Ventilation

There are several areas of ventilation that a house needs to maximize. I think of overall attic space ventilation as being the most important. I don’t think anyone can win an argument against me on that point.  The second most important is “room ventilation” and the two rooms that require the most ventilation is the bathroom and the kitchen. For this blog I want to talk about bathrooms and more specifically bathroom fans. They are required in any bathroom with an active shower or tub. The fans should be left on for a minimum 30 minutes after bath activity. Mike Holmes, of Holmes on Homes fame, says to leave them on until no moisture can be smelled. Good strategy. Now how are they ducted? A lot of builders run the piping horizontally and out through the soffit. This is wrong and can contribute to condensation more than alleviate it. I wrote a “Daily Climb” blog post specifically about this. Go check it out!

To summarize it I state that the piping must go vertical and through the roof. There is no other choice. The other important aspect of bathroom ventilation is fan location. I’ve seen large bathrooms where the fan is nowhere near where the shower location is. What good is that? In small bathrooms there is little choice. The fan goes where it can. Here now is the primary purpose of this blog. In bathrooms with a skylight why wouldn’t you put the fan in the highest point of the room? That would mean it should be installed in the skylight well. After all that’s where all the warm and moist air will rise to. However, I have NEVER seen this done before…. until today!

The attached photo shows the ideal location for a bathroom fan. I can also tell that this fan is a high end fan with an above average cubic foot per minute capacity. Well done Home Owner.