Goedjn wrote:
On Wed, 31 May 2006 19:38:25 -0400, "JA"
wrote:

Would anyone like to weigh in on where I should vent a bathroom fan? (Not
the attic--I know that!) I've found that some home repair sites say it's OK
or preferred to vent through the soffit; others say this is nearly as bad as
venting into the attic and that one should vent through the roof; and yet
others say to avoid the roof and go through the soffit or gable end of the
house.

Does this all depend on where you live? For instance, in areas with heavy
snow, the roof vent could get blocked and therefore venting through the
soffit would be preferred, but everywhere else the roof is the way to go?
Is it really bad to vent through the soffit?


If you vent through the soffit, you want to make sure that
there aren't any soffit intake-vents within a fathom of
the out-vent. Otherwise all the moist air that you've just
carefully vented to the outside will just get sucked back
into to attic.


I'm not so sure it's all that bad. Some of the ejected air may wind up
going back in through adjacent soffit vents, but I doubt it will amount
to all that much. The air coming out of the vent is going to be moving
fairly rapidly, while the air intake of adjacent soffit vents is moving
very slowly, even on a hot day. Soffit venting is very common, a
large percentage of those have continuous soffit vents, and if it were
that big of an issue I think there would be widespread reports of
problems. The ones in my house here in NJ are all done that way and I
have no problems.