box. It's kind of dawned on me that I'm going to have a problem with any extractor fan, as it will be essentially sucking ineffectually on a vacuum, since there will be nowhere for replacement air to enter. Bummer.

So, just wondering how to get round this one. Only thing I can come up with is to drill a series of (upwardly-pointing) holes through the laminate down near floor-level, and then cover these with a siliconed plastic vent cover, as typically used for ventilating bricked-up chimney breasts. Sounds a bit naff though (thinking of my expensive laminate!) and also SWMBO's banging on about Legionnaire's bugs incubating behind the grille.

Anybody got any better solutions?

Thanks David

[ARWadsworth]

Timer overun fan and just let it dry off after you have finished your shower when the sliding door is open

[andrew]

A heat recovery fan setup would work - they have a heat exchanger, and air flows both ways. Damp air is extracted and replaced by fresh air from outside, which is warmed on the way through by the air being extracted.

Something like

there are probably cheaper versions.

A

[Lobster]

Yep that would do it; however the other concern (which I didn't mention) is that while in use the sealed shower would become a total steam bath - I've been in showers like that before and it's actually pretty hard to breathe - so really looking for a solution that allows for vapour to be removed ongoing, during the shower

David

[NT]

Yes. The problem with forced ventilation is that its either inadequate, in which case you still get steamed, or if the steam is cleared you get cold air blowing over you all the time, which is no good either. Concentrating the input down to one small vent only makes that worse.

NT

[andrew]

I posted my calculations for the office back in May:

"I need 36000litres/person/hr which is about 45kg/person/hr with an average difference in temperature from ambient of 10C and 15 people in occupation for around 10 hours I make that 18.75kWhr(t) needed to heat incoming fresh air with a cost of about GBP0.65625. Even if I get 50% of that heat back I'm not going to make much of a dent in our energy spend."

I cannot see the extra cost being worthwhile, though it will allow for faster than required air turnover which may be better.

I'm having a problem seeing how these self contained units maintain sufficient distance for the incoming and outgoing streams to remain separate.

AJH

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

A 2nd vent in the roof? or... smaller bore 40mm ? vents one in each corner of the cubicle. This may make a nice air-flow in effect sweeping steam into and up a central vent fan reducing any chilling down blast. or simply run a 2nd vent through the roof and back down into the bedroom allowing warmer air into the shower cubicle.

Pete

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