On Wed, 6 Apr 2011 07:02:50 -0700 (PDT), N8N
wrote:

Was it ever acceptable by code to vent a bathroom fan to an attic? I
was helping my cousin over the weekend with some minor renovations to
her condo - she wanted to replace the fan in one of the bathrooms, and

Why did she want to do that? Too loud, not removing the vapor fast
enough, not removing the smell of cleaning products....?

when I went up into the attic to unhook it I found that both it and
the one in the master bathroom were not vented to the outside, but had
a maybe 4' piece of dryer duct just tied to the trusses and venting
into the attic.

Originally I thought that this might have been a shortcut taken by the
roofers that replaced her roof just before she moved in, but either
they replaced none of the sheathing or all of it as it all looked
consistent. Also I took a look at other similar units as I was
walking down the street and I didn't see any vent caps in the likely
locations on any of the roofs.

The way she explained it to me was that anything done to the outside
of any of the condos was taken care of by the association, not her
(e.g. roofs, siding etc.) so knowing exactly who to yell at would be
important.

Maybe that's just a firgure of speech, but you're not going to get
anywhere by yelling. The current directors of the condo assoc. didn't
build the buildings and the original boardt probably had no input
either.

What are you looking for, permission to put a hole in the roof? I can
see them giving you permission, but unwilling to pay for what they
will see as in improvement to the inside, which the owner is
responsible for. Or maybe they'll decide that everyone needs better
vents, and they should match, and they'll hire a contractor to do all
of them, and each owner will pay the furll price for his share.

I have two bathrooms upstairs back to back and each has a sheet-metal
pipe going up to 1 or 2 inches below the ventilated ridge rail. They
didn't get in the way of the roofer, who replaced the plastic ridge
rail.

I rarely use the fans and I must admit when I'm naked and drying off,
it's the least likely time for me to go into the attic, but I think
this proximity to the roof, one or two inches, is enough to disperse
the exhaust outside. If the roof has any output vents running the
exhaust to one of them seems like the easisst and cheapest.



Worst case, I guess, would be that this was a shortcut taken by the
original builder some 15-20 years ago, and it's not going to be
fixed...

nate