I have an older home with a bathroom that has poor ventilation which
causes shower steam to coat the walls with moisture. In effect this
yields unwanted mould on the bathroom ceiling and other places like
tile grout and shower curtains. The differences between my bathroom
and a large petrie dish are begining to blur.
I have accepted the fact that I have to install an exhaust fan come
spring time
so I am begining to do a bit of research on the easiest method to
install an exhaust fan in an older home. I came accross this PDF
http://www.gov.ns.ca/energy/enerinfo/ventold.pdf which is a good start.
After reading this I realized that the most effective way to install an
exhaust fan is on an exterior wall, exhausting directly to the
outdoors. Does any one see any potential issues besides a proper way
to insulate? Looking forward to your replies.


Rainer

I have an older home with a bathroom that has poor ventilation which
causes shower steam to coat the walls with moisture. In effect this
yields unwanted mould on the bathroom ceiling and other places like
tile grout and shower curtains. The differences between my bathroom
and a large petrie dish are begining to blur.
I have accepted the fact that I have to install an exhaust fan come
spring time
so I am begining to do a bit of research on the easiest method to
install an exhaust fan in an older home. I came accross this PDF
http://www.gov.ns.ca/energy/enerinfo/ventold.pdf which is a good start.
After reading this I realized that the most effective way to install an
exhaust fan is on an exterior wall, exhausting directly to the
outdoors. Does any one see any potential issues besides a proper way
to insulate? Looking forward to your replies.


Here are a couple of thoughts (I didn't read your link, so sorry if this is
repeated!)

Assuming your bathroom has access to an attic (i.e. if the bathroom ceiling is
the floor of the attic)...

If you have roof ridge vents and if you have access to the bathroom ceiling,
you can vent the fan near the ridge vents. Just take the tube from the fan and
mount the other end as near the ridge vent as you can. The theory is that hot
air rises and so most of the moisture will go out the ridge vent. This will
allow you to place the fan on an interior wall or the ceiling rather than an
exterior wall.

Maybe I am using the wrong term. By ridge vent I mean that your roof has one
long vent running along the peak of the roof.

Another tip, I tied the electric power to the fan to a light in the bathroom.
That way, any time the light is on, the fan is on. With the logistics I had,
it would have been a royal pain to make a switch for the fan itself.

One last thing, if you do vent out an exterior wall, look to see if you have
soffit vents. A soffit vent is located on the bottom of the eaves of your
roof. These soffit vents are the air intake for your attic. You do not want
to vent the steam of the bathroom near those soffit vents or you will be
pumping moisture into your attic.

Hope this helps.

I have the same problem with steam and moisture build up, and I do have a
exhaust fan that is vented to the soffit eves.

I turned down the temp on the water heater, and that has helped but I need a
more powerful exhaust fan, and have not found one as of yet. I have tried to
keep the bathroom door shut when not in use, to keep it and the walls and
tile as warm as possible, so there not that much sweating when the shower is
used.

The fan I have is for a 50sq ft room, but the larger fans don't seem to pull
that much more air.

Tom


wrote in message
ps.com...
I have an older home with a bathroom that has poor ventilation which
causes shower steam to coat the walls with moisture. In effect this
yields unwanted mould on the bathroom ceiling and other places like
tile grout and shower curtains. The differences between my bathroom
and a large petrie dish are begining to blur.
I have accepted the fact that I have to install an exhaust fan come
spring time
so I am begining to do a bit of research on the easiest method to
install an exhaust fan in an older home. I came accross this PDF
http://www.gov.ns.ca/energy/enerinfo/ventold.pdf which is a good start.
After reading this I realized that the most effective way to install an
exhaust fan is on an exterior wall, exhausting directly to the
outdoors. Does any one see any potential issues besides a proper way
to insulate? Looking forward to your replies.


Rainer

There is also a remote unit made by Fantech, as well as others I'm sure.
This mounts in the attic and only a small round easy to install vent has to
be cut in the ceiling. From my experience though,once mold spore gets into
the plaster or sheetrock,its damn near impossible to kill. I can't tell you
how many fans I've installed for this exact reason and it doesn't cure the
problem
wrote in message
ps.com...
I have an older home with a bathroom that has poor ventilation which
causes shower steam to coat the walls with moisture. In effect this
yields unwanted mould on the bathroom ceiling and other places like
tile grout and shower curtains. The differences between my bathroom
and a large petrie dish are begining to blur.
I have accepted the fact that I have to install an exhaust fan come
spring time
so I am begining to do a bit of research on the easiest method to
install an exhaust fan in an older home. I came accross this PDF
http://www.gov.ns.ca/energy/enerinfo/ventold.pdf which is a good start.
After reading this I realized that the most effective way to install an
exhaust fan is on an exterior wall, exhausting directly to the
outdoors. Does any one see any potential issues besides a proper way
to insulate? Looking forward to your replies.


Rainer

"Another tip, I tied the electric power to the fan to a light in the
bathroom.
That way, any time the light is on, the fan is on. With the logistics I
had,
it would have been a royal pain to make a switch for the fan itself."

I would advise against doing that as it wastes energy in two ways.
First, there will be lots of times when you want the light on, but
don't need the fan. With the fan forced on with the light, it's
drawing cooled/heated air and pumping it out of the house. Second,
when you want to leave the fan on for 10/15 mins after taking a shower,
the light will have to be on too.

wrote:

I have an older home with a bathroom that has poor ventilation which
causes shower steam to coat the walls with moisture. In effect this
yields unwanted mould on the bathroom ceiling and other places like
tile grout and shower curtains. The differences between my bathroom
and a large petrie dish are begining to blur.
I have accepted the fact that I have to install an exhaust fan come
spring time
so I am begining to do a bit of research on the easiest method to
install an exhaust fan in an older home. I came accross this PDF
http://www.gov.ns.ca/energy/enerinfo/ventold.pdf which is a good start.
After reading this I realized that the most effective way to install an
exhaust fan is on an exterior wall, exhausting directly to the
outdoors. Does any one see any potential issues besides a proper way
to insulate? Looking forward to your replies.

Insulating the cold walls is where you should start.

If you install a fan, connecting it to the bathroom lights is fine. I
assume you don't spend a lot of time in the bathroom. The fan doesn't
have to run very long to get the relative humidity down to the point
where condensation won't be an issue. Ex: My bathroom is 10' x 4' by 8'
which is 320 cu ft. So, a 100 cfm fan will cut the humidity to 50% in
3 minutes.

Sizing the fan is very important. When I replaced my exhaust fan with
a quieter fan I found a great "how to" on sizing.

http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_el...entilation.asp

If you install an undersized fan, the fan will run, but it will not
exhaust much air.


Regards,
John



William W. Plummer wrote:
wrote:

I have an older home with a bathroom that has poor ventilation
which
causes shower steam to coat the walls with moisture. In effect
this
yields unwanted mould on the bathroom ceiling and other places like
tile grout and shower curtains. The differences between my
bathroom
and a large petrie dish are begining to blur.
I have accepted the fact that I have to install an exhaust fan come
spring time
so I am begining to do a bit of research on the easiest method to
install an exhaust fan in an older home. I came accross this PDF
http://www.gov.ns.ca/energy/enerinfo/ventold.pdf which is a good
start.
After reading this I realized that the most effective way to
install an
exhaust fan is on an exterior wall, exhausting directly to the
outdoors. Does any one see any potential issues besides a proper
way
to insulate? Looking forward to your replies.

Insulating the cold walls is where you should start.

If you install a fan, connecting it to the bathroom lights is fine.
I
assume you don't spend a lot of time in the bathroom. The fan
doesn't
have to run very long to get the relative humidity down to the point
where condensation won't be an issue. Ex: My bathroom is 10' x 4' by
8'
which is 320 cu ft. So, a 100 cfm fan will cut the humidity to 50%
in
3 minutes.

William W. Plummer wrote:

If you install a fan, connecting it to the bathroom lights is fine.

Better yet, connect it to Herbach and Rademan's (800) 848-8001
http://www.herbach.com nice brass $4.95 Navy surplus humidistat
(or is that a DEhumidistat? :-), their item number TM89HVC5203,
with a 20-80% range, a 3-6% differential, and a 7.5A 125V switch
that can be wired to open or close on humidity rise.

...The fan doesn't have to run very long to get the relative humidity
down to the point where condensation won't be an issue. Ex: My bathroom
is 10' x 4' by 8' which is 320 cu ft. So, a 100 cfm fan will cut the
humidity to 50% in 3 minutes.

There's a lot missing before your "So" :-)

Nick

I have an older home with a bathroom that has poor ventilation which
causes shower steam to coat the walls with moisture.

Same here.

I just went to Lowes, bought a $15 fan and installed it directly above the
bathtub. Wired it in to come on with the light as well. Right now it vents
into the attic; when it warms up outside I will put a soffet vent in,
although my last house (much smaller attic) had one vented into the attic
with no ill effects.

It took about 45 minutes to do. No more steaming of the mirrors or windows,
nor **** smell.

John Harlow wrote:

...Right now it vents
into the attic; when it warms up outside I will put a soffet vent in,
although my last house (much smaller attic) had one vented into the attic
with no ill effects.

....

Be careful to not wait too long for warm weather...cold weather
condensation can soak your insulation in a real hurry...as for no ill
effects previously, I'd consider that a real miracle or your previous
attic was extremely drafty.

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 11:06:29 -0600, Duane Bozarth
wrote:

John Harlow wrote:

...Right now it vents
into the attic; when it warms up outside I will put a soffet vent in,
although my last house (much smaller attic) had one vented into the attic
with no ill effects.

...

Be careful to not wait too long for warm weather...cold weather
condensation can soak your insulation in a real hurry...as for no ill
effects previously, I'd consider that a real miracle or your previous
attic was extremely drafty.
Dumping humidity into the attic is a real bad idea. I know that some
municipalities allow it but, doing home inspections, I've seen mold
growing all over the sheathing near the outlets. I wouldn't do it!

Dan

wrote in message
oups.com...
"Another tip, I tied the electric power to the fan to a light in the
bathroom.
That way, any time the light is on, the fan is on. With the logistics I
had,
it would have been a royal pain to make a switch for the fan itself."

I would advise against doing that as it wastes energy in two ways.
First, there will be lots of times when you want the light on, but
don't need the fan. With the fan forced on with the light, it's
drawing cooled/heated air and pumping it out of the house. Second,
when you want to leave the fan on for 10/15 mins after taking a shower,
the light will have to be on too.

We find it a good idea to run the fan after using the toilet also (To remove
odour; to be delicate about it!).
BTW even if electricity costs you ten cents per kilowatt hour, running say a
100 watt light bulb along with the fan for an additional quarter of an hour
will cost.
1/4 x 100/1000 x $0.1 = 0.25 cents! (one quarter of a cent!)
Even if you ran the 100 watt bulb for 'one hour' following a shower it would
cost (at 10 cents per k.watt/hr.) = 1 cent.
That's hardly significant; since one is also running the fan to avoid
potentially costly mould!

As With the other posts, I will give my "what I did"

I just bought the house in May.
Within days, the fan in the "middle bath quit, as well as the heat
lamp. It is an all-in-one type fixture. Since there's only two of us (
ideally ) living in the house, I just left it alone thinking "I'll fix
it another time after a bit of other items to be taken care of are
done."
That was ok for about three months, then the other bathroom fan quit.
just as the weather was turning cooler here in Dallas , and the
Humidity started building heavily and I had no way of removing the
humid air.So............

I went and looked at fans and Heaters and fan/heaters, and decided I
wanted two seperate items because of the way these had died..........

In the master bath I wanted to be able to move air quickly so as to
not have any need for leaving the fan on very long, mostly so I
wouldn't forget and leave it on for hours , or all day while at work
or something. I bought a "next to industrial strength) 180 cfm exhaust
fan, and a heater that is like a coil in an old GE clothes dryer with
a fan mounted in it to circulate the heat downward...........both were
pricey, but they were exactly what I wanted.

In my case the wiring was already there and just needed to be split
from one fixture into two, and a junction box to extend one so I could
put the exhaust fan OVER THE TOILET. All accoplished fairly easily.

RESULTS: I now have a nice warm bathroom if I warm it for a few
minutes in the morning before I shower.
I now have an exhaust fan that sux all the humidity out
of the bathroom in about 8 minutes after I turn on the
fan..........Timer switch to come.

HOME DEPOT has all the stuff needed to do all of this install, even if
there's no wiring in the wall or ceiling. Worse case scenario, surface
mount your wiring in conduit.




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