Venting a Bathroom Fan into the Soil Stack.

I'm no expert on these things, but I'd have thought that if the top of the stack became obstructed for any reason, your fan could be sending a positive pressure down the stack, which could siphon out a u-bend.

Have a word with the BCO...

In article , darren_forward writes

Probably a bad plan, the slightest back flow (of air) will cause a hell of a stink (your one way valve is unlikely to be perfect).

Yeeeurgh! Unless you run the fan 24/7, there will be a backflow.

You really weant to connect your bathroom up to the soil stack? Does it smell too sweet at the moment?

I should think that it would be a toss up as to who would be the most annoyed at this: the BCO or anyone else you live with that would enjoy the new perfume...

Of course not. Why would you even consider it?

Errrm - no! It may be possible, or even legal. But do you want to connect your bathroom directly to a sewer?

lol, some people!

Makes my concrete reinforced vinyl door look sensible.

NT

I doubt that a wimpy bathroom extractor fan could generate enough pressure to do that.

I have seen an installation with a fan tee-ed into a soil stack (not even with any sort of valve in the line). AFAIK there was no problem with smell, but I re-did it properly anyway.

John how did you do it.

Many thanks

Darren

????

The practicalities of teeing in to a soil stack would be very straightforward - I hesitate to even suggest you look at

Even John says he changed the fan so it extracted properly (and didn't install it into the soil stack himself) - and everyone has explained that it would be a really Bad Idea to do it. So why on *earth* would you even still be considering it??

David

Even if it is on all the time, with the wind in the wrong direction ...

Probably because it is the easiest solution, has been contemplated for several hours, and by the sheer mind-controlling willpower of the installer it must work because they have decreed it to.

Been there, thought I knew better, didn't want to accept damn good advice from others more experienced, got the bruises to show for it... ! :-)

So if the original poster still plans to go ahead, then can we suggest that they don't make good the job in such a way that removal is yet more expensive than it could be. And also, could they post back here in a few weeks time with an honest account of how the installation has fared?

Mungo

P.S. Somehow reminds me of the bod who wanted his music centre in one room and an extra set of speakers in another room. The amplifier could take two pairs of speakers, he did have the additional speakers, the only thing holding back this marvel of installation was routing the wires from room to room. And then a lightbulb appeared, with the reasoning that there already is a cable installed between the two rooms, conveniently terminated in a square pin socket... Bang.

P.P.S. Why is it called a "square pin socket" when the pins are rectangular?

Mungo said the following on 06/02/2006 11:24:

because the pins have square edges ;-)

And there's me thinking that a square had four edges. You live and learn...

Mungo :-)

...to tell the difference between a noun, an adjective and a verb?

English does have this irritating habit of using the same word for all three, something American and Corporate Speak can't seem to cope with.

Which in turn reminds me ([fx: klaxons] Warning! Thread veering dangerously OT!!!) of many years ago when cars didn't usually have rear screen heaters and you could buy stick-on ones, I saw an Escort van whose owner had bought a car-sized stick-on rear-windows heater and cut it in half down the middle and stuck one piece on each of his van's back door windows.

Steer clear of that idea just because of the potential smell proble

-- Cordless Crazy

But what you could probably do if you could find or bodge suitable connectors, is to use most of the pipe going through the roof for the fan, and just run a narrow bore (30mm ish) pipe inside it for the vent from the soil stack.

Goodness knows how youd make the connections, and it wouldn't look at all pretty, and the fan still might not have the guts to push the air that far, and smells might still come down (but at least you've reduced the odds) and rain might come down.

But other than that, it seems like a good idea :=))

I suppose another option might be to fit an air admitance valve to the stack either within the bathroom or within the loft and then use the redundant length of pipe to vent the fan.

but most of the above provisos still apply, but I hate AAVs and wouldn't recommend their use unless there is no other option.