On Thu, 7 Apr 2011 05:24:53 -0700 (PDT), N8N
wrote:
On Apr 6, 9:31*pm, mm wrote:
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....?
All of those, and more importantly, she didn't like the look of the
original fan anyway which was some builder-grade thing that didn't fit
her sense of style. She got one of those fan/light combos which just
look like a light fixture and have a quieter fan than your typical
builder thing, which I installed for her. I left it with a sheetmetal
90 and maybe 3' of hard duct sticking up and strapped to the trusses
(roughly equivalent to what was there before, but using proper duct
instead of dryer hose) so that she could use the bathroom, but I don't
consider it a complete job yet.
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.
In real life I'm a PM so "yelling at someone" is the standard figure
Portable Minister? Public Muffin? Prime Minister?
Plastic Masticator? Private Marine? Presumptive Manipulator?
of speech for contacting them and asking them to do something 
(unfortunately, some of my customers take it too literally...)
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.
AFAICT if something needs to be done to the roof or siding, the
association will hire the contractor to do the work, not the condo
owner. So if she just called someone in (or we did it ourselves) she
could get her wrist slapped, and she's trying to stay on their good
side, as apparently there was already an issue with a storage
container staying in her driveway too long when she moved in because
the moving people didn't come pick it up quickly enough.
Horrors!
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.
You know, I didn't even notice if she had a ridge vent or not. I know
that she has soffit vents because you can see light near the edge of
the roof when up there with the light off. I'm starting to like the
idea of using a soffit vent, I didn't think of that while I was up
there (honestly, I was just thinking that there would be proper
venting in place and that at worst I'd have to run to the store and
get a transition, if the existing vent was a different size, so I
wasn't thinking of all the options.) No gable vents (not possible,
units built side by side, although hers is at the end of her block of
units, so she does have one end wall.)
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.
No, there are no existing vents that I can see. She has 2.5 baths,
I was counting the ridge vent, if it has one.
and the two full ones are the ones that are definitely not vented
correctly. The half bath is on the 2nd floor (of three) and I didn't
look for that vent (it would have to be on the back of the building,
and I don't think I was ever in the back yard) but that's less of a
concern because there's no shower in there.
We also replaced the vanity sink in the half bath and I'll have to
I have a fan in my half bath downstairs, and after 28 years here, I
still don't know where the air goes. I've got at least 100 hours in
the attic, much of it around the stack, I think it's called. I know
there's a chimney in it, but don't remember any vent for the powder
room. I have two of the small vents on the roof -- I know because I
bought replacements when I thought I woudl do the roof myself. And
then I gave them to the roofer. If I had, at the other side of my
townhouse a similar pipe to the ones from the other two baths, I'm
sure I'd remmeber it. So where does the air go?
P&M
take a closer look at that when I am next over there, I'm not sure
that that is vented properly with a real vacuum break, it looks just
like a regular PVC cap with some holes drilled in it. So definitely
there have been some corners cut 
nate